Episode 180: Larry Samuel and Making Long Island

The Long Island History Project

Larry Samuel is an author and historian whose latest book looks at the development of Long Island throughout the 20th Century. It was a time of land speculation and rapid growth as real estate developers and their syndicates turned the fields and farms of Nassau and Suffolk Counties into residential neighborhoods. We discuss the role of Robert Moses in abetting this transformation as well as the high (and low) water mark of William Levitt's Levittown that attracted crowds of white homeowners while excluding Blacks in the 1950s.

Throughout the book, Larry tracks the Island's social and economic landscape with photographs, statistics, and contemporary accounts. A complex picture emerges of a place so successfully marketed as an idyllic countryside that it was almost developed out of existence.

Further Research

• Making Long Island: A History of Growth and the American Dream (History Press) by Larry Samuel
• James Trunslow Adams: Dreaming up the American Dream (JSTOR)
• Dividing Lines, Visible and Invisible (Newsday)
• Audio Footnotes from past episodes
  • Sandy Brewster-walker, whose father poured cement for "old man Levitt."
  • Murray Barbash, Fire Island-based, environmentally friendly home builder