“Long Island, where every whisper of the wind carries the echoes of its legend, every tale spun weaves into its lore, and every horizon unveils the tapestry of its landscape.”
I had been fascinated with Long Island since the time I had read F. Scott Fitzerald’s ‘The Great Gatsby’. The place symbolised for me the American dream, the roaring economy, the hedonism and a fast evolving, couldn’t-care- less society of a hundred years ago. I recall this line about Jay Gatsby’s extravagant parties, “There was music from my neighbour’s house through the summer nights. In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars”.
More recently, Long Island again came back to mind as I watched that disturbing apocalyptic movie ‘Leave the world behind’. The story played out in a luxurious Long Island home with menacing deer herds symbolising a world and its technology coming apart.
So recently, when we got the opportunity of a longish break to take a vacation on Long Island, I was excited.
We drove through Manhattan and the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens on our way to Riverhead where we planned to stay. The place turned out to be a quaint town with some excellent Mexican eateries.
Riverhead is at the fork from where the East and the West fingers of the island branch out. Our room had a view onto a lake which had a surreal lustre under moonlight. As we relaxed in the evening, the conversation took a supernatural turn as it is wont to do at such times.
There is the tale of ‘Curse of The Lady of the lake’ which does the rounds in these parts. Legend has it that a Native American princess takes the life of one boy every year by drowning them in the lake, as she looks for her lost love. It is about a beautiful Indian princess who fell in love with a settler named Hugh Birdsall. Birdsall lived in a log hut and the princess was not permitted to meet him. For seven years she sent messages to him on bits of bark that floated underground from the lake to his hut. After seven years of waiting, she paddled out to the middle of the lake in her canoe. The next day the canoe carrying her dead body floated down to her lover. He leaped into the canoe and together they were swept out to sea.
Prior to the seventeenth century, Long Island had been inhabited by several Indian tribes before the European colonisers arrived. First it was the Dutch who started settling on the west side. They were soon followed by the English who initially came in on the east side but eventually took over the entire island. The English presence became so strong on the island that even during the American Revolution, while the British troops were losing ground to the American army elsewhere, they won the crucial Battle of Long Island and continued to hold sway on the island till the end of the war.
As an interesting aside, General George Washington, the Commander in Chief of the American continental army, having gained the upper hand over the British at Boston, moved his army to defend New York because of its strategic port. However, he was outmanoeuvred by the British when his troops were attacked from two sides and had to hastily retreat with his men back to Manhattan. Part of the victorious British troops was led by Charles Cornwallis. Years later though, General Cornwallis with the entire British troops surrendered to George Washington at Yorktown, marking the beginning of the end of British colonisation in America. He subsequently took over as Governor General of the Indian colony. The American war experience may have influenced Cornwallis in terms of his approach to governance in India and perhaps a desire to avoid the mistakes made in the American colonies.
As we travelled on the western finger towards the tip, the landscape transformed into vineyards and undulating woods. We took a Wine Tasting break at one of the Wineries near Peconic bay. We sat sipping some of the excellent Reserve Merlots, Chardonnays and Cabernet Sauvignons served with cheese and ham.
Looking out at the rolling vineyards and woods, we seemed to have indeed left the world behind. In our mind’s eye, we could see the herd of antlered deer looking back at us.
The next day we motored down on the east branch of Long Island. This is the part where the Rich and Famous have homes. The Hampton suburbs are dotted with colonial era and extravagant mansions. One is quite likely to come face to face with glamorous looking folks inside super markets and get tempted to pop the question, “Are you famous?” With luck, one might bump into Sarah Jessica Parker or Matthew Broderick!
Driving onwards through picture perfect suburbs, we finally reached Land’s End, the farthest point of Long Island jutting out into the Atlantic Ocean.
Montauk, named after the original Indian tribe which lived in these parts, has wonderful viewing points of the ocean apart from desolate beaches and the Montauk lighthouse. A veritable treat of a 360-degree view of the Atlantic awaited us.
Standing there, my thoughts went to The Great Gatsby’s East Egg and West Egg neighbourhoods and the lighthouse light which flashed across the bay.
Having explored Long Island and its two branches, it was time for us to get back. I was happy to have seen and experienced all that Long Island had to offer. Or so I thought!
Driving back, we noticed an exit to Amityville. The memory jangled.
The Amityville story became known across the globe with the publication of the book ‘The Amityville Horror- A True story’ half a century back, subsequently made into several movies over decades. The infamous house in Amityville is where an individual murdered six members of his family in their sleep. The Lutz family purchased and moved into the house a year later. That is when the terror began and the family had to literally run away in twenty-eight days. The Lutzs could never give details about what they faced in the house but alluded to evil spirits and demons. A priest who had been invited to bless the house was forced to leave by a deep voice telling him to ‘get out!’; later he developed high fever and blisters on his hand.
As we continued on our way back to New York city, Long Island held sway on me with the legend, lore and landscapes it had spawned.
In musing……. Shakti Ghosal
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