Sayville Today: A Look at 1945-2011

This year marks Sayville’s 250th anniversary and the community held a daylong celebration October 1 at The Common Ground. To commemorate this historic occasion Sayville Patch is running a series of stories that look back on the history of the hamlet. This seventh installment looks at the events leading up to modern day Sayville.

Up until the end of the WWII, Sayville was still a relatively small, tight knit community.

That changed as WWII came to a close. Returning GI’s needed a place to call home and with New York City literally bursting at the seams, the first suburban communities soon sprang up in Nassau, then Suffolk Counties. The LIRR and the automobile also helped grow Sayville into the community we know it as today.

Most of the Sayville residents at that time wanted a nice place to call home, a place that was not necessarily rural and not the city. Towns like Sayville fit the bill nicely. Sayville was an already established community with its own train station that went directly to the city. Sayville also had two major highways, Montauk and Sunrise, which allowed more people to commute to work.

Throughout the second half of the 20th century, housing developments sprang up all over Sayville, replacing the farms and the oyster shanties.  The nurseries died out as well, selling their land to developers as the population grew. 

As the town grew, so did its needs. The Sayville High School opened in 1958. Soon, five other schools would open up their doors as the population of Sayville swelled. With the growth in population came the need for all of the modern trappings of Suburban life, with LILCO, Bell, and SCWA providing the utilities while modern supermarkets like A&P began to compete with the much smaller businesses on Main Street.

One of the more noteworthy events to take place in Sayville during this time occurred in 1956 when the BBC, with help from Suffolk County News, spent two weeks in town filming a documentary titled, “Life in Sayville.”  This documentary was broadcast globally and letters soon came pouring in from all over the world. 

The tone of the letters was universal, as life in Sayville was very similar to their own lives, unlike the Hollywood myths they believed. In one letter, a man from a small British island mused about how he would love to someday visit Sayville. He said it seemed like a real friendly place, with wonderful people who lived in nice, well kept homes with beautiful gardens. 

Sayville today hasn’t changed all that much since that BBC show from 1956. Sure, the town has grown by leaps and bounds. Industries have come and gone, and the way people have lived has changed countless times since those very early days. If that man made the trip to Sayville today, he would see the town is still a real friendly place, with wonderful people who live in nice, well kept homes with beautiful gardens. What a great place to call home.   

David Moglia is a Sayville resident is a very keen interest in local history. He can be reached via e-mail at dlmoglia@gmail.com.

Sources:

Dickerson, Charles P. A History of the Sayville Community, including Bayport, Bohemia, West Sayville, Oakdale, and Fire Island. S.l.: S.n., 1975. Print.
"Main Street Sayville Late 1940's." VintagePostcards.org: Vintage Postcards Old Antique Postcards. Web. 15 Oct. 2011. <http://vintagepostcards.org>.