The Society for the Preservation of Long Island Antiquities has opened an exhibit called "What If? Long Island That Might Have Been," which will be on view at the Gallery in Cold Spring Harbor now through January 28, 2007. The exhibit has a special meaning for local residents: it features the "infamous Bridge to Rye" proposed by Robert Moses and defeated by a great deal of community support backed by local elected officials including NYS Senator Ralph Marino, a Republican fighting the tide of support for the bridge and Congressman Lester Wolf, a Democrat, who currently lives in East Norwich and who helped create the ultimate lynchpin legislation in what stopped the Rye Bridge with the creation of the Oyster Bay National Wildlife Refuge.

What is interesting is that the Oyster Bay National Wildlife Refuge itself has been the lynchpin for the community's fight against the proposal of AvalonBay Communities 300 unit apartment complex.

There are a great many local people who realized it is important to preserve Oyster Bay Harbor - and what is so interesting is that the need continues.

Matthew Meng, president of the East Norwich Civic Association, recently said there was a need to have Oyster Bay Harbor designated as an National Historic Place/Landmark. It sounds like a great thing to do, and something that will help in whatever future battles the community faces.

The new SPLIA exhibit includes models of Robert Moses' never-realized Bayville-Rye Bridge, and just think it could really include the proposed AvalonBay complex and possibly the proposed carousel that is trying to use the open space available in Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Park.

Developers always look for open space to build on - the problem is we have less and less of open space for them to develop. There will always be people looking to profit from land use.

FYI: The Citizens for the Preservation of Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Park is a "grassroots movement to preserve TR Park's open space. They now have a website: CitizensforTRPark.com or you can email them at info@citizensforTRPark.com to keep informed. Their address is: PO Box 82, Oyster Bay, NY 11771 or call them at 628-2293.

There is still a need to preserve the open space we have left in Oyster Bay. It surrounds our precious Oyster Bay Harbor and the need to preserve it remains constant.

- DFK