Landmark status sought for Lindbergh site

Hempstead Town will seek local historic landmark status for the East Garden City site where Charles Lindbergh began the world's first nonstop trans-Atlantic flight, Supervisor Kate Murray said Friday.

The preservation of the site, located behind The Source mall, has been a passion of 20-year-old Westbury resident Adam Sackowitz, a Hofstra student, history buff and part-time park ranger at Sagamore Hill National Historic Site in Cove Neck.

Sackowitz said the Lindbergh site, which is marked by a small monument, could be jeopardized by the pending auction of the mall Tuesday.

The town's move for landmark status will help preserve the site, Sackowitz said.

"I feel it's in jeopardy because it's not protected," Sackowitz said. "We have a gem here and we need to preserve it, we need to interpret it."

Local landmark status would give the monument "protection against alteration, development or other construction," Hempstead officials said in a statement.

Murray and Councilwoman Dorothy Goosby, who represents the area, said the site will be referred to the town's Landmarks Preservation Commission. Murray and Goosby said they expect the commission will offer the site to the town board for a vote on whether to grant landmark status, which they believe will pass.

"The impending auction has added a sense of urgency . . . Now is the time to act before this landmark is endangered," Murray said.

The Lindbergh monument, which marks where the Spirit of St. Louis took off for its flight to Paris in 1927, has stood at the site for about 15 years.