Nissequogue River State Park receives its largest private donation
IGA supermarket magnate Charles Reichert on Friday announced his family foundation would donate $1 million for the renovation of the historic Nissequogue River State Park administration building.
Once a Kings Park Psychiatric Center office and before that a hospital for World War I veterans, the building now houses a small number of parks employees, serves as a visitors center and provides meeting space for youth scouts and the Nissequogue River State Park Foundation.
But age and vandalism have taken a toll on the structure, one of dozens left standing after the psychiatric center closed in 1996 and state officials began converting for public use what is now a 521-acre site. A tarp hanging from the ceiling next to the building’s main door only partly conceals crumbling plaster; the building’s cupola is askew; and park employees work without air conditioning in the summer and use electric space heaters in the winter. Thieves took copper sheathing from the roof, allowing rain to seep through.
The gift from the Charles and Helen Reichert Family Foundation will fix those issues and allow for significant improvements, such as adding an elevator for handicapped access to the second floor, officials said at a ceremony in the building Friday.
It is the largest private gift in the park’s history, officials from the Nissequogue River State Park Foundation said in a release.
Wayne Horsley, regional director for the state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, said the gift would help turn Nissequogue into a “premiere park in the state parks system.”
Reichert, 83, a Fort Salonga resident who owns five IGA supermarkets, said in an interview following the ceremony that he hoped his gift would bring more visitors to the park, which he said had been underutilized for years.
“I pictured this park as the Central Park of Long Island,” he said. “But you drive by on a beautiful summer day, there’s nobody here.” While he isn’t a regular visitor himself, he said, “I got so frustrated that nothing gets done.”
State workers have demolished more than 40 former psychiatric center buildings, and officials last year announced a $40 million improvement plan for the park. It called for one of the remaining buildings to be demolished to make way for a new headquarters for the Department of Environmental Conservation’s Division of Marine Resources, for fire hydrants to be installed in the park, and for rebuilding of the 151-slip marina near the mouth of the Nissequogue River.
Work on the DEC building will start in spring or early summer, after asbestos abatement and demolition of the building is finished, Horsley said, and the administration building work will be finished in 2020.
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