In 1962, two men vied for power in New York State. The senior was legendary power broker Robert Moses. Moses had helped rewrite the New York State Constitution back in the 1920s under Governor Al Smith. Arrogant and imperious, he created and controlled numerous autonomous public authorities that enabled him to build projects with little or no opposition. Among Moses’s works was an impressive display of highways, bridges, parklands, and public housing that shape the New York metropolitan area to this day. Armed with the power of his public authorities, Moses steamrolled any opposition and almost always got what he wanted.
Moses’s chief rival was Nelson A. Rockefeller, governor of New York. The Rockefeller family was one of the wealthiest in the country, and Nelson seemed to revel in the added luster and mystique that came from being one of the nation’s most powerful politicians. One had only to watch him enter a room and, without so much as a backward glance, thrust his arms out behind him so that his attendant could remove his coat, to know that Nelson was to the manor born.
Clashes between these two titans were inevitable. Ironically, one of the most fateful came over a sliver of land in the Atlantic Ocean—Fire Island, a barrier beach off of Long Island.
Fire Island is 32 miles long and varies in width from about 400 feet to 2,000 feet. Most people get to it by boat. Cars can drive across Great South Bay on the Robert Moses Causeway and reach as far as the lighthouse on the western end of the island, but there the road ends. Another bridge at the island’s east end leads to Smith Point County Park, but no further. The rest of the island consists of a string of small summer communities and expanses of pristine wilderness, including the unique Sunken Forest Preserve, which, tucked behind a natural dune that protects it from the ocean, gives the illusion of being a magical woodland below sea level. Hence the island’s enduring charm as an idyllic retreat for bare feet, boats, and bicycles. Indeed, my family and I have enjoyed summers there for more than 50 years.
Moses had long envisioned Fire Island as yet another addition to his far-flung network of highways. When a violent storm in March 1962 swept many Fire Island houses into the ocean, he used the destruction as a pretext to revive a 1938 plan of his that called for the construction of a highway the length of the island. He claimed that the road would prevent further erosion of the barrier beach. Many disputed this contention, but Moses had evidence—misleading evidence, it turned out—to support his assertion. The Jones Beach island (west of Fire Island) had been “protected” by Moses’s Ocean Parkway, but only because Moses had repeatedly dumped large quantities of sand on the beach to buttress what was on it: his highway.
Moses’s proposal sparked opposition from different quarters. Fire Islanders like me were distraught, of course, but so were major environmental groups, who feared the destruction of Sunken Forest and the island’s other rare oceanfront wilderness areas. The power broker seemed characteristically undeterred. At a public hearing in Jones Beach, he lined up political friends to support his plan. When opponents rose to speak, he simply walked out. And why not? For decades, opposing Moses had been largely an exercise in futility for citizens and statesmen alike.
But the fate of the opposition to the Fire Island road would prove to be different. Aware of what we were up against, a small group of us—some Fire Island homeowners, but more nonresidents—met at a restaurant in Babylon, Long Island to try to formulate a strategy to prevent Fire Island and the Great South Bay from being sacrificed to Moses’s vision and the automobile. The group quickly realized that presenting an attractive competing vision was better than simply opposing the highway. Fortunately, Babylon attorney Irving Like (another long-time Fire Islander and my brother-in-law) formulated a compelling alternative. Reading through U.S. Department of the Interior publications, he discovered that Fire Island was recommended for status as a National Seashore: a National Park on the ocean. A previous effort by former Congressman Stuyvesant Wainright to create such a park had died for lack of support, so we knew that our most important task would be to build public backing. What none of us could know as we set out was that our efforts would become an important front in the power struggle between Moses and Rockefeller.
A short time after the Jones Beach meeting, Governor Rockefeller attended a luncheon meeting at the La Grange Restaurant in West Islip, just east of Babylon. He gave a lackluster speech on a topic I have forgotten, then asked for questions from the floor. After praising his family’s long history in conservation, I asked his position on Moses’s road. He hemmed and hawed, giving no clear answer. Aware of the long history of New York governors giving Moses whatever he wanted, I was still too politically naive to realize what his evasiveness really meant: he was looking to pick a fight with Moses that would clip his wings—and hoping that the Fire Island road proposal would prove advantageous terrain for such a battle.
Before starting our campaign, we went to Washington to meet with Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall. He met us in his office, seated in a rocking chair that President Kennedy had given him. His rocking made me slightly seasick. But Udall assured us that his department would support the creation of a Fire Island National Seashore.
