FOR 78 years, the Jones Beach water tower has been a Long Island landmark — standing 231 feet high in the center of a landscaped traffic circle at the approach to Jones Beach along the Wantagh Parkway and visible to beachgoers from miles away.
But the brick and limestone tower, which houses a 315,000-gallon tank to store water from three 1,000-foot-deep wells, is deteriorating.
George Gorman, deputy director for the Long Island region of the State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, said there are cracks in the bricks — some small, others 20 feet long. The tower has been barricaded by a fence and scaffolding since 2002 to protect employees, he said.
“An indentation on one side of the bricks looks as if something hit into it, and the steel frame that supports the tank is falling apart,” Mr. Gorman said.
Now, thanks to $3.2 million appropriated by the State Legislature, the water tower will get a face-lift, beginning this summer, which is expected to take from 18 months to two years. The money is part of $130 million in the state budget for repairs, maintenance and upgrades at state parks. Of the total, Long Island received $28 million.
Carol Ash, the state parks commissioner, said that this is the most money the parks have ever received for repairs and maintenance, and that projects were planned at every park. In choosing the projects, the first priorities were health and safety, she said.
“Our state parks have been hurting from an infrastructure point of view for a long time,” Ms. Ash said. “These projects are vital to keep the parks in working order and for the public to be able to enjoy all that they have to offer.”
Built in 1930, the water tower was modeled on the campanile of St. Mark’s Cathedral in Venice and supervised by Robert Moses, then the president of the Long Island State Parks Commission. In the center of a traffic circle that Mr. Moses planned as a terminus for the Wantagh State Parkway, he ordered the construction of an Italianate-style tower to serve as a central feature of the park.
The tower, which has never been open to the public, supplies the water for the entire park, including the Jones Beach Theater, swimming pools, restrooms and bathhouses.
The money earmarked for the tower will be used to replace its copper roof, the structural steel framing and portions of the brick and limestone. Work will be done by Minelli Construction, of Islandia. The work at Jones Beach also includes repairing the two-mile boardwalk, lighting the two softball fields and upgrading one restroom.
Jones Beach State Park, in the hamlet of Wantagh, was named after Maj. Thomas Jones of Massapequa, a Long Island landowner in the early 1700s. The park includes 10 miles of beaches, an outdoor theater, two pools, four basketball courts, a four-mile bike path, four fishing piers and 22 shuffleboard courts. More than eight million people a year visit the park.
State Senator Charles J. Fuschillo Jr., whose district includes Jones Beach, said that while it was a challenge to secure the money during such difficult economic times, “it was critical to preserve the historical nature of the Jones Beach water tower.”
“The bricks are literally falling down,” he said. “If we don’t restore it, the tower will fall apart.”
SOURCE: NYTIMES
The park was created during the administration of Robert Moses as President of the Long Island State Park Commission (for which he wrote the legislation in 1923) as part of the development of parkways on Long Island. Moses's first major public project, Jones Beach State Park, is considered to be one of the most beautiful parks in the world, free from housing developers and private clubs, and instead is open for the general public. Several homes on High Hill Beach were barged further down the island to West Gilgo Beach to make room for the park. When Moses's group first surveyed Jones Island, it was swampy and only two feet above sea level. The island would frequently become completely submerged during storms. To create the park, huge dredgers worked day and night to bring up sand from under the ocean, eventually bringing the island to twelve feet above sea level. Another problem that followed was the wind - the beach sand would blow horribly, making the workers miserable, and making the use of the beach as a recreational facility unlikely. The builders discovered that the secret to beach stability was the beach grass, whose roots would grow sideways and hold dunes in place, forming a barrier to the wind. In the summer of 1928 thousands of men worked on the beach planting the grass by hand. Built in the 1920s, many of its buildings and facilities feature Art Deco architecture. In the center of a traffic circle that he planned as a terminus for the Wantagh State Parkway, Moses ordered the construction of an Italianate-style water tower to serve as a central feature of the park. The park opened to the public on August 4, 1929, along with the causeway that provided automobile access from the mainland of Long Island. The causeway was the first section in what was to become the Wantagh State Parkway.
The primary buildings on the Jones Beach site are the two enormous bathhouses (west and east) and the 231-foot (70 m) water tower, all built to Moses's specifications. After rejecting a number of submissions by architects for the bathhouses, he selected the designs of the young and relatively inexperienced Herbert Magoon. Moses also picked out building materials - Ohio Sandstone and Barbizon Brick - two of the most expensive materials available
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