Seaford Library budget passes

On April 6, 2011, the 2011-2012 budget for the Seaford Library passed, 110-36.  Stephen Gaughran was reelected as trustee, with 129 votes.
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Below, I list some results from previous years:
In April, 2010, the Seaford library budget passed, 103-29. Eileen Montalbano was reelected as trustee, with 119 votes.
In April, 2009, the Seaford Library budget passed, 98-30. John Rall was reelected as trustee with 115 votes.
In April, 2008, the Seaford Library budget passed, 110-52.  Peter Ruffner was reelected trustee for a five-year term.
The 2007-8 budget of the Seaford Public Library passed, with a vote of 78 "Yes" to 45 "No." Maybe the drenching rain kept the turnout low. Possessing a valid library card is different from registering to vote in a library district or school district, and I do not know the number of registered or eligible voters. About 10,400 Seafordites have Seaford Library cards in a district of approximately 16,000 residents. As library cards must be renewed every three years, the number of card holders may be a little inflated by people moving out of the district. The voting register for school district and library district (a combined list) totals about 10,000 to 12,000 names.

Some weekend trains skip Seaford

On the new weekend train timetable, the half-hourly service to and from Seaford has five omissions (or gaps of an hour) in each direction.  Please check your timetables or the LIRR website.
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There are five trains that serve Massapequa and Bellmore but not Seaford and Wantagh.  These express trains from Babylon stop only at Amityville, Massapequa, Bellmore, Freeport, and Jamaica.
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One of the upcoming weekends (date not yet disclosed), service will be interrupted to replace and test new signals near Oakland Avenue, Wantagh, an installation that has taken years already. 

A grievous loss

The loss of a great person, Bill Powell, 64:  link to Newsday here.

Snow in February, 1978

In these scenes from February, 1978, I obviously have not reproduced the brilliance of the original Kodachrome slides.  I'll keep trying!  Some of the photos look better when enlarged.  Click on the photo; then click again for more detail.

In this view south from Sunrise Highway, youngsters cross NY 135. 

At Merrick Road and Jackson Avenue, in 1978 the Long Island Savings Bank has replaced Powell's Hotel, but the name "Astoria" is in the future.  I believe the LISB was originally the Long Island City Savings Bank, main office at Queensborough Plaza.

The Seaford Post Office was on the south side of Merrick Road, east of South Seaman's Neck Road.  Previously, it was on the north side of the road.  The star on the letter box indicates late collections.  In 2011, the nearest letter box has its last pick-up at 1 p.m.  Beach Bum tanning occupies the former post office.  If I am correct, the covered loading dock in back dates from the time of Bohack's grocery store. 

In 2011, this building on the south side of Merrick Road east of Jackson Avenue is occupied by East Coast Karate.

Washington Avenue, Seaford, in 1910

In the U.S. census of 1910, Jackson Avenue counted about 176 residents, more than any other street in Seaford.  These are family names on Jackson Avenue: Covert, Whitier, Walters, Payne, Purvis, Ketcham, El, Raynor, Dee(?), Klopthor, Baylis, Ruck, Liddel, Cola, Adsit, Mansfied, Bedell, Matengus, Angell, Shuals, Seelig, Livingston, VonGallet, Killian, Miller, Tolhey, Burch, Darius,  Powell, Vooris, Dean, Zacahanas, Baldwin, Collis, Danver, Weeks, Smith, Beaumont, Haff, HJones, Vasance(?), Fortestcue, Mortimer, Hendrickson, Van Nostran, Verity, Southard.
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To sample the ancestry of the residents of Washington Avenue, I noted the birthplace given for each resident's mother.  Admittedly, large families tilt this count.  Of the 176 residents, about 135 had mothers born in New York State.  Also: 12 whose mother was born in England, 6 in South Carolina, 4 in English Canada, 4 in Germany, 3 in Ireland, 2 in Massachusetts, 2 in Scotland, one in the West Indies, and one in Illinois.
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As for occupations of the residents of Washington Avenue: 3 retail dealers of groceries, 3 retail dealers of fish, one of ice, a laundress, 4 laborers at odd jobs, a nurse, an Episcopal priest, 2 painters, a house builder, 3 servants, 2 adjusters for the railroad, a cashier for a steamship, a Methodist minister, 2 farmers, a patrolman for the railroad, a driver of coal and wood, 2 authors, a repairer of bicycles, 2 baymen, a life saver for the U.S.S.S., a worker in a railroad roundhouse, 2 gardeners, 4 carpenters, a coppersmith, an electrician for the railroad, a concert singer, a broker at a custom house, a restaurant worker, a teacher in the district school, the manager of a bakery office, a bookkeeper, an insurance agent, a produce salesman, and a dentist.
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I have probably made errors of transcription.  The enumerator's penmanship on this census was quite clear. Many of these family names show up on other streets in Seaford.  Please also see my previous posts linked by the label below, "Census of 1910." 
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The census is available on libraryancestry.com at the Central Avenue Library.  For 1910, Seaford is included in Town of Hempstead District 1. enumeration district 1103.
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In August, 2014, I went looking at the 1910 1900 census and discovered that the people are grouped by enumeration district, without street names.  Several family names and occupations were tip-offs that I was looking at the part of the Town of Hempstead that we call Seaford.  The 1900 occupation of Ansel Raynor was Postmaster.
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In September, 2017, I tried to compare the 1930 census on Washington Avenue with the above notes, and there were enough mismatches to worry me.  I question the "Jackson Avenue" name in the first paragraph above.  Also, I could not find in 1930 as many residents on Washington Ave., leading me to wonder about changing areas of Enumeration Districts. 

West Broadway, Seaford, in 1910

More of the 1910 census of Seaford:
These are the family names listed for West Broadway, wherever in Seaford that street was:
Smith, Mongomery, Mack, Seaman, Condit, Jung, Eldert, Verity, Albro, Rhodes, Stable, Custis, Ketcham, James, Wilson, Duryea, Weiner.  Many of these family names are repeated on other streets of Seaford.
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A count of the occupations listed in the census of West Broadway shows six farmers, two painters, two pond keepers at the city works, two carpenters, two laborers, one foreman at the railroad station, one machinist (locomotive), one grocery clerk, one bayman, one author, one chicken raiser, one retail dealer of fish.  This catalog of one street's inhabitants could be misleading, as the Seaford population topped six hundred, and other streets had more baymen.  I would have to do a full analysis of the census.

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.

Seaford station in snow, 1.21.2011

Because the community now known as Seaford was along Merrick Road when the LIRR came through in the 1860's, we gained a park, courtesy of the Town of Hempstead.  The Seaford Wellness Council added a gazebo.

 Any photo may be enlarged by clicking on it.  Photos from the 20th century may be found here.

Memories of Merrick Road and Seaford, N.Y.

Seaford alumni have put together in guestbook format a series of posts, memories of growing up in Seaford.  The link is here, and 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!

Snow on Wednesday, January 12, 2011

The skies cleared at dawn, and we found about nine inches of snow on the lawn.

During the Christmas Octave: Snow!

Somewhere a newborn lies under a blanket.

Any photo may be enlarged by clicking on it.

Dawn on the 28th.

The 30th.

Noon on the 28th.

December 30th.

The Seaford fire house on Southard Avenue.  Any photo may be enlarged by clicking on it.

Drifts I measured were about 16 inches, but the lawn only four.

 By New Year's Eve, the snowman was already tipping.