Merrick Road, 1968

 In 1968, a committee published a commemorative volume," Seaford, Long Island, N. Y., 1643-1968, 325th Anniversary." At the Seaford Public Library, this book is shelved at 974.7247 S. I searched for addresses on Merrick Road and assembled the table below. This is meant to accompany the previous post, Merrick Road, 2021. As posts are in reverse chronological order, the previous post is below this one.

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There seem to be inconsistencies on this list that will require explanations. You may correct me by using the comment section below or by emailing me at cjmcmann(at)msn.com

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Some confusion arises west of Jackson Avenue, where the Long Island Savings Bank assembled a lot that included Powell's Hotel and a house with stores to the west. The banks, now Sterling, use the lowest address number.

Odd numbers are on the north side of  Merrick Road. Even numbers are on the south side.

3479 former Chase Manhattan

3649 Cake and Cookie Shop, formerly Gertz, now Fehn's

3685 Austin Verity long distance

3748 Seaford Marine

3790 Oak Auto Supply

3823 Rose & Julia Clothing alterations

3827 former Universe Appliance, which later moved across the street.

3829 Sequa

3830 Scinta's Service from 1946

3831 Marlin appliance

3839 Seaford Dodge

3863 Charles Schmitt funeral home

3864 Seelinger's Luncheonette on southwest corner

3875 Security National Bank, now only a Chase ATM

3878 Towne Cleaners

3887 Sterling National Bank, using house number from temporary office adjacent to Chase

3891 Seaford Taxi

3891 State Farm

3900 Hildegard & La Mar Hair stylist

3903 Powell's Hotel since 1850, replaced by Long Island Savings Bank using 3887 number

3904 Allo Agency& Insurance

3915 Hess Photography at Jackson, in old two-story building

3921 Medical office since 1968

3923 George's Stationary since 1959

3924 Treasure Chest

3925 Stoessel's Deli, now Seaford Deli

3929 Paoli Cleaners since 1943

3935 Seaford Bakery

3939 Paint Bucket

3943 Nat's Shoe Repair

3947 Thrifty Drugs since 1944

3950 Buster Brown

3951 Mid-Island Department Store

3952 Tuxedo Yarns

3954 Crest Travel Insurance

3958 Seaford Liquor since 1935

3960 Pipe Nook

3962 Henry's Hardware

3970 Mid-Island Toy Land

Merrick Road, Seaford, 2021

 

Please make comments and corrections below this post or mail me at cjmcmann(at)msn.com

I distrust my guess work.

Only a few months ago, this corner building was a Lobster Shack. The adjacent building on Jackson Avenue appears to date from the 1920's, but I cannot find it in the Nassau County Land Record Viewer.

The Seaford Deli has been there several decades. The American Waffle House may have arrived about 2010.

Charlie's Pharmacy has been there for decades. Note the handy passage just east of it, which now has tables for outdoor dining.        

To read the text in the photo, please click on the photo to enlarge it.

                                                                                

Merrick Road n19 bus will have reduced service

As of April 9, 2017, the n19 bus route on Merrick Road will suffer service reductions. The new schedule is linked HERE. There will be no service during five mid-day hours. Thirteen "rush hour" trips will run.
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I believe the Merrick Road route was first provided before 1950 by Utility Bus Lines, from Freeport to Patchogue.  I rode it several times through Seaford in July of 1960 or 1961. At that time, a zoned fare was in place, with the operator using a ticket dispenser after the rider stated his destination.
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The loss of this service is a result of Supervisor Ed Magano's budget.

Merrick Road & Jackson Ave.

A reader inquired whether I had a photo of Powell's Hotel. Yes, I took several street photos during our first years in Seaford, and about 2010 I scanned some. However, with too many of my scans, I did not record the date of the photo itself. The hotel above, on the northwest corner of Merrick Road and Seaford Avenue, was replaced by the Long Island Savings Bank, currently named Astoria Bank, and in 2017 to be purchased by Sterling National Bank of Rockland County.

When Merrick Road was widened after the above photo, the electric distribution lines were moved behind the buildings.  Also, please note the fire alarm call box on the pole.  I have been unable to learn the year when the Seaford Fire Department introduced these telegraph alarm boxes, nor have I been able to learn when they were removed.

Clicking on a photo will enlarge it.

Fewer Merrick Road buses

The bus service cutbacks, effective 4.8.2012, on route N19 along Merrick Road show the following changes in eastbound service:

From Monday to Friday: 20 eastbound trips instead of 31.

On Saturdays: 17 eastbound trips instead of 26.

On Sundays: the same 9 eastbound trips as previously, providing hourly service.

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Westbound cutbacks are similar.

