The symbol of Fire Island is vanishing. Where are the red Radio Flyer wagons?
A red wagon is part of the mosaic outside Rachel’s restaurant in Ocean Beach. Credit: Newsday / Beth Whitehouse
Fire Island visitors say they love returning to the barrier island summer after summer, confident that things have largely stayed the same. Beachgoers arrive by blue-and-white ferries; homeowners and renters ride around the island on bicycles; everyone spends lovely afternoons on the beach.
One thing has essentially disappeared from Fire Island though, bit by bit, year by year: the red Radio Flyer wagon.
A generation ago, the wagon yards at communities across the island were filled with them, to help families carry items from the ferry dock to their homes. As a symbol of Fire Island, the red wagon is still ubiquitous. It appears on souvenir coffee mugs, shot glasses, key chains, hats, T-shirts, baby onesies. It’s featured on restaurant signs, as a Kismet boutique name, on business cards.
"It’s almost like our logo, the little red wagon," says Ocean Beach Mayor James Mallott.
Newcomers to the island would be hard-pressed to understand why. Today, sighting an actual red metal Radio Flyer is like seeing a bird in danger of extinction.
A lone red Radio Flyer wagon is surrounded by larger plastic versions at the wagon yard in Ocean Bay Park. Credit: Newsday/Beth Whitehouse
"I started working out here 24 years ago. At the old wagon park, you would see them hanging everywhere," says Joe Rago, a chef at the Sandbar in Ocean Beach, where, incidentally, dozens of miniature Radio Flyer red wagons adorn the rafters, part of the restaurant’s décor.
Gradually, the metal wagons have nearly vanished. The Ocean Beach hardware store doesn’t even bother to sell the classic model — the fire-engine red metal version with black wheels, a pull handle and Radio Flyer inscribed on the side. Neither does Corliss on the Bay in Fair Harbor; this is the first year that the store isn’t carrying them as part of its inventory. "Although they’re very iconic, not too many people want to purchase them," says Corliss co-owner Stacy Newman-Riley.
REPLACED BY ‘BLUE MONSTERS’
Wagons still do appear everywhere on the island, but now they are typically much bigger, with higher sides, and made out of plastic instead of metal. Because there are no cars permitted on Fire Island, when homeowners or renters arrive, they disembark from the ferry and head to the nearby wagon yard, where they have likely parked and locked their home’s wagon. They load the wagon with their suitcases or items they’ve brought over for their stay and wheel it to their house. After unloading, it stays on their deck. They might use it to cart chairs and umbrellas to the beach, or to give a ride to a tired child who doesn’t want to walk. When it’s time to leave, they haul stuff back to the ferry and lock the wagon at the wagon yard until their next visit.
Red wagons have largely been replaced by bigger wagons that can haul more. Credit: Newsday/Beth Whitehouse
Fire Islanders have various theories about the red wagon’s demise: "They rust out, they fall apart, they’re very loud, and they’re too small," says Newman-Riley. Visitors and homeowners today order bulk groceries from supermarkets that deliver to Fire Island from the mainland or select purchases from Amazon that they must cart from a ferry dock to their homes, Islanders say. Wagons 2.0 offer more options.
People think bigger is better, says Mallott, who also owns the Albatross restaurant in Ocean Beach. "They’re not as big as these big blue monsters here. You see this one?" He indicates a large plastic crate-style wagon.
Miniature red wagons hang from the ceiling of the Sandbar restaurant and bar in Ocean Beach. Credit: Newsday/Beth Whitehouse
Gena Goldstein, 81, a retired Fair Harbor summer resident, has had a Radio Flyer red wagon for 30 years; her mother bought it for her in 1994 at Corliss on the Bay in Fair Harbor the same year Goldstein purchased her house. She also has a larger wagon, which she says is more unwieldy but also necessary. "The red one is our go-to choice if we can. If we are expecting big deliveries from Costco, we need the larger one," she says.
Bigger wagons carry more than the red Radio Flyers. Credit: Newsday/Beth Whitehouse
Today there are also folding, fabric wagons with padding on the bottom and shade over the top. "If it were to fall apart for some reason," Goldstein says of her little red wagon, "I would probably get those folding ones with the high sides that I could pull my grandkids in."
