Editing Wyandanch, New York (section)

==History==
===Native settlement===
This hamlet is named after [[Chief Wyandanch]], a leader of the [[Montaukett]] Native American tribe during the 17th century. Formerly known as Half Way Hollow Hills, West Deer Park (1875), and Wyandance (1893), the area of scrub oak and pine barrens south of the southern slope of Half Hollow terminal moraine was named Wyandanch in 1903 by the [[Long Island Rail Road]] (LIRR) to honor Chief Wyandanch and end confusion between travelers getting off at the West Deer Park and Deer Park railroad stations. The history of the hamlet has been shaped by waves of immigrants.

No archaeological evidence of permanent Native American settlements in Wyandanch has been discovered. Native Americans hunted and gathered fruits and berries in what is now Wyandanch/[[Wheatley Heights, New York|Wheatley Heights]].

The Massapequa Indians deeded the northwest section of what now is the town of [[Babylon, New York|Babylon]] to Huntington in the Baiting Place Purchase of 1698. The northeast section of the town of Babylon "pine brush and plain" was deeded to Huntington by the Secatogue Indians in the Squaw Pit Purchase of 1699. What is now Wyandanch is located in the Squaw Pit Purchase area. Lorena Frevert reported in 1949 that in the Baiting Place Purchase the Massapequa Indians "reserved the right of fishing and 'gathering plume and hucel bearyes'."<ref>Lorena M. Frevert, "The Town of Babylon", in ''Nassau-Suffolk: Two Great Counties'', edited by Paul Bailey: Lewis Publishing, 1949:359–60.</ref>

===Colonial settlement and after===

Wyandanch (West Deer Park before 1903) evolved out of what was originally known as the Lower Half Way Hollow Hills. The area was first settled by Captain Jacob Conklin after he was given a tract of land in what is now Wheatley Heights by his father, Timothy Conklin, about 1706. Gradually, pioneers from [[Huntington, New York|Huntington]] began settling along the southern slope of the Half Way Hollow Hills as they purchased farm and forestlands from the Conklins. What is known today as Wyandanch originated with the establishment of the [[Wyandanch (LIRR station)|West Deer Park LIRR station]] in 1875. The present-day Wyandanch railroad station sits on the site of the 1875 station on the [[Long Island Rail Road]].<ref>Chauncey L.C. Ditmars, "A Story of the Conklin Family," ''Long Islander'' (Huntington) June 5, 1936: 4; Verne Dyson, ''Deer Park Wyandanch History'', 1957.</ref> Jacob Conklin's 1710 "Pirate House" was the first house built in what became the town of Babylon.<ref>Jasmin Frankel, "Teen's Eagle Scout Project Honors Lineage," ''Newsday'' online, April 5, 2011.</ref>

The LIRR built the original West Deer Park railroad station, which incorporated a post office, in May 1875 at the request of General [[James J. Casey]], a brother-in-law of President [[Ulysses S. Grant]]. Casey had purchased the {{convert|1000|acre|adj=on}} Nathanial Conklin estate in 1874, and he wanted a rail depot and post office located closer than the LIRR [[Deer Park (LIRR station)|Deer Park depot]] that had opened in 1853. The 1875 West Deer Park/Wyandanch railroad station was demolished in 1958.<ref>{{cite news |title=West Deer Park |newspaper=South Side Signal |date=June 5, 1875 |page=2}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first=Vincent P. |last=Seyfried |title=The Long Island Rail Road: A Comprehensive History: Part Three: The Age of Expansion |page=189}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first=Vincent P. |last=Seyfried |title=The Long Island Rail Road: A Comprehensive History: Part Six: The Golden Age: 1881–1890 |pages=261–2}}</ref>

The first lots were sold near the station, around the time of a Long Island land boom in 1872.<ref>{{cite news |title=Breslau! Breslau! Charles S. Schleier, Real Estate Dealer |newspaper=Brooklyn Eagle |date=December 22, 1877 |page=3}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Breslau! Breslau! Grand Excursion Monday, June 19 |newspaper=Brooklyn Eagle |date=June 6, 1878 |page=1}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=To the City of Breslau |newspaper=Brooklyn Eagle |date=July 3, 1879 |page=3}}</ref> The efforts of a local realtor successfully targeted Germans and German-Americans.<ref>{{cite news |first=Roy |last=Douglas |title=A Letter From Henry A. Brown |newspaper=Long Island Forum |date=July 1987 |page=152}}</ref>

