Patchogue, New York
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Patchogue ('pach-og, 'pach-äg) is a village in Suffolk County, New York, United States. The population was 11,919 at the 2000 census.
The village is named after the Patchogue Indians, who once inhabited the area.
The Village of Patchogue is within the Town of Brookhaven, on the South Shore of Long Island on the Great South Bay.
- The Patchogue area is not neatly divided into North, East, etc. For additional demographic and geographic information on the area also see North Patchogue and East Patchogue.
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[edit] Overview
Patchogue is just 50 miles east of Manhattan. It was incorporated in 1893. A riverfront and a natural harbor are natural resources that the town has used for the past 100 years to become a modern and largely self-contained community.
The current mayor of Patchogue is Paul Pontieri, who was a vice-principal in the neighboring South Country School District's Bellport High School for many years and currently serves as a vice-principal in Ward Melville High School in Three Village School District.
Patchogue and the adjacent hamlet of Medford share a school district and library. There are Primary, Middle and High Schools, plus continuing education programs for adults and an emphasis on sports. The School District combines with the St. Joseph's and the Briarcliff Colleges to give what some say is a strong commitment to local education.
The Patchogue Theatre for the Performing Arts is a local venue for plays and the like. At one time a movie theatre, it has been fully renovated and seats more than a thousand. The lobby can hold receptions and has a full service bar.
Patchogue has churches of many denominations. The Patchogue Chamber of Commerce with more than 400 members, Kiwanis, Rotarians and Lions join the religious institutions to provide support and voice to residents and business people in the town. The Patchogue Ambulance Company is an all-volunteer effort. The Lighthouse Mission feeds more than a thousand poor people each week, and provides spiritual support and school supplies.
The Brickhouse Brewery and Restaurant serves both alcoholic beverages and food. It is located in the former Shands Hardware Store which is 150 year old institution.
[edit] History
Patchogue was nicknamed Milltown because of the many mills -- gristmills, sawmills, paper, wool, cotton mills -- that operated on Patchogue waterways from as early as 1750. The village's permanent name may have derived from Pochaug or Paushag, which were the early settlers' interpretation of the name of Indians who lived in the vicinity.
Area residents once set their clocks by the noon whistle from the giant red-brick Patchogue-Plymouth Lace Mill, which closed in 1954 and was demolished in the mid 1990's. Most of the mills succumbed in the 1940s and '50s, as a result of foreign competition and the industry movement to the South and overseas for cheaper labor.
According to Marjorie Roe, president of the Greater Patchogue Historical Society, the Lace Mill was once known as "the Patchogue College because so many Patchogue kids went there when they finished high school." Charles E. Merrill, a co-founder of brokerage firm Merrill Lynch & Co., worked at the mill from 1907-1909. Workers also came by stagecoach from Sayville and other South Shore communities. The mill employed as many as 1,200 during World War II, when it manufactured camouflage netting and other war products.
Paradoxically, the Lace Mill's biggest problem may have been that its products were too good. "They lasted forever and never had to be replaced - I still use a lace tablecloth my mother bought in the '30s," says Roe, a sixth-generation descendant of Capt. Austin Roe, a chief spy for General George Washington during the American Revolutionary War.
Justus Roe, Capt. Roe's son, built Patchogue's first hotel in 1808, and the family continued building ever-larger hotels throughout the 19th Century. Patchogue was then a bustling seaport with fishing, oyster and boat-building industries as well as mills on the Patchogue River and Great South Bay.
Patchogue's recorded history dates from 1664, when John Winthrop, the Younger, Governor of Connecticut, purchased "nine necks of land" extending from Great South Bay to the middle of the Island. He sold some to Humphrey Avery of Boston, who, in need of cash, disposed of them by lottery. In 1759, Leoffer d'Leofferda won the "lot" that ultimately became Patchogue.
Settlers and shipping entrepreneurs soon flocked to the area, attracted by waterpower. Schooners set out from Patchogue to do commerce up and down the East Coast and even to the Mediterranean.
In 1890, the Army Corps of Engineers dredged the Patchogue River, making it the only deep-water port on Long Island's South Shore. Until 1922, Patchogue was a U.S. port of entry with a customs house on South Ocean Avenue.
The port also attracted bootleggers during Prohibition in the 1920's. New York City gangster Dutch Schultz set up a headquarters in Patchogue, giving lucrative employment to farm boys, who helped unload and hide the kegs of illegal liquor.
The Long Island Rail Road came to Patchogue in 1869. For awhile the South Shore line ended at Patchogue. It brought thousands of summer visitors from New York City, seeking the cool southwest breezes. The village, which incorporated in 1893, became a summer colony, with hotels accommodating as many as 1,600 guests. It was also the starting point for bicycle races. The last of the Roe family's hotels, the Eagle Hotel, burned down in 1934.
