Sayville

"Very nice station. For wheelchair accessibility, you can go up a ramp since the station doesn’t have an elevator."

"Sayville, originally a fishing village, still thrives since my family moved here from Queens in 1962. St.Lawrence the Martyr Church is where most of us worshipped, or perhaps the Dutch Reformed Church which was a close distance nearby. "Dutch" is actually a euphemism for "German", which in the 1950s was the majority nationality of this hamlet. The old windmill to the west, or "West Sayville", next to Oakdale was used to grind wheat and corn which was plentiful back then...as were the oak trees which were cut down to build area homes. In 1957, much of this area was developed a decade after the end of World War Two. Levittown was the first planned "development" on Long Island, then came West Sayville. Returning WWII veterans moved into new brick buildings bordering what is now called Laguardia Airport. The farms became neighborhoods. Moving to "the country" was considered upward mobility because you rid yourself of needing to pay a "landlord". Sayville dates back two hundred plus years before that, but this was the next major area for immigration. Invariably, going to market meant the Sayville docks where you bought your seafood from the fishmongers, and the merchants along Main Street where you purchased farm goods, hardware items, lumber, and the like. When I was a kid, the nearest supermarket was a long walk to Oakdale or Sayville. Tom's Barbershop near the Sayville Firehouse is where you received a "crew-cut". You went to John's Bargain Store for inexpensive goods, especially school clothes. There was a cobbler who made custom shoes at his shop across from the Sayville railroad station. Pro Keds "high tops" from John's were the sneakers required for gym class after President Kennedy pushed for his National Fitness program. Billy Blake's Department Store on Sunrise Highway is where all kinds of things could be bought. With my Newsday paper route money I bought an albino rabbit for five dollars at Billy Blake's. On Sundays, the parking lot was used to learn to drive because "Blue Laws" forbade businesses to be open on the day of worship. This is when the women were able to get their own cars because the area became more affluent and the men travelled further towards the city to work. Before that, my Mom, sister and I walked everywhere. The twin boys named O'Connell were driven to school every day by Yellow Taxi. They must have been wealthy because no other kids had this privelege at Cherry Avenue Elementary School. What Sayville has is direct access to the Great South Bay. The docks have been rebuilt several times from the many hurricanes that have wreaked havoc on this area since the 1700's. The heartbeat of the population emanated from the hard-working, blue-collar class that founded the town. But Sayville is not the buildings. It is the memories of what once was and the founding families who established it and their descendants who still live here. In my mind, if your roots are not from the 1950's as former city dwellers, you are an "outsider" and cannot grasp the concept of real country living, when the times were simpler, and there were no damn Yuppies. My views have considerably softened over the years, but I still detest the population explosion in Sayville and the wealth that has caused Sayville to lose its quaint feeling and innocence. I may have been around the world in the NAVY, but this is still my home, forever in my heart."

"Beautiful clean station"

"Small station waiting room, not many frills, often presentable in appearance. It it close by merchants, the movie theater, eateries, restaurant and public library."

"Easy shuttles for $5 to the ferry for the Pines."