Farmingdale History Encyclopedia: L

John Alexander Lamabe was born on October 3, 1936 in Farmingdale, New York. He was raised in Farmingdale and attended Farmingdale High School where he played for the school baseball team (which also included MLB player Al Weis). Lamabe’s main position was pitcher, although he was mostly a relief pitcher. He batted and threw right-handed for his entire baseball career. He began playing in the major leagues with his debut on April 17, 1962, for the Pittsburgh Pirates. During his MLB career, he played for the Pittsburgh Pirates (1962), Boston Red Sox (1963-65), Houston Astros (1965), Chicago White Sox (1966), New York Mets (1967), St Louis Cardinals (1967), and Chicago Cubs (1968). Lamabe was a member of the St. Louis Cardinals when they won the 1967 World Series Championship. He made his last MLB appearance for the Chicago Cubs on September 22, 1968. Within 285 appearances, Lamabe tallied in 434 strikeouts.  After ending his MLB career, he went on to coach college baseball as the head coach for Jacksonville University from 1974 to 1978 and the LSU Tigers from 1979 to 1983. Also from his career, Lamabe became a member of the University of Vermont Athletic Hall of Fame and the Jacksonville University Athletic Hall of Fame.

Jack Lamabe Pitching Stats

LG = League   W = Wins   L = Loses   ERA = Earned Run Average   G = Games   GS = Games Started   CG = Complete Games   SHO = Shutouts   SV = Saves   SVO = Save Opportunities   IP = Innings Pitched   H = Hits   R = Runs   ER = Earned Runs   HR = Homeruns   HB = Hit Batsmen   BB = Bases on Balls

IBB = Intentional Bases on Balls   SO = Strikeouts   AVG = Batting Average   WHIP = Walks and Hits Per Inning Pitched

Sources:

“Jack Lamabe Stats, Fantasy & News.” MLB.com, http://m.mlb.com/player/117422/jack-lamabe?year=1967

“Jack Lamabe.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 22 Aug. 2019, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Lamabe

Henry Lammers was born in Brooklyn on August 30, 1885. He graduated from the Brooklyn College of Pharmacy in 1906. He married Helene Mehrtens in 1910. He and his wife Helen moved to Farmingdale in 1916. He purchased his drug store from Charles Loeber. The original pharmacy was located on the east side of Main Street and the family lived above the store.

After purchasing a store on the west side of Main Street, they lived on Washington Street.  The pharmacy was open 7 days a week, 8am to 11pm. In addition to it being a pharmacy, there was a cigar counter and a soda fountain. The soda fountain had a marble counter with eight stools and four tables. They only sold ice cream, and only sold Horton's ice cream. You could get malteds, ice cream soda, banana splits, and cones.  He would deliver to customers outside of Farmingdale once a week on Wednesdays, 

In the late 1920s, Lammers began sending his customers a newsletter called the "Lammers Puzzler." It contained some of his artwork, medical articles clipped from other sources, recipes, and brain teasers. Credit was a popular means of obtaining prescriptions, as was bartering. Through bartering, they were able to get their own cemetery plot in Powell Cemetery.

Lammers was a member of the Republican Party and a Master of the Bethpage Lodge 975 of the Masons.

Helene Lammers died in 1934. Henry kept the pharmacy open until 1940, when he moved to Patchogue and running a pharmacy there. He retired in 1950 and moved to Florida with his second wife Alva. Henry Lammers died in 1960.

Source:

Sharon Cerny Ogden (Henry Lammers granddaughter)

Samuel Landon enlisted on August 27, 1862 in Brooklyn, NY. He was 29 years old. He was mustered in on August 28, 1862 with the 84^h Regiment of the New York Volunteer Infantry. He served as a private in Company D. He was discharged for disability on March 31, 1863 in Belle Plains, Virginia.

Source:

New York State Military Museum

Paul Lankford was born on June 15, 1958

He attended Penn State University.  Lankford ran only track as a freshman and sophomore, hoping to qualify for the 1980 U.S. Olympic team as a hurdler. But as a junior and senior, he excelled at running and football, earning a starting job at cornerback.

He was a receiver and cornerback at Farmingdale High School, where he was a Newsday All-Long Island selection under venerable coach Don Snyder.

For more than a decade, the secondary became the primary focus in Lankford's life. He played well enough under Joe Paterno to be drafted by the Miami Dolphins in the third round of the 1982 draft and had a 10-year career that included two Super Bowl appearances.

Lankford worked under then-Jacksonville coach Tom Coughlin as director of player programs in the first two years of the expansion Jaguars' existence, but he soon tired of missing weekends with his family. A former Penn State teammate helped Lankford get a job in pharmaceutical sales for Eli Lilly and Co.