CHANGE IN RENTAL PATTERNS
Some Fire Islanders say the demise of the little red wagon is a symbol of how, while the island remains much the same, the visitors to the island have changed.
Scott Hirsch, co-president of the Ocean Beach Chamber of Commerce and owner of Island Mermaid in Ocean Beach, contends that the disappearance of the wagon is in part due to the change in the beach from owners or renters who stayed the entire summer to the advent of Airbnb and VRBO making it easier and more common for visitors to rent for just a week or two. Those renters are more likely to have big deliveries from the mainland instead of doing most of their shopping periodically in the local grocery stores, he says.
The red wagon is the symbol of Fire Island and appears on merchandise, but where has it gone? Credit: Newsday/Beth Whitehouse
"The wagon itself is just a vehicle, but to me, it’s representative of a larger issue. The larger issue is, generally speaking, transient traffic," Hirsch says. "The same size wagon doesn’t work anymore because of the nature of life at the beach."
Even the Radio Flyer company itself has expanded its wagon offerings, adding bigger wagons, folding wagons and stroller wagons. The Chicago-based company was founded in 1917 by Italian immigrant Antonio Pasin; his grandson Robert Pasin now serves as "chief wagon officer."
"The product has evolved and we have evolved with the consumer to give them what they want," Pasin says. The company still sells the classic wagon, but now sells more of the folding and stroller wagons. "They're more practical because you can fold them up. They have cup holders and storage."
Fair Harbor homeowner Hedy Campbell turned an old-fashioned red Radio Flyer into a flower container on her front lawn. Credit: Newsday/Beth Whitehouse
Pasin has never been to Fire Island, but he says he’s well aware of the red wagon’s role. "We love that it’s part of Fire Island’s identity," Pasin says. "I’ve been at the company for 32 years. From the very beginning, people have been sending me photos." He says he doesn’t know of any other location that embraces the red wagon to the extent Fire Island does.
Mayor Mallott says he's been trying to reach the company to purchase a number of Radio Flyers — possibly the new-generation folding kind — for the village for residents and renters to use for free. Pasin called Mallott personally and gave Mallott his cellphone number.
"I'm putting it in my phone as 'Mr. Radio Flyer,' " Mallott joked during the call. He told Mallott he'd be speaking to the Ocean Beach board. "I'll see what we want to do and I'll get back to you," he said.
FROM WAGON TO FLOWER PLANTER
Kurt Smith, owner of A Summer Place and Flair House boutiques in Ocean Beach, still swears by his original red wagon. "We shockingly use an O.G. Radio Flyer that my father-in-law bought in the 1950s. Almost every day we drag it down to the dock," says Smith, who has a red wagon logo on his business cards.
His niece Caelyn Liardi, 12, of Massapequa Park, is loyal to it as well — she borrows it when she is on Fire Island because she says it’s a better wagon to display the homemade bracelets she sells. Nobody buys from her when she uses a modern plastic wagon because they can’t see as easily over the sides while they are walking past and so her wares don’t catch their eyes, she says.
Caelyn Liardi, 12, of Massapequa Park, sells homemade bracelets in Ocean Beach from a traditional Radio Flyer wagon with the help of her older brother, Aidan, 15. Credit: Newsday/Beth Whitehouse
The Ocean Beach Historical Society doesn’t have a documented history of the red wagon on the Island, but it does have old photographs, says Linna Salamone, curator. "You’ve given me an idea for a show," she says when asked about red wagon history; the historical society sponsors art shows in the community center each summer.
Hedy Campbell, 64, a Manhattan reading teacher and Fair Harbor homeowner, owns both a red metal Radio Flyer and a bigger, plastic wagon. She also turned another Radio Flyer red wagon into a planter to display flowers on her Fire Island front lawn.
"Someone else was getting rid of it," Campbell says. "Whenever I come across one of those old decaying metal wagons, instead of throwing it away I decide to make a garden out of it. I like it because it recalls that era of everybody pulling that little red wagon ... even though the red wagons themselves are no longer useful the way they used to be."
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.
