Could everyone write one simple essay about something that once happened in Saltaire…that they saw or were a part of…and put it on one big website? Somebody should collect a lot of stories before we all forget. Otherwise it is like a line in “On The Beach” : The history of the war that now would never be written.” -(JO'H)

Saturday, May 3, 2008

Editors needed

Here is where we could use help. Can anyone stich any of these great postcard images together to get a sense of the antedeluvian bayfront?





Pictures courtesy Justin Zizes. Casino picture courtesy Frank Mina

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

The photos were before the bayfront was dredged...and I distinctly remember standing by the huge pipes dumping sand (and crabs, and clams, and fish, etc.) with my brother as they built up the bulkhead to protect the bayfront. The dredging was probably 1953 to 1955 before there was a problem with the DEC.
Jeff

Anonymous said...

Whenever the Village brought in dredges before 1961,(and that was frequently) private landowners could arrange for the dredging company to pump onto their property.

The March storm in 1961 so devastated the beach that the village had a dredge in the Cove pumping up to the ocean beach all spring. The O'Hares arranged for a tap into the pipeline and they raised about 20 lots by a couple of feet.

Dredges pumped sand and water, and clams and lots of fish, and anything else on the bay bottom, all of which would come pouring out of the spout of the pipe. For a couple of hours, the sand was so mixed with water it was like quicksand. It made for a great playground for kids, none of whom ever were buried in the quicksand, despite stern admonitions from the Dredge crew.

There was a thicket of bushes and brush where the payground is now until 1954 (or 1953). The Village cleared that area and then pumped in the sand, raising the level a couple of feet.

They dredge filled the bayfront a number of times as they built up the bulkheads.


Who recalls what years each section of Bay Prom were converted from board to sidewalk???


Who can recall who built the boardwalk from the east end of Bay Prom to the Scheurger (later Henry Weiss) house,and why he had to build it????

Anonymous said...

Anonymous and JOH stated that the dredges pumped all sorts of items(clams, fish, sand, water) from the bay bottom. Were the sun bleached bones of Capt Baldwin amongst the artifacts?

Anonymous said...

They found the bones of Captain Murdock and an indication that he had perished, not by a gunshot wound, but by a throat cut by a clam knife.