In April 1903, the {{convert|1343|acre|adj=on}} ex-Conklin estate and historic Conklin family cemetery was sold to Bishop Charles Edward McDonnell of the [[Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn]], who resumed the bottling of spring water from the Colonial Spring. Eventually the McDonnell property became the [[Catholic Youth Organization]]'s (CYO) summer camp in Wyandanch. In 2011, 14-year-old Michael Berdon, a descendant of Jacob Conklin, restored the 257-year-old cemetery and laid a brick path approach to the gravesite with the assistance of several local businesses.<ref>"The Old Conklin Farm at West Deer Park Sold," Brooklyn Eagle, October 26, 1902: 9; "Bishop Mc Donnell Gets Conklin Estate," New York Times, April 21, 1903: 8.</ref><ref>Denise M. Bonilla, "Fixing up the Family Plot: Aspiring Eagle Scout with notable lineage restores historic cemetery," Newsday November 17, 2011: A23</ref>

On March 8, 1907, the Wyandanch post office was moved from the LIRR depot to Anthony Kirchner's General Store and Hotel on Merritt Avenue diagonally across from the railroad station.<ref>{{cite journal |first=J. Fred |last=Rodriquez |title=The Wyandanch Post Office |journal=Long Island Postal History Journal |date=Winter 1984 |pages=1–5}}</ref>

===Ethnic developments===
[[File:New York - Woodhaven through Wyandanch - NARA - 68145617 (cropped).jpg|thumb|right|Aerial view of Wyandanch in 1931]]
{{More citations needed|date=August 2020}}
Between 1880 and 1955, the dominant ethnic groups in Wyandanch were the [[German-American]]s and [[Austrian-American]]s. The earliest homes built in Wyandanch south of the LIRR were built by German and Austrian-American families. About a hundred "honest and frugal" German and Austrian-American families lived in Sheet Nine of the "City of Breslau" neighborhood as early as the 1880s. Germans and Austrians also worked in the Wyandance Brick and Terra Cotta works; prosperous German- and Austrian-Americans also lived in the hilly, secluded and sylvan Carintha Heights section, west of Conklin Street, which was developed by Brosl Hasslacher after the construction of the [[Long Island Motor Parkway]].

Beginning in the 1920s and extending into the 1930s, working-class settlers (recently arrived from [[County Donegal]] in Ireland) began building small wood-frame [[bungalow]]-type homes in the fire-prone pine barrens in Wyandance Springs Park-there were no springs, no park and no roads-and in Home Acres. Irish and Irish-American families built homes on land they had purchased in the 1920s [[real estate bubble|land bubble]] in Wyandance Spring Park or Home Acres. The newcomers wanted to escape from the crowded and economically depressed conditions in [[Manhattan]] and [[The Bronx]], and yet be within an hour's ride of the "City" on the LIRR.<ref>See "Pine Barren Pioneers," Long Island Forum, October 1982.</ref> More affluent and prominent Irish-American families in Wyandanch lived nearer the "village" in more prosperous homes with larger plots of land.{{citation needed|date=February 2022}}

[[African-American]]s have lived in Wyandanch since the 1920s, when African-American families bought plots of land and built their own homes in the "Little Farms" section of the [[West Babylon Union Free School District|West Babylon School District]] between Straight Path, Little East Neck Road and Gordon Avenue.<ref>Douglas, "Pine Barren Pioneers," Long Island Forum, December 1982</ref> In the Upper Little Farms section bounded by Straight Path, Little East Neck Road and Grunwedel Avenue (now Patton Avenue) in the Wyandanch School District pioneering upwardly mobile African-American families also began building their own homes. Mortimer Cumberbach and Ignatius Davidson opened their C and D Cement Block Corp. on Booker Avenue at Straight Path on December 6, 1928; as late as the mid-1950s, C & D Cement Block was the only large business owned and operated by African-Americans in Suffolk County.{{citation needed|date=February 2022}}

