Long Island Game Farm plans upgrades for 2024 season
The Long Island Game Farm plans to renovate and reopen its amphitheater for the 2024 season. Credit: Newsday/Alejandra Villa Loarca
The Long Island Game Farm in Manorville is planning to renovate and reopen its outdoor amphitheater and create a universal access nature trail for wheelchair users and strollers in time for Memorial Day weekend, says Melinda Novak, farm president.
The changes are made possible by a $568,000 grant from Suffolk County’s JumpSMART Small Business Downtown Investment Program, which provides funding to help local businesses and institutions remain economically competitive, the farm announced Thursday.
“It’s going to enable us to expand what people can do when they come here that we couldn’t otherwise afford to do,” Novak says. “Our goal is to have it all up and running by Memorial Day, but that might be too ambitious." The park will know more about timing as plans continue to develop, she says.
The Long Island Game Farm closed the amphitheater in 2020 because of the pandemic, Novak says. When they considered reopening it, it needed too much repair. “The seating, the actual stage needs to be renovated,” Novak says.
The Long Island Game Farm plans to renovate and reopen its amphitheater for the 2024 season. Credit: Newsday/Alejandra Villa Loarca
The improved, 300-seat amphitheater will allow the farm to put on its traditional daytime animal shows and also to offer after-hour family concerts and performances that will enable the park to grow its revenue, says Patricia Snyder, executive director of the game farm’s nonprofit Foundation For Wildlife Sustainability. “We envision including picnic tables and inviting food trucks,” Snyder says.
The game farm is currently brainstorming how to design a universal access trail, Novak says. “We used to have a train that went around the back of the park,” Novak says. When that was discontinued, the path became covered over with vines and branches, she says. “That area just sits back there. It’s just so beautiful,” she says. The farm plans to clear it and is consulting with an architect to perhaps create a labyrinth and even a tower to climb, she says.
Suffolk County had more than 300 applicants for JumpSMART grant money, says Marykate Guilfoyle, spokesperson for outgoing Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone. "The game farm was one of a few dozen that were selected for awards," she says.
Beth Whitehouse writes about families, parenting and great things to do with the kids on Long Island. She’s been a Newsday editor and shared a 1997 Newsday staff Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the crash of TWA Flight 800.