In the 1960's, I recall several trips on the Freeport-Patchogue route through Seaford, as provided by Utility Bus Corporation.  I have been unable to find a bus photo from the Utility era.  
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From about 1930 to about 1973, a North Merrick firm, the Jerusalem Avenue Bus Company, connected Seaford with Hempstead, via Waverly and Seaford Avenues.  When Sunrise Mall opened, the routes were changed.  The new schedules for the N54, which travels on Washington Avenue from Jerusalem Avenue to Sunrise Highway (serving the Seaford railroad station) show a mostly unchanged timetable from the past months: 15 hourly trips Monday to Friday, 13 hourly trips on Saturday, and no service on Sunday.  The N54 connects Sunrise Mall, Seaford, North Wantagh, North Merrick, and Hempstead, much of it via Jerusalem Avenue.

Seaford in the springtime

Five p.m., Thursday, March 29, 2012, as trains arrive from Manhattan and Brooklyn.

About thirty years ago, the Town of Hempstead planted Bradford pear trees along both sides of Merrick Road for more than a mile west of the town line at Tackapausha Park.  They have not fared too well; about half have been lost.  However, those remaining can be beautiful in the spring.

U. S. Census, Seaford in 1910

I spent a few minutes in the Central Avenue, Massapequa Library, today looking at the 1910 U. S. Census of the Village of Seaford, "not incorporated."  The census carries the heading "22 and 23 April 1910, Hempstead District 1, [enumeration] district 1103.  There are twelve pages or so, fifty on each, giving Seaford a population of about 615.  My tabulation may be inexact.  These are the streets, listed by population:

176 residents of Washington Avenue

159 residents of Merrick Road
75 residents of Seamans Neck Road

61 residents of West Broadway

61 residents of A Lane

41 residents of Jackson Avenue.

20 residents of Waverly Avenue

10 residents of Hickory Avenue

10 residents of Lane

2 residents of Railroad Avenue

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More than 90% of the residents were born in the state of New York of a father born in the state of New York.  There are a few from Germany, Scotland, England, Italy (9 residents of "Lane"), and one family from Norway.

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I wonder where the street called West Broadway was.  Maybe the two lanes are among the present lanes south of Merrick Road.  Waverly Avenue was not extended west until the 1920's, I believe.

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Some of the Merrick Road families in 1910 were Verity, Pettit, Updike, Bryant, Mahon, Baldwin, Van Nostrand, Wilson, Smith, Valentine, Morgan (William 28, wife 26), Southard (John, retired wheelwright, Catherine, Mary, 32, law clerk, perhaps the 1930 proprietor of the funeral home), Rhineslat, Magnus, Baxter, Radloff, Einstein, Norman, Hewitt, Rohr, Morgan (another William), Powell, Reigle, McHugh.  (Again, corrections are welcome.)
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Seaford alumni have put together in guestbook format a series of posts, memories of growing up in Seaford.  Much of it describes the stores on Merrick Road and their proprietors.  The link is broken. There are forty pages of marvelous posts.  Is there another such memory collection with photographs about Seaford?
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The main page for Seaford alumni is here.  It is a great presentation!
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Often house numbers were introduced simultaneously with house-to-house delivery of mail.  However, the four-digit numbers prevalent in Seaford, I suspect, were introduced by the Town of Hempstead in the late 1940's.  They march along at the rate of 2 numbers every 20 feet.  Maybe they are based on the eastward progress of numbers from the center of Hempstead on the Hempstead-Bethpage Turnpike (NY 24).  Would anyone know in what year these four-digit numbers were introduced in Seaford?
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An aside: In Bellmore, on Oak Street one can observe the mingling of westward three-digit numbers (presumably the original ones) and eastward four-digit house numbers.

Commerce on Merrick Road, Seaford

The business row in Seaford on Merrick Road seems to total about 167 commercial enterprises in a distance of about 1.3 miles. On the morning of January 12, 2009, I counted about 80 businesses on the south side of Merrick Road from Cedar Creek (East Bay Diner) to Seaford Creek (Tackapausha). It seems that four of these locations are empty: an home theater dealer opposite Kenora Place, and, at Willoughby Avenue, a Korean vegetable store (which offered excellent produce) and two others.
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The north side of Merrick Road from Fir Street (Seaford School District, but Wantagh Post Office) to Seaford Creek has about 87 stores. Several vacancies occur between Spruce St. and Willoughby Avenue and again between Kenora Place and Seaford Avenue.
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Widening Merrick Road, Seaford, about 1975

Shortly after we arrived in Seaford in 1972, the installation of a sanitary sewer trunk line under Merrick Road seems to have led to a widening of that street through Bellmore, Wantagh, and Seaford. I cannot establish the exact years, but I have two or three slides, and data exist on the Nassau County Records Viewer. At times, the street was an obstacle course of construction. The other day, I tried to contrast the present buildings between South Seaman's Neck Road and Smith Lane with the records. What a surprise to learn that the "old" post office that is now Beach Bum Tanning lost an angle-cut off its facade! The adjacent tailor was also cut back. Most of the other buildings east of that point were built after the widening. In the block from Jackson Avenue to Smith Lane, at least two structures were condemned, demolished, and the lots sold for new construction. The building occupied by Runyon's remains, having been cut back about five feet because of the widening. Similarly, the cinder block paint store, built in 1969 at the corner of Smith Lane, lost about five feet.
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So, for those blocks, much of the widening was done on the south side of Merrick Road.