Sources:

Herzog, Bob. “Where Are They Now? Paul Lankford.” Newsday, Newsday, 22 Feb. 2014, www.newsday.com/sports/high-school/football/where-are-they-now-paul-lankford-farmingdale-1977-1.4134820

“Paul Lankford.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 31 Dec. 2018, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Lankford

Jarvis Andrew Lattin was born May 29, 1853 in Farmingdale. Lattin married Mary Jane Puckett on October 15, 1874 in Iowa. They had 11 children. 

He sold fruits and vegetables on the Long Island Railroad in 1880. In 1888, he started a pickle and sauerkraut factory in Farmingdale. The factory was sold in 1894 to Jacob Stern and became Stern's Pickle Works. He was a Deputy Sheriff in Farmingdale briefly.

Lattin moved his family to the Isle of Pines in Cuba in 1909. He left Cuba in 1924 and then moved to Florida. He died in 1942 and was buried in the Powell Cemetery. 

Source:

“Jarvis Andrew Lattin (1853-1941) .” Find a Grave, www.findagrave.com/memorial/7691994/jarvis-andrew-lattin

Mary Layton served for the 115^th Regiment of the New York Volunteer Infantry. She served as a laundress in Company E.

Source:

New York State Military Museum

Nathan J. Layton enlisted in Palatine, NY. He was 23 years old. He was mustered in on August 26, 1862 with the 115^h Regiment of the New York Volunteer Infantry. He served as a private in Company K. He was captured in action on September 15, but paroled on September 16, 1862 in Harpers Ferry, Virginia. He mustered out on May 18, 1865.

Source:

New York State Military Museum

In 1922, a syndicate of business men and real estate developers purchased the Benjamin Yoakum estate to turn it into a moderate price home colony. They also built an 18-hole golf course designed by Deveraux Emmet. Water, gas, electricity, roads, and sidewalks would be installed in this community. It was named Lenox Hills. The golf course opened in 1923 on Memorial Day. All 18 holes were open for play on August 1, 1923. Season membership was $55 at the time.  The Lenox Hills Country Club opened its doors in 1924.

In May of 1931, the New York State Park Commission asked the Board of Supervisory of Nassau & Suffolk Counties to help acquire the Yoakum estate for development as a park. The Long Island State Park Commission completed the option to purchase the land in August of 1931 and it was dissolved as its own request by April 1, 1932. The Bethpage Golf Club opened to the public April 24, 1932.

Sources:

“Home Colony to be Built at Farmingdale.” The Daily Review. May 16, 1922

"Lenox Hills Club Dissolved." Farmingdale Post. April 1, 1932

“Lenox Hills Golf Links Opened to the Public; New Name Bethpage.” The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. April 25, 1932

“Lenox Hills Links to Open 18-Hole Layout August 1^st.” The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. August 5, 1923

“Park Commission Takes Option on Yoakum Land.” The Long Islander. August 21, 1931

“Yoakum Estate Project.” The Nassau Daily Review. May 25, 1931

Abigail Eliza Leonard was born in Woodstock, Vermont, in 1852. She attended the local one-room school and later went on to earn a teaching certificate at Randolf State Normal School. She became a teaching insructor at Castleton Normal School. From 1897 until retirement in 1911, Miss Leonard taught English at Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn. Among her prominent students were Charles Skinner, later Dean of Tufts College, and Lawrence Sperry of Sperry Aviation.

She moved to Farmingdale at the age of 60 in 1912. She became acquainted with the wives of some of the prominent men in the village. With these women, The Women’s Club of Farmingdale was formed, and Leonard was named the first secretary and then became their President. As a member of the Women’s Club, she and other created the first Farmingdale Free Library in 1923.

She was the first woman trustee on the Farmingdale School District Board of Education. Leonard was instrumental in forming the school's Parent Teacher Association. Her work on the women's suffrage movement was extraordinary. She urged participation in marches and in 1917, she formed a local committee of 100 called "100 Man March," which walked to Hyde Park where President Roosevelt met with her and her constituents.

Adelphi University honored her for her work in education by naming a wing after her. She was on the committee in 1930 that chose forsythia as the flower of the Village of Farmingdale.

She died at the age of 93. In 2017, her former home on Hallock Street was granted landmark status and a historic marker was placed in front of it.  

