According to the New York Herald Tribune, Collingwood sprinkled his speech with quotes from “Alice in Wonderland” about the walrus and the carpenter weeping over sand. (FIVA later became the Fire Island Association.)Īnd then, Charles Collingwood, a well known TV personality came forth with his prepared speech. Serber and other friends then set up a new not-for-profit organization in 1961 called the Fire Island Voters Association (FIVA) with Arthur Silsdorf as President. Moses was surely not pleased, but he knew more storms were to come. In that same 1960 year, in December, Islip proposed building a paved “service road” on the island’s west end, and the FIECC stood with nearly 1,000 hardy souls at a public hearing in Ocean Beach and showed their disdain for paved roads. Some modest funds were appropriated, and then abruptly cut off soon thereafter, and we’re still “reformulating” plans today, after four decades of worsening erosion – much of it due to sand blockages to the east. Congress approved this project for the Army Corps of Engineers which included major beach nourishment in 1960. Right after the 1954-55 storm, Gil Serber formed the Fire Island Erosion Control Committee (FIECC), which became a very active group participating in lobbying for a federally supported beach erosion and hurricane protection project from Montauk Point to Fire Island Inlet. The Fire Island Association quickly lead the fight against the plan along with local groups that formed. In reality the road would have destroyed the natural resources of the island, and its natural beauty. Moses view was that the road would save the island and give access to its splendors to thousands of New Yorkers. Moreover, the cost for it’s construction would be more in the neighborhood of $120 million. ![]() In some places the road would be the entire island. With the average width of the island at only 1,000 feet, and in some places only 600 feet this meant that the road would take up most of the land where houses stood in several communities. The total width required for the road would be 875 feet. The political weight he wielded and his long record of successes helped get him support in all the right places. The powerful planner promised for $50 million he could hold back the sea by constructing an 18- foot protective dike on the island’s Oceanside on top of which would be a concrete highway to anchor it.
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