American History

A long time ago, Long Island was referred to as Matouac by some, Paumanok by others. Matouc means a young man, or the young warriors, referring to the younger tribes of the Western part of the Island. Paumanok is a word used to describe the land of tribute it symbolized Long Island function as a main source of resources used to make Sewan, often used to pay tribute or taxes to another tribe (Agee 32). The natives of Pamanok had a way of showing respect to the high authority they had it in their hearts to honor to those in power in the main land. Long Island had a great and important function in the history of the Algonquin people.

Long Island is situated at the East of New York it forms the shape of a fish. Its size is about twenty miles in width and expands northeast from the mouth of the Hudson River. It is divided from Staten Island by the Narrows and from Manhattan and the Bronx by the East River. It is separated from the New York mainland and Connecticut by Long Island Sound, to the north. To the South is the Atlantic Ocean (Bookbinder 29). Both Tail fins are at the east border. The one that extends to the north is called the Orient Point and is smaller in length, and the Montauk Point is larger in length and is more to the south part.

At the centre of these points, from west to east, is Great Peconic Bay. The North Shore is mountainous and spread with rocks. A glacial terminal moraine runs the length of the Island. The central section is even and covered in dust with pine growth covered in many parts. The Southern part is stumpy and sandy. There are extensive and fine obstacle reef islands beside the Southern shore, divided from the main island by the large, low Jamaica Bay (Agee 40).

The boundaries of New York City and Long Island have continued to overlap extensively. According to recent data sixty percent of New York City lives on Long Island. The reason for this is the inclusion of Queens County and Brooklyn as part of New York City, thus expanding in size. The eastern part of Queens then became Nassau County, one of the states newest counties. East of Nassau is Suffolk County, one of the oldest counties in the state, stretching across Long Island to its tip (Agee 28).

Urban areas
Many wealthy society people have estates along the scenic north shore. The Western end is more industrialized and has many row houses and apartments in Queens and Brooklyn. The Brooklyn is positioned at the west of Long Island it is one of New York Citys five regions and dwelling of millions of people. Native American life flourished here until the seventeenth century. Since the 1840s into the early twentieth century, it saw enormous European migration. By the year 1855, majority of Kings Countys residents were from other nations.

By 1860, Brooklyn was positioned as the third biggest city in the United States after New York and Philadelphia this was due to migration of people from other nations and combining Brooklyn with other towns and cities. The industrial landscape continued to grow as manufacturing grew (Bookbinder 30).The citys built environment changed not only by the pulling down and putting up that accompanied growth, but also by great fires that were a fact of nineteenth-century urban life. An example is the devastating blaze that tore through downtown Brooklyn in 1848. The countryside setting, itself was realized when farmers fell down trees and plowed the soil, therefore with time attributes of the city were formed.

Brooklyns uniqueness has urbanized out of the common relations of its land mark names. As totems of the boroughs customs and past, they persist on stirring the trendy thoughts. The avenues and locations of Brooklyn are the real foundations of the upcoming metropolis, and the origin of their names show, the nations wealthy and textured past. Yet on the external picture which is apparent, shows that the source of majority of Kings Countys street and place-names is still unknown and their origin is only known by a few individuals (Gabriel 40). At a speed exceeding New York City itself, Brooklyn was quickly emerging into a booming metropolis through its harbor, industrial range, and invasion of newcomers, and restricted by the building of the fabulous Brooklyn Bridge.

With its invasion of Williamsburg and Bushwick in 1855, Brooklyn became suddenly the third most heavily populated city in the United States. In the next four decades Brooklyn gradually consumed all the towns and villages that were around, so that by the centuries end, it became like Kings County. However Brooklyns empire building was short term by the smallest margins, Brooklynites voted in support of merging with New York, and in 1898 Brooklyn became a wide region (Agee 54).

The municipality soon became surrounded in contentious issues of the day relating to race, migration, learning, and accommodation. Brooklyns first residents included diverse groups of Native Americans it is physically located in Western Long Island. But one thing that differentiate it from other cities of Long Island which make use of several Indian names, it uses only a few of them. Streets names were used to demonstrate Dutch landowners.

Queens is one of the places where human rights struggles took place. This city boasts of lush parkland, walking trails, playgrounds, and athletic fields. But it is also a lively place to carry out business, as revealed by the many manufacturing and workplace complex that are all over the cities, along with hospital, learning institutions, arcades and museums, and all types of commercial businesses. And its unique neighborhood offers a welcome to immigrants and visitors from around the world. In 1898 Western Queens, became part of the New York City.  It was first occupied by a splitting up of the Algonquin Nation called the Matinecock (Gabriel 35).

The original arrangement was done by the Dutch in 1636 near Flushing Bay. On November 1, 1683, Queens County was formed as one of the 12 counties of the province of New York, and named after Catherine of Braganza, the queen consort of King Charles II. For its earliest 250 years, the land of Queens was still an enormous and open landscape of farmland and flood. Majority of the houses did not have electricity, and only those ways that passed through major towns like Newton, Long Island City and Flushing were tiled.

