Local author Richard Panchyk shared stories of Long Island’s forgotten past during a talk at the Phillips House Museum, highlighting his latest book, “Lost Long Island,” and shedding light on the vanished landmarks and legacies of the region.
Panchyk’s presentation and novel dug deep into Long Island’s buried history, with a particular focus on once-thriving places that have since disappeared.
One of the major stories Panchyk shared was the once-dominant sport of polo on Long Island, centered at the Meadowbrook Club.
“Polo used to be the sport of Long Island,” he said. “It was a tremendously popular sport, and it was because of the Hempstead Plains.”
Panchyk detailed the scale of the events, which attracted thousands of spectators, including dignitaries like Teddy Roosevelt. “Traffic would be snarled. There would be 20,000-plus people at these matches sometimes,” he said.
The most famous player was Tommy Hitchcock Jr., dubbed “the Babe Ruth of polo.” He was even the inspiration for Tom Buchanan in “The Great Gatsby.”
The Meadowbrook Club closed in its original location in 1953, and the land has since been developed, with industrial buildings and gas stations sitting where thousands of people once used to gather for polo.
Another surprising layer of Long Island’s past Panchyk explored was its pivotal role in the early days of American auto racing. While few people associate the Island with professional racing today, it was once home to the groundbreaking Vanderbilt Cup races, organized by William K. Vanderbilt Jr.
The inaugural race in 1904 drew crowds from around the country and sped through local towns like Hicksville, Jericho and Hempstead, looping into Queens. With no racetracks in existence, cars competed on dusty, unpaved public roads at speeds that rarely exceeded 30 miles per hour.
“These cars were futuristic-looking for their time, but it was incredibly dangerous,” Panchyk explained. “There were crashes, and sadly, both spectators and drivers lost their lives.”
To make racing safer, Vanderbilt helped construct the Long Island Motor Parkway in 1908 — the first road in America designed exclusively for automobiles. Stretching from Queens to Suffolk County, it later became a vital part of the Island’s development.
Today, remnants of the parkway can still be seen in places like Eisenhower Park, and one of its former toll houses now serves as the Garden City Chamber of Commerce. “You can still walk a few miles of the original route,” Panchyk said.
One of the most unique elements of lost Long Island history that Panchyk highlighted was Camp Mills, a massive military training base built in East Garden City in 1917.
“In the space of three years, it went from nothing to nothing,” he said. “But in between, it helped win a war.”
The camp trained more than 500,000 American soldiers for service in World War I before it was entirely dismantled by 1920. “They put up an entire city, practically overnight, and then it disappeared just as fast,” he said. No traces of it remain today.
The event also touched on the Island’s place in aviation history. Panchyk described how the Hempstead Plains served as a launchpad for aviation pioneers like Glenn Curtiss, Harriet Quimby and eventually Charles Lindbergh, who departed from Roosevelt Field in 1927 for his historic solo flight across the Atlantic.
Panchyk spoke at the Phillips House as part of the Long Island Authors Speaker Series. To learn more about the next speaker and future events through the Rockville Centre Historical Society, visit RVCHS.org. To learn more about Panchyk’s novels and past, visit Panchyk.com.
