After 40 years, my observations of LI
If traffic on the Long Island Expressway is what you think of when you think about Long Island, you're missing a lot. Credit: John Roca
By Thomas Maierthomas.maier@newsday.comWhile preparing his famous book about America, Alexis de Tocqueville journeyed around Long Island, trying to get a measure of this long stretch from Montauk to Manhattan.
“When we first caught sight of Long Island, dear Mama, I hardly expected what would soon befall us,” the French historian wrote in May 1831, as he floated by the South and North shores.
I had much the same reaction arriving from Chicago in April 1984. Though I grew up here, even delivered Newsday as a kid, I didn’t know what to expect writing about Long Islanders for a living.
After 40 years, however, I’ve collected my own observations about Long Island. To be sure, there have been plenty of stories about murders, racial intolerance, chicanery and other ugliness that so often fills the news. But let me share a few not-too-obvious impressions that help explain this place.
“Islandness” is very important to the 3 million denizens of Nassau and Suffolk counties. Others live in cities, but we live “on the Island.” For some, Long Island may seem an endless runway of concrete, asphalt and exit signs. But when you explore our north and south shorelines, as de Tocqueville observed, you realize Long Island is a place surrounded by water and boats.
“Islandness” is also a state of mind. After World War II, Long Island turned from a mere outgrowth of Brooklyn and Queens into a sprawling isle with a distinct identity beyond its beaches and trees, its own social rituals, and its “Lawn Guyland” way of speaking. To its inhabitants, Long Island is the ultimate point of reference. Venturing over the Throgs Neck Bridge means you're “going upstate” even if you're only driving to New Rochelle. We even called our only enduring pro sports team “The Islanders.”
Long Islanders can be brash and crass — especially the guy behind you honking his horn — but they can also be unselfconsciously honest and world-wise. A big reason is our joint investment in education. No other area of the country has as many top-ranked public schools as Long Island or arguably pays as much in property taxes for them.
Though one of the most segregated places in the nation, Long Island can also be a remarkably open place where many races, ethnicities, religions and generations from immigrant stock somehow have learned to live together in peace. Their common goal is making it in America, regardless of where they came from. In the best circumstances, this is a place where talent and intellect can outweigh class distinction and sheer wealth.
If there is a fault, it’s Long Island’s misbegotten belief that money can solve all of its problems. As an investigative reporter, I’ve wondered whether the high cost of living here was the driving force in our many corruption scandals. Call it keeping up with the Manganos. I still remember how a local mobster’s dream to make a fortune was the impetus for the infamous wandering Long Island garbage barge fiasco, the ultimate symbol of our consumerism.
Yet the most distressing trend on Long Island is the wish by some to get rid of their Long Island accents — the elongated “aws” and words ending with “er” mispronounced as “a,” and vice versa. Do you hear such nonsense from people in Boston or from the South with their local twangs? I say fuggetaboutit. Have you ever eaten pizza in the Midwest? It tastes like cardboard covered in ketchup and fake cheese. Who cares what they think?
And what's more “Islandness” than that?
Columnist Thomas Maier, a member of the editorial board, is retiring from Newsday this week.