The Seashore idea enjoyed great popular appeal on Long Island and beyond. Our little group, now named the Citizens Committee for a Fire Island National Seashore, expanded to include the country’s leading conservation organizations. Charles Callison of the National Audubon Society was particularly helpful, offering sound political advice and introducing us to the country’s conservation leadership. As a result, we got the backing of the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, and the National Parks Association, as well as the League of Women Voters. Prestigious wildlife scientists also joined in support, such as Robert Cushman Murphy, a prominent ornithologist and former Lamont Curator of Birds at the American Museum of Natural History.
Our main challenge was getting strong local political support. Alicia Patterson, publisher of Newsday, the influential Long Island newspaper, was a loyal Moses supporter and refused to meet with us. Our Democratic congressman Otis Pike, whose backing would have been critical, feared Patterson and so refused to act.
Various bills were introduced into the Congress. Only one came from a Long Island legislator, James Grover, but he was a Republican. “Sonny,” the powerful Democratic congressman Edward Cellar said to me, “this is a Democratic Congress and you need a local Democratic congressman to introduce that bill. That’s politics.”
The stalemate went on for two years. Governor Rockefeller’s assistants kept telling us that, though they did not believe Fire Island should be a Federal Park, if we wanted to succeed we “had to get public support.” Our committee kept at it, making speeches and giving slideshows showing the virtues of a park over a highway.
We evidently were on the politicians’ radar screen because I was invited to a small meeting Upstate that Governor Rockefeller was scheduled to address. After his speech, he mingled with guests. I approached him and told him of a rumor that Moses had found a way to circumvent the necessity of state legislative action to get his highway on Fire Island. I asked if this was true. To my dismay, someone grabbed the governor and led him across the floor to the other side of the room. Minutes later, however, the governor came back looking for me and, holding me under the elbow, said: “That question you asked me, fellow, the answer is no—he can’t do it. Do you understand me?” I said that I did, but really I didn’t. I didn’t grasp what he was signaling: he wanted us to keep hammering Moses and his plan. The campaign went on.
Finally, one morning I received a call from Henry Diamond, Rockefeller’s aide, who subsequently became the first New York State Conservation Commissioner. “Boy, your friend Bob and the governor had a wingding yesterday at the governor’s townhouse (in New York City),” he said. “Moses asked about going ahead with his Fire Island highway. The governor said: ‘Gee, Bob, the public is up in arms about that one—we better shelve it for a while.’”
There may have been other disagreements at that meeting of which I am unaware. In any event, Moses stalked out and dictated his resignation in his limousine. He had offered to quit before, but previous governors had been too timid to accept it. But Nelson was not like any other previous governor—he was a Rockefeller. He accepted Moses’s resignation, renamed Fire Island State Park Robert Moses State Park, and said good-bye to the master builder.
Things moved swiftly from then on. Alicia Patterson, not wanting to ride a dead horse, threw in the towel and agreed to see me. “How the hell do I know that Secretary Udall supports the Fire Island National Seashore?” she asked. I invited her, on Udall’s behalf, to contact him herself. She did and finally gave us Newsday’s support. Congressman Otis Pike introduced the necessary legislation.
Next came visits to various congressmen and committees to get the bill moved along to a vote. Irving Like and I visited the staff members of the Senate Interior Committee to find out what the senators would be looking for in our testimony. “For God’s sake, don’t mention sunsets,” they told us. “Everyone who comes in waxes rhapsodic about their sunsets, and the senators have just about had it up to their eyeballs with sunsets.” We took their advice and stuck to a description of Fire Island’s unique natural virtues. The bill passed the Senate and House handily. (The wilderness area was named after Otis Pike, which seemed fitting, considering the years he wandered in the wilderness before introducing the bill!) President Lyndon Johnson signed the bill into law in September 1964, more than two years after our campaign began.
Rockefeller kept his promise. Without realizing or intending to, we had helped him get rid of his rival, and he raised no objection to the establishment of the Fire Island National Seashore, right next to Robert Moses State Park. A politician to the core, he also proved to be a man of his word. Noblesse oblige has its merits.
And our little citizens group, now long gone? I like to think that we embodied higher merits still: the merit of America’s founding principles. Like so many citizens groups before us and after, we proved Abraham Lincoln’s adage that in a democracy, no power is greater than public sentiment. Not even the power of Moses.
Top Photo by David Trotman-Wilkins/Newsday RM via Getty Images