Levittown Gazes Into Its Crystal Ball

By Dave Mock

What's in the cards for Levittown the next 50 years?

"My view is such that your homes are totally wired," said futurist John Whitehouse during Saturday's Levittown 2047 conference at Levittown Memorial Educational Center.

Whitehouse, the author of The Year 2000 Is Coming: What Do We Do About It?, spoke of a Levittown in which houses are computer accessible, kitchens have become "nutrition centers," students are involved in distance learning and can take home PC's (yet still go to school buildings) and more people are working outside of the office.

The reporting staff of Long Island News Tonight, the daily broadcast produced at the New York Institute of Technology, presented a hypothetical newscast to air on Levittown's 100th anniversary, in which "earth shelters" (formerly houses) are constructed inexpensively and environmentally safely, with solar heating.

According to the newscast, maglev monorails have replaced Long Island Bus and the Long Island Rail Road, yet courses like music appreciation, art and architecture are staples of local education.

Even though 2047 is way down the road, Whitehouse said that what Levittowners make of it then depends upon how ready we are for it now. "It's based on your ability to use it and accept it," he said.

Throughout the morning conference, visitors had a chance to hear visions of Levittown's future from Whitehouse and Dr. Matthew Schure, president of NYIT.

Some of the most striking testimony, however, came when Levittown Superintendent of Schools Dr. Herman Sirois unveiled results of a community survey gauging residents' views on issues that will affect Levittown in its second 50 years.

Most of the 500 respondents (so far) agreed that children need to be taught respect for themselves and others, there needs to be more education about bigotry and tolerance, and traffic and construction will be major problems in the future.

The Levittown respondents disagreed strongly with the hypothetical statements that drugs should be legalized and that schools should provide condoms without counseling them, Sirois said. But posed with the question of whether or not schools should provide condoms to students only after providing counseling, Levittown respondents were split.

Sirois added that they also reached no consensus on whether robots would be commonplace and cause unemployment, or whether a second language should be taught in elementary schools. "There's a strong sentiment in our country that English should be the only language," the Levittown superintendent said.

He said that local residents were undecided on 97 questions, agreed with 71, disagreed with five, and showed a down-the-middle split on six of them.

From the survey results and experts' predictions, Sirois said, subcommittee members (divided into issues of community life, education, the environment, the family, health and technology) made their recommendations. They will be forwarded to officials of the Levittown and Island Trees School Districts, local agencies, service organizations and community groups, possibly including churches.

Meantime, in the Panther Room of Levittown Memorial, they also saw the latest examples of advanced technology exhibited by representatives of NYIT and Northrop Grumman Corporation.

One of the technological demonstrators was Dr. Robert Ryan of Levittown (Memorial '78), who showed how sensitive an infrared camera is in judging heat, using the coffee urn and ice buckets at the opposite end of the Panther Room. Ryan, who was there to show infrared technology in commercial and military applications, said infrared's defense uses were best demonstrated during the Persian Gulf War of 1991.

Then, for a minute, Ryan thought back to his days as a student in that same Levittown Memorial building. "It had excellent math and physics departments...a very good science program," he said. "I was going toward being a scientist and engineer, (and) there were a lot of good teachers."

In the same room, demonstrating the futuristic concept of distance learning, representatives from NYIT demonstrated a unit (similar to the "Picturephone" of the 1960s) that allowed participants in Levittown to talk and see an instructor at NYIT's Central Islip campus.

After graduating from Memorial, Ryan received his bachelor's degrees in physics from Hofstra University, his master's in electrical engineering from Polytechnic University and his doctorate in physics from the State University at Stony Brook.

The Levittown 2047 Conference, coordinated by Futuring Committee chairwoman Jean Fontana, was the last of the 1997 events presented by the Levittown 50th Anniversary Committee.

"You'll always have those who look at Levittown as a trash community or as a steppingstone," said Joe Mondello of Shotgun Lane, the honorary chairperson of the 50th-Anniversary Committee and the Nassau County Republican Chairman. "I love it dearly, from the bottom of my heart."