In the 1950s and 1960s, African-American families established homes south of the LIRR in the 1950s and 1960s. Many of these families—both middle class and working class—purchased homes in Wyandanch because they were denied opportunities to move into other fast-developing white housing tracts on Long Island (such as [[Levittown, New York|Levittown]]) due to exclusionist real estate practices: steering, restrictive covenants, red-lining or price points.{{Citation needed|date=July 2011}} The rapid development of Wyandanch in the 1950s as one of the largest African-American communities in Suffolk County transformed Wyandanch politically into a hamlet which by 1960 voted overwhelmingly [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic]]. In the 1950s and 1960s, the political interest of African-Americans in Wyandanch was mainly focused on winning seats on the Wyandanch Board of Education.<ref>"Non-Racial Dwellings Opened at Wyandanch," New York Times, March 11, 1951, 219; Louis B Schlivek, "Wyandanch: A Case Study in Conflict Over Subsidized Housing," in The Future of Suffolk County: A Supplement to the Second Regional Plan: A Draft For Discussion," November 1974: 52–56; Richard Koubeck, Wyandanch: A Political Profile of an African-American Suburb, 1971.</ref>

In March 1951, Taca Homes, Inc. offered expandable four-room Cape Cod style homes for sale in Wyandanch on a "non-racial" basis at the Carver Park development at Straight Path and Booker Avenue. The 59 first stage homes with basement, hot-water heat and tile baths sold for $7,200 and were eligible for [[Federal Housing Administration]] loan insurance. Veterans were told that they only need put $365 down and could have a 30-year 4% mortgage. (See Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 8, 1951) Carver Park was advertised as "interracial housing". (Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 8, 1951) Homes in the  first and second sections of Carver Park were purchased almost exclusively by African-Americans.<ref>(Long Island Star-Journal, February 20, 1953)</ref> These homes required $600 down and veterans only had to pay $58.50 per month.<ref>See New York Age, March 22, 1952</ref> The building of Carver Park and then the construction of Lincoln Park in 1956, with over 400 homes combined, triggered the transformation of Wyandanch from a mostly working class white community in 1950 to a majority working class African-American community in 1960, and in turn this caused [[white flight]]: many of the whites who lived south of the LIRR moved and lower middle class African-Americans bought or built modest, individual homes in Wyandanch Springs Park and in the "Tree streets" area east of Straight Path.{{Citation needed|date=July 2011}} In the 1960s many whites living in the Wyandanch school district #9 north of the Long Island Railroad in the Wyandanch School District also relocated.

[[Hispanic-American]] families began to settle in Wyandanch in the late 1940s since the community offered affordable housing and land, within easy commuting distance of nearby defense plants and [[Pilgrim Psychiatric Center|Pilgrim]], [[Edgewood State Hospital|Edgewood]], [[Central Islip Psychiatric Center|Central Islip]], and [[Kings Park Psychiatric Center|Kings Park]] State Psychiatric Centers - where jobs were plentiful.{{citation needed|date=February 2022}}

===1967 racial disturbances===
{{Infobox civil conflict
| title = 1967 Wyandanch riots
| partof = the [[Long, hot summer of 1967]]
| date = August 1967
| place = [[Wyandanch]], [[New York (state)|New York]], [[United States]]
| side1 = [[New York State Police]]
| side2 = rioters
}}
{{Campaignbox Long hot summer of 1967}}
The "[[Long, hot summer of 1967]]" included a reaction to racial tensions in Wyandanch. Over the first three nights of August 1967, racial disturbances broke out in Wyandanch as small groups of young African-American adults reportedly smashed windows in three stores, overturned two cars, set fire to the auditorium of the (now named) Martin Luther King, Jr. Elementary School on Mount Avenue, set fires at the Wyandanch VFW Hall and ambulance garage at South 20th Street and Straight Path, threw stones at the Wyandanch Fire House and pelted police officers with rocks and bottles.