With the expansion of the Long Island Rail Road in 1870, Queens began to see the first signs of progress. Hospitals, a police department and other public services began to appear. Before the coming of the rail road Queens had only one post office. Queens industrial age took root in the late 19th century. Queens has become the site of major public and past progress. Today buildings of great architectural achievement and historical importance, including old trolley lines, railroad stations and homes of the rich and famous, are abolished and misplaced with modern cookie-cutter structures (Agee 60). Much has been done to protect the boroughs heritage through landmark designation. This has been only moderately successful.

Western Nassau County is served by the New York City subway system and lines of the Long Island system and lines of the Long Island Rail Road. There are transport steamers from Port Jefferson to Bridgeport, Connecticut. Long Island belongs to New York State.

Suburban areas
The central portion is devoted to suburban homes, light industry, aviation plants, and test fields. Jones Beach is a big south beach resort for day-trippers that are situated on a barrier island. Fire Island is located to the east and supplies to a more Bohemian aspect. Western Suffolk County stands as an extra ordinary suburb for Manhattans elite, they now telecommute or ride luxury buses or even helicopters into the city for board meetings or theatre dates (Gabriel 30).  Marine managers claim that twenty five percent of local ships belong to people of Nassau. Majority of Long Islanders now do all their activities on the Island working and residing, as a result housing and business development is driven farther east. The Suffolk County Department of Social Services claims that the average family of four requires an annual income of almost fifty thousands dollars in order to afford the least expensive housing rentals available.

Eastern Nassau County has gone through a revival of housing development, much of it gated, following the decrease in the real estate market in the early 1990s. Nassau County has a high population as from the 1997 statistics it also adjoins the eastern boundary of Queens. Although complete statistics for the number of gated communities in Nassau County have not been compiled, a survey conducted revealed seven gated developments along the main road, and the Pine Hills area farther to the east, there were at least three gated communities located in the vicinity (Benardo 80).

Nassau County is politically structured as a series of towns and villages. Incentive zoning systems permitting gated communities, and allowing clustering of houses have been added to the initial zoning and construction codes of only a few of these legislative entities. These new rules give the constructor good economical allowances and liberty to construct housing with fewer zoning limitations, but insist that some form of financial compensation or public amenity be given to the town or village for this privilege returns (Bookbinder 25).

Rural areas
Eastern Suffolk Countys (North Fork and south fork) In 1640, a minute group of Puritans who ran away from England because of religious prejudice became frustrated with conditions of New England. Guided by the Reverend John Youngs, they passed the Sound and came ashore at Founders Landing in what is today called the village of Southold. In 1682 their offspring bought huge amount of woodland and inhabited the north today known as Greenport. Later when the founders inhabited and built homes in South old, second generation immigrants farmed and grew potatoes, and vegetables like Brussels sprouts and cauliflower (Agee 33).

In the years between 1960s and 1970s fruits such as grapevines were planted, creating a new industry. Today, majority of Long Islands farms are situated along the Town of River, which has been in existence since 1727 the town is also home to a large trading entre. Riverhead indicates the place where the North and South forks divide with the Great and Little Peconic and Gardiners Bays at the centre like the space between two fingers (Benardo 70).

Some islands are also located in these bays namely Shelter Island and privately-owned Gardiners Island.  On both sides, almost seventy square miles from Wading River to Jamesport, the Town of Riverhead borders Long Island Sound on the north and the Towns of Brookhaven, Southampton and Southold on three sides. The town is home to thousands of people and includes the hamlets of Aquebogue, Baiting Hollow, Jamesport, Northville, Riverhead, Wading River and part of Calverton. Because the town of Riverhead broadens from West Suffolk County into the North Fork, its consider part of both. This region is mainly involved in agriculture, resorts, and oyster fishing. Whaling was formerly significant majority of original inhabitants came from New England and Nantucket. Much of the Eastern remains countryside. Famous resort towns include Southampton, Easthampton, and Amagansett.

North Fork town is a bit more down-to-earth and affordable than South Fork villages. It is known for its wineries, they are close to thirty clustered mainly in the towns of Jamesport, Cutchogue and Southold. North Fork has some beautiful, unspoiled scenery and also farms and rural residential areas, a drive along its ways is refreshing. The Western parts of Suffolk County are much ahead in terms of growth, but the eastern end of the county which includes the North and South Forks, is has shown little growth and little development (Benardo 55).

In the country side of eastern Suffolk County farming is one of the major activities that people do, most homes are supplied by private residential sources of water. Suffolk County, with agricultural products having market values exceeding 100 million dollars a year, is the leading farm county in New York State (Agee 29).  The major crop grown on Long Island is potato, but the area of land planted has been decreasing.

The northern and southern forks of eastern Long Island surround Peconic Bay. A cold moraine of small hills, extending out into the Atlantic where the Labrador Current from the north meets the warm waters of the Gulf Stream, forms the South Fork. Distributed among the hills are small ponds, wide meadows, and tiny freshwater streams that get their way into tidal wetlands. Cross to the eastern end of the South Fork, the land contracts to form a low sandy area called Napeague, an Algonquian word meaning water land. Heavy storms occasionally drive water across Napeague, secluding the remaining land on the eastern end of the South Fork. This area has eleven thousands acres of land and is called Montauk, an Algonquian word meaning place of observation or a fortified place. Eastward from Napeague, the hills rise up to command the horizon (Agee 24). The Indians called these hills Nominick meaning land that can be seen from afar. Overlooking the eastern shore of Fort Pond, a high bluff offers a panoramic view of the South Fork.