Today was a good day for a brief heritage tour of Long Island’s historic landmarks. Here are select photographs I took while driving through Cold Spring Harbor, Huntington, Oyster Bay, and Laurel Hollow. Located on the north coast of Suffolk County, these gorgeous seaside villages date to the 1600s, making this area one of the earliest settlements in state and national history. Countless museums, historical societies, heritage sites, and cultural institutions exist to preserve this cultural landscape’s 400-year-old legacy — unfortunately, very few are open on Mondays! (CLICK to enlarge photos.)
 Suydam House & Barn Museum (Thanks to StoppingPoints.com for geotagging.) |
 These historical markers are found all throughout the local area. Unfortunately, none of the towns' websites have historical marker tours (or even a listing of the location and text of all the markers). |
 The Heckscher Museum of Art, located in Huntington's Heckscher Park, has a permanent collection of over 2100 works spanning 500 years of Western art. There are also significant holdings of local artists' works. |
 The Cold Spring Harbor Whaling Museum (founded 1936), "collects, preserves, and exhibits objects and documents pertinent to whaling, especially the regional whaling history of Long Island, whale conservation, and the history of Cold Spring Harbor as a maritime port." |
 The Whaling Museum Offices are located in the yellow building, built in 1894 and the former home of whaling Captain James Wright. |
 The main office and museum of the Society for the Preservation of Long Island Antiquities (SPLIA), a non-profit working to preserve and promote Long Island's cultural heritage and historic environments. |
(All photo credits: Nicholas Merkelson)
Culture in Peril 