A Short History of Long Beach, Long Island
In My Mother’s House by Stephanie Kaplan Cohen gives an authentic child’s-eye view of a new way of life in America—the suburb. In her description of the idyllic days in Long Beach, Long Island, New York, Stephanie shares the experiences of a small town of the 1930s (population 5,817), when it was America's Healthiest City. Originally designed as a playground for the rich, Long Beach had gone bust and re-emerged as a bedroom community for families from New York City’s neighborhoods. Today, the population has increased sevenfold and the cozy community Stephanie’s stories evoke is a distant memory. Long Island, the biggest island in North America, lies just east of Manhattan. Because of its proximity to the big city, it led the way in American suburbanization. Even before the Civil War, Brooklyn Heights residents commuted to work in Manhattan. (Brooklyn is located at the western end of Long Island.) Twentieth century suburban development began with idealized upper-middle-class communities like Long Beach’s neighbor, Garden City. In 1906, William Reynolds, a 39-year-old former state senator and developer of four Brooklyn neighborhoods (Bedford-Stuyvesant, Borough Park, Bensonhurst and Brownsville) gathered investors in Long Beach. He acquired oceanfront property from private owners and Long Beach’s back streets from the Town of Hempstead so he could build a boardwalk, homes and hotels. To ensure that Long Beach lived up to Reynolds' billing as 'The Riviera of the East', Reynolds required every building to be constructed in a Mediterranean style with white stucco walls and red tile roofs. He stipulated they could be occupied only by white Protestants, though after he went bankrupt in 1918, these restrictions were lifted. The new town attracted wealthy businessmen and entertainers—Jewish, Italian, Irish and African-American. To Stephanie’s mother, reared on the Lower East Side and raising her own child in Queens, Long Beach looked like Nirvana. Although Long Beach, with its remarkable location on the ocean and its excellent schools, was a model of diversity between the wars, New York’s suburbs remained the province of the rich until after World War II. When Augusta Kaplan moved her young family to Long Beach, one of her next door neighbors was Irish, the other was Italian. In 1930, there were only 17,000 Jews on Long Island. Today there are more than 300,000. Stephanie describes riding the LIRR as she goes into the city—to Schrafts!—with her sister, and her father’s crazy driving that took her to Coney Island. Although the Kaplans were no longer in the city, they remained loyal to it all their lives. In Stephanie’s stories we see the car and other mod cons (as moder
n conveniences were then called) changing daily life: stoves, refrigerators, hot water, lighting, flush toilets and heating for homes. Radio, telephones and movies all opened new worlds to suburbanites and city dwellers alike. Her themes reflect the timeless concerns of childhood while her eagle eye captures a world in which the appliances we take for granted were a source of pride and wonder.
In My Mother’s House by Stephanie Kaplan Cohen gives an authentic child’s-eye view of a new way of life in America—the suburb. In her description of the idyllic days in Long Beach, Long Island, New York, Stephanie shares the experiences of a small town of the 1930s (population 5,817), when it was America's Healthiest City. Originally designed as a playground for the rich, Long Beach had gone bust and re-emerged as a bedroom community for families from New York City’s neighborhoods. Today, the population has increased sevenfold and the cozy community Stephanie’s stories evoke is a distant memory. Long Island, the biggest island in North America, lies just east of Manhattan. Because of its proximity to the big city, it led the way in American suburbanization. Even before the Civil War, Brooklyn Heights residents commuted to work in Manhattan. (Brooklyn is located at the western end of Long Island.) Twentieth century suburban development began with idealized upper-middle-class communities like Long Beach’s neighbor, Garden City. In 1906, William Reynolds, a 39-year-old former state senator and developer of four Brooklyn neighborhoods (Bedford-Stuyvesant, Borough Park, Bensonhurst and Brownsville) gathered investors in Long Beach. He acquired oceanfront property from private owners and Long Beach’s back streets from the Town of Hempstead so he could build a boardwalk, homes and hotels. To ensure that Long Beach lived up to Reynolds' billing as 'The Riviera of the East', Reynolds required every building to be constructed in a Mediterranean style with white stucco walls and red tile roofs. He stipulated they could be occupied only by white Protestants, though after he went bankrupt in 1918, these restrictions were lifted. The new town attracted wealthy businessmen and entertainers—Jewish, Italian, Irish and African-American. To Stephanie’s mother, reared on the Lower East Side and raising her own child in Queens, Long Beach looked like Nirvana. Although Long Beach, with its remarkable location on the ocean and its excellent schools, was a model of diversity between the wars, New York’s suburbs remained the province of the rich until after World War II. When Augusta Kaplan moved her young family to Long Beach, one of her next door neighbors was Irish, the other was Italian. In 1930, there were only 17,000 Jews on Long Island. Today there are more than 300,000. Stephanie describes riding the LIRR as she goes into the city—to Schrafts!—with her sister, and her father’s crazy driving that took her to Coney Island. Although the Kaplans were no longer in the city, they remained loyal to it all their lives. In Stephanie’s stories we see the car and other mod cons (as moder
n conveniences were then called) changing daily life: stoves, refrigerators, hot water, lighting, flush toilets and heating for homes. Radio, telephones and movies all opened new worlds to suburbanites and city dwellers alike. Her themes reflect the timeless concerns of childhood while her eagle eye captures a world in which the appliances we take for granted were a source of pride and wonder. 
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