Tourism gradually declined after 1920 as the now affordable motor car took tourists to farther destinations, notes village co-historian Hans Henke in a pictorial history of Patchogue in its boom years from 1840 to 1915. The legendary Catholic high school, Seton Hall, operated by the Sisters of Charity of Halifax (Halifax, Nova Scotia) operated on the property now occupied by St Joseph's College on Roe Blvd. The school closed its doors in 1974.
[edit] Community reinvigoration plans
As of 2005, Village co-historian Anne Swezey and the Greater Patchogue Historical Society hope to bring back the tourist industry, if not the mills. They have restored the 1858 one-room schoolhouse, and the village hopes to reopen the Patchogue movie house of the '20s as a community theater. The village plans to demolish the lace mill and replace it with a combination retail and housing development, according to Mayor Stephen E. Keegan.
The site of the former Lace Mill is now the home of Briarcliffe College. It occupies the building built by the Swezey Department store, which was constructed after the Lace Mill was torn down.
Plans are also in the works to bring new life to the Patchogue River. The village, working with the Fire Island National Seashore, which has headquarters and a ferry terminal on the river, wants to develop a year-round commercial recreation area and visitors center. The historical society is also creating a showplace for an 1890 catboat by Patchogue's best-known boat builder, Gil Smith. The river is where Patchogue began, Swezey says, and where it will come back.
The Blue Point Brewing Company opened in Patchogue in 1998, and is the only commercial brewery on Long Island (not counting the Brooklyn Brewery in Brooklyn, which is in the City of New York and contracts most of its product from Matt Brewing Company in upstate Utica, or the various brewpubs that brew mostly for consumption on the premises).
[edit] Geography
Patchogue is located at (40.763370, -73.017868)GR1.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the village has a total area of 6.5 km² (2.5 mi²). 5.8 km² (2.2 mi²) of it is land and 0.7 km² (0.3 mi²) of it (10.71%) is water.
[edit] Demographics
As of the censusGR2 of 2000, there were 11,919 people, 4,636 households, and 2,749 families residing in the village. The population density was 2,045.3/km² (5,301.2/mi²). There were 4,902 housing units at an average density of 841.2/km² (2,180.2/mi²). The racial makeup of the village was 81.27% White, 3.89% African American, 0.34% Native American, 1.39% Asian, 0.02% Pacific Islander, 9.23% from other races, and 3.85% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 23.84% of the population.
There were 4,636 households out of which 29.5% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 40.3% were married couples living together, 13.4% had a female householder with no husband present, and 40.7% were non-families. 31.8% of all households were made up of individuals and 9.0% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.54 and the average family size was 3.20.
In the village the population was spread out with 22.5% under the age of 18, 9.2% from 18 to 24, 37.1% from 25 to 44, 20.7% from 45 to 64, and 10.5% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 35 years. For every 100 females there were 100.4 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 99.7 males.
The median income for a household in the village was $47,027, and the median income for a family was $60,126. Males had a median income of $38,561 versus $30,599 for females. The per capita income for the village was $22,962. About 8.1% of families and 10.7% of the population were below the poverty line, including 13.5% of those under age 18 and 10.4% of those age 65 or over.
[edit] Miscellaneous
Army Captain Dr. Jeffrey MacDonald,a former resident, was convicted of murdering his wife and two children in a case that is still hotly debated. The case was recounted in a popular 1983 book, "Fatal Vision" by Joe McGinniss, which recalled some events in Patchogue (The murders did not take place in Patchogue). Originally, Dr. MacDonald cooperated with the author until Mr. McGinniss started to believe Dr. MacDonald was guilty. A television mini-series of the same name aired in 1984 on the NBC television network starring Gary Cole as Dr. MacDonald along with Karl Malden, Andy Griffith, and Eva Marie Saint. Since then, and despite being imprisoned, Dr. MacDonald has been an infrequent guest on CNN's "Larry King Live".
[edit] References
- Images of America: Patchogue, by Hans Henke, available at many Patchogue stores
- The Patchogue Story, by historian Anne Swezey, 101 Monroe Ave., Patchogue 11772.
- Patchogue--Still Banking on the River article by Rhoda Amon, Newsday staff writer
[edit] External links
- Maps and aerial photos
- Street map from Google Maps, or Yahoo! Maps, or Windows Live Local
- Satellite image from Google Maps, Windows Live Local, WikiMapia
- Topographic map from TopoZone
- Aerial image or topographic map from TerraServer-USA
- Patchogue Community Profile
- Patchogue Village website
- Patchogue-Medford School District
- Greater Patchogue Chamber of Commerce
- Long Island Rail Road Patchogue Timetable
- Patchogue-Medford Library
- Davis Park Ferry to Fire Island
- City Guide for Patchogue
- Briarcliffe College - Patchogue
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