We introduce to our readers this week, and to posterity, our Centennial edition. It was with a great sense of history and responsibility that we undertook this project. We recognized that documenting history is an task that must be accompanied by deep research and painstaking accuracy and that it should, additionally, be lively and interesting. We attempted to do that by reaching out to many within the community who had much to offer and by poring over the accounts of the friendly Village by the Bay in old newspapers, records and documents. Home, however, is really where the heart is and by exploring Amityville s past we have been able to feel, more resoundingly, its pulse in the present.
Friendliness abounds and warmth comes with understanding.
We also felt very humble. There is a sense of perspective you get when you go through history and peer at the faces of those who have gone before you. There was a personal journey we also took. More than 40 years ago, Publisher Carolyn James spent summers in a home on Lake and Oak streets on the border of Amityville. There was the Bohacks on Broadway, the movie theater, the ice cream parlor, the long walk on hot summer days along Lake Street, then a dirt road, to the swimming hole on Merrick Road.