On Long Island

I've assembled some helpful resources about Long Island, where I've lived and worked for most of my life. If you've never been, I hope you will consider coming for a visit to enjoy our beautiful beaches and charming towns and villages. If you call the first district of New York on Long Island home, then I hope you will join me in working to protect our environment and keep our economy and communities strong.

Suffolk County is located in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2000 census, the population was 1,419,369. It was named for the county of Suffolk in England, from which its earliest settlers came. The county seat is Riverhead, though many county offices are in Hauppauge on the west side of the county where most of the population lives. There are also offices in Smithtown, for the legislature, Yaphank, and Farmingville.

Suffolk and Nassau counties together are generally referred to as "Long Island" by area residents — as distinct from the New York City boroughs of Queens (Queens County) and Brooklyn (Kings County), which physically make up the island's westernmost end.

The district's quaint historic villages, rocky north shore beaches and calm waters, the white sand and breakers off Fire Island, and the dependable winds and safe harbors for sailing make tourism a major local industry. Farming has long been a staple of eastern Long Island commerce, although strawberries, cabbage, potatoes, pumpkins and sod acres are giving way to horse farms and vineyards. In the 1930s the County became the site of large-scale suppliers to the U.S. defense and aerospace industries. For example, Grumman Corporation played an important role in developing high-technology jet planes, such as the Navy F14 fighter, as well as the lunar module (LEM) which first landed men on the moon in 1969. After World War I, Brookhaven National Laboratory, a research institution administered by Associated Universities Inc. and funded by the Federal Government, was established on the site of Camp Upton in Yaphank. Its scientists develop peaceful uses of atomic energy. High technology centers make Suffolk County sixth in the nation in the production of radio and television communications equipment and aircraft manufacture.

Since World War II, Long Island has epitomized the phenomenon of growing suburbia. In 1955, mass-produced housing developments, along with new major institutions of learning, contributed to Suffolk County's population explosion. Foremost among the latter is the State University of New York at Stony Brook, which opened on a 1000-acre campus in 1962. Its Health Science Center and 18-story University Hospital became Long Island's tallest buildings in 1976. For some, the Island's bucolic pleasures are offset by new problems accompanying population growth: disappearing farms replaced by housing developments, strip-zoning along once pastoral roads, dependence on the automobile, overcrowded roadways, possible effects of pollution of inland and coastal waters, and mounting waste-disposal needs.

Long Island's leading newspaper, Newsday, founded by Alicia Paterson in 1940 in Hempstead, started a Suffolk edition in 1944. The paper features investigative news coverage of local public officials and institutions, up-to-the-minute sports, and coverage of world and national affairs.

(Source: www.co.suffolk.ny.us)