Suffolk County officials intervened quickly and inventoried problems included joblessness, lack of bus access to area businesses and factories, a lack of recreational facilities for youth, and a lack of African-American representation in the police force.<ref>"When news of the tragic assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. reached Wyandanch on Thursday evening, April 4, 1968, residents were stunned, saddened and angered. But, there was no violence in Wyandanch—unlike the major riots which erupted in many African-American communities in the U.S. The Wyandanch School District closed classes on Friday, April 5. In the months after Dr. King's killing, numerous efforts were made to assist Wyandanch." Abraham Rabinovich, "Wyandanch Negroes Cite Recreation Need," ''Newsday'', August 5, 1966; Frances X. Clines, "Violence Strikes LI Village Again: ''New York Times'', August 3, 1967: p.18; "LI Violence in 2nd Night", ''Long Island Press'', August 3, 1967: p.1; Frances X. Clines, "Wyandanch Youths List Complaints in Move to End Strife," ''New York Times'', August 5, 1967: p.8; John Childs and Gurney Williams, "Dennison Vows Wyandanch Aid," ''Newsday'', August 10, 1967: p.3; Carole Ashkinaze and Maurice Swift, "Suffolk CORE, NAACP Plan United Effort," ''Newsday'', April 14, 1968: p.23.</ref>

As a result of the August 1967 disturbances in Wyandanch, governments, private businesses, the Wyandanch School District, community church groups and individuals, residents and non-residents acted to address the numerous problems facing the community. The U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity and its Wyandanch Community Action Center worked to improve bus routes, develop job training programs and assist the indigent with accessing government services. [[The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company]] (A&P) built a modern supermarket in downtown Wyandanch at the corner of Straight Path and Long Island Avenue. Today, this building houses Suffolk County's Martin Luther King, Jr Community Health Center. Genovese Drugs opened a modern new store on the east side of Straight Path north of the Blue Jay shopping center.

=== Failed incorporation attempts ===
In the 1950s, some or all of Wyandanch and its neighbors [[Dix Hills, New York|Dix Hills]] and [[Melville, New York|Melville]], along with the area known as Sweet Hollow, proposed to incorporate as a single village.<ref name=":0">{{Cite news|date=1955-02-06|title=HUGE NEW VILLAGE ASKED IN SUFFOLK; It Would Take in 50 Square Miles in Huntington and Babylon Townships|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1955/02/06/archives/huge-new-village-asked-in-suffolk-it-would-take-in-50-square-miles.html|access-date=2021-07-10|issn=0362-4331}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|date=1955-02-13|title=Talks on Proposed Village Due|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1955/02/13/archives/talks-on-proposed-village-due.html|access-date=2021-07-10|issn=0362-4331}}</ref> This village would have been known as the Incorporated Village of Half Hollow Hills, would have had an area of roughly {{Convert|50|mi2|km2}}, and would have embraced the [[Half Hollow Hills Central School District|Half Hollow Hills Central School District (CSD 5)]].<ref name=":0" /> The plans were unsuccessful, and each would remain unincorporated hamlets.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1">{{Cite web|title=Long Island Index: Interactive Map|url=http://www.longislandindexmaps.org/?zoom=0&x=1313564&y=266122.5&code=53264&tab=tabServiceProviders&satellite=false&landuse=true&landuseopacity=0.8&mainlayers=Fire_boundary,LIE,ParkwayMainRd,VillageBoundaryUninc,VillageBoundaryInc,TownsCities&labellayers=Fire_boundary,VillageBoundaryUninc,VillageBoundaryInc,TownsCities,LIE&serviceproviderlayers=|access-date=2021-07-10|website=www.longislandindexmaps.org}}</ref>

Wyandanch also tried incorporating as its own village in the 1980s, citing issues regarding race and neglect from the [[Town of Babylon, New York|Town of Babylon]].<ref name=":2">{{Cite news|last=Kornfeld|first=Michael|date=August 20, 1989|title=Wyandanch Seeks Vote On Incorporation as Village: Wyandanch Seeks to Incorporate Residents of black area want better representation.|work=[[The New York Times]]|via=[[ProQuest]]}}</ref><ref name=":3">{{Cite news|last=Olojede|first=Dele|date=July 15, 1989|title=Wyandanch Incorporation Gets a Boost|work=[[Newsday]]|via=[[ProQuest]]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|last=Schmitt|first=Eric|date=September 9, 1989|title=Can a Village Incorporate And Help Itself?: The question is whether breaking away will improve services.|work=[[The New York Times]]|via=[[ProQuest]]}}</ref> This village would have been known as the Incorporated Village of Wyandanch.<ref name=":2" /><ref name=":3" /> However, these plans also failed, and Wyandanch remains an unincorporated hamlet governed by the Town of Babylon.<ref name=":1" />