Brookhaven Town, Suffolk County to use $1.4 million to build park at site of closed laundry business 

Brookhaven Town officials are completing plans to build a Blue Point park with walking trails at the site of a laundry business that closed more than two decades ago.

Plans for the park took a step forward on Feb. 17 when the town board voted 7-0 to approve an agreement with Suffolk County, which will pay $1.4 million to fund construction. The county had received a $500,000 state grant for the project in 2019.

Suffolk had seized the Park Street property for back taxes in 1998 and tore down the laundry. The 2-acre parcel has stood empty since then because it was contaminated with cleaning fluids, heating fuel and automobile oil from the commercial laundry and other businesses that had occupied the site, officials said.

Brookhaven Councilman Neil Foley told Newsday the town is planning to build basketball and pickleball courts, walking trails and possibly skateboarding facilities. He called the park "one of the last pieces of the puzzle for the Blue Point community," which he said lacks public recreational facilities.

"This is a property that is truly supported by the neighbors to be a park," said Foley, a Blue Point resident. "It’s nice when different levels of government come together and work together."

Brookhaven, which plans to begin construction this spring and open the park later this year, will eventually buy the park from the county for $1.

Jason Borowski, president of the Blue Point Civic Coalition, said the park is "definitely filling a need in the community. … It’s giving people a place to gather and spend time together."

He said part of the land will be preserved as open space because of an underground river called Purgatory Creek.

Suffolk Legis. Dominick Thorne (R-Patchogue) said the park "is actually a good answer to what has been weeds growing out and really hurting the quality of life in the area."

The park holds special meaning for JoAnn Schettino of Blue Point, who helped lobby town officials to build it.

Schettino said her son, Billy, drew up plans for a park at the site when he was 8 years old. He collected hundreds of signatures on petitions supporting the idea, she said.

But he didn't live long enough to complete his task: He died at age 18 in March 2012 when he was struck by a Suffolk County Sheriff's Office cruiser while he stood by his disabled car on the Long Island Expressway.

Suffolk officials blamed the crash on sun glare. A grand jury declined to indict the sheriff's deputy who struck Schettino.

JoAnn Schettino said her son, a skateboarder and aspiring artist, was a selfless person who once bought a camera to replace one lost by a Bayport-Blue Point High School classmate. She said she hopes to erect a memorial at the park to honor her son, perhaps including one of his sayings: "Live in the Present, Change the Future."

"I just want this park built, and then I know I have fulfilled every dream I can possibly fulfill for him," she said. "He was an old soul and he just wanted to do good for other people."

By Carl MacGowan

carl.macgowan@newsday.comCarlMacGowan

Carl MacGowan is a Long Island native who covers Brookhaven Town after having previously covered Smithtown, Suffolk County courts and numerous spot news and feature stories over his 20-plus year career at Newsday.