Sources:

Abigail Leonard scrapbook compiled by Fran Rotondo

Farmingdale Junior Honor Society. Farmingdale’s Story: Farms to Flight. The Society, 1956

Ortolani, Maria. “A Piece of History for the Farmingdale Library.” Farmingdale, NY Patch, Patch, 28 Sept. 2018, patch.com/new-york/farmingdale/piece-history-farmingdale-library?fbclid=IwAR0Yh4-p-qTXs-57NLZXd5mXgzBXH4jdlUTW1DZ9Omf2wSX0ySxkEz2cSOE

Ortolani, Maria. “Historical Marker Placed at Farmingdale Suffragette's Home.” Farmingdale, NY Patch, Patch, 13 Sept. 2017, patch.com/new-york/farmingdale/historical-marker-placed-farmingdale-suffragettes-home

In 1952, the President of the Farmingdale Youth Council appointed a six-member committee to form a branch of the little league program in Farmingdale. Gene Leyendecker, a semi-pro manager was named Commissioner. The first four teams were organized in May of 1952 On June 28, 1952, opening ceremonies were held, starting with a parade.

The teams were organized into Major and Minor Leagues. About 200 boys signed up that year, with four teams in the Major League and four teams in the Minor League. Republic Aviation sponsored a team and lent the services of their recreation director Oscar Frowein.

The league caught on immediately and in the years 1962-1964, 2,400 boys enrolled in the program. In 1954, a second league was formed, known as the American league. The original group were known as the National league. Shortly after, both leagues were expanded from four teams each to six teams. A third league was formed in 1956. There were 18 teams total in the group. There were also 18 teams in the “AAA” group and Class A group.

By 1967, two programs were designated for specific age ranges. The Pony group consisted of 13 & 14 year olds, while the Colt group consisted of 15 &16 years olds. The group that controls the leagues was re-named the Farmingdale Baseball League Inc.

In 2019, there were the following groups:

Rookies for 5-6 year olds

“A” League for 7 year olds

“AA” League for 8 year olds

“AAA” for 9 & 10 year olds

Boys Juniors, Boys Seniors, and Boys Majors

There are 5 Softball Leagues starting with Farm for 5 & 6 and 7 & 8 year olds and then Girls Minors, Girls Majors, Girls Seniors, and Girls Inter-League. There is also a special league called the Greendogs. The Greendogs are comprised each year of a select group of ballplayers who not only excel on the baseball diamond, but have also shown outstanding sportsmanship, determination, and a true commitment to the Game. The Baseball groups range from 7-13 year olds and the Softball groups range from 8-16 year olds.

Sources:

“Little League Program Organized in 1952.” Farmingdale Observer. April 6, 1967.

“Farmingdale Baseball  League.” https://fdalebaseball.com

Brooklyn Polytechnic opened a Long Island Graduate Center on Route 110 in 1961. The center cost $1,7500,00. The main structure was a combination of one and two-story building with nine classrooms, administrative offices, a library, lounge, dining area, and research laboratories. It covered 53,000 square feet of floor space. The 12,000 foot annex had three labs for research in high power electronics and hypersonic aerodynamics.

Ground was broken for the school in fall of 1960. Land for the center was donated by Republic Aviation. The curricula included study leading to master’s and doctorate degrees in astronautics, electrical and mechanical engineering, electrophysics, physics, and mathematics.

In 1973, the New York University School of Engineering and Science merged into Polytechnic and the school was renamed the Polytechnic Institute of New York. The Institute began offering undergraduate programs in1974. As a result of institutional realignment the Long Island Campus closed May 2014.

Sources:

“Farmingdale Site Picked for Engineering School.” L. I. Daily Press. August 28, 1960

“LI Gets First Engineers grad School.” L. I. Daily Press. August 27, 1961

“School Profile.” School Profile - New York University Tandon School of Engineering - Acalog ACMSTM, bulletin.engineering.nyu.edu/content.php?catoid=15&navoid=1240. Accessed 6 Oct. 2023

In 1906, William K. Vanderbilt Jr., J. P. Morgan, Henry Ford, Jacob Aster, August Hecksher, August Belmont, and some others formed the Long Island Motor Parkway. Their intent was to build a one hundred foot wide roadway from Queens to Riverhead. The Parkways had 65 bridges and banked turns that would allow speeds up to 60mph. It was the first United States road that was devoted exclusively to automobiles and the first constructed of concrete.

Ground was broken in 1904 and in 1908, nine miles had been completed from Westbury to Bethpage. The original plans had the Parkway run out to Riverhead, but they were shelved when land could not be acquired. Vanderbilt spent $5 million to fund purchasing the rights-of-way. In addition, the Long Island Motor Parkway Corporation sold bonds. When it was completed, the parkway cost an estimated $10 million.

The Parkway was noted for its twelve toll lodges, which included living quarters for the toll takers and their families. The lodges were designed by famed architect John Russell Pope. The lodges were all two-story cottages that had an office, a kitchen, a living room, and two bedrooms. The Garden City Toll Lodge is the only toll lodge left in its original condition. It is the home of the Garden City Chamber of Commerce. After the Parkway closed, the toll taker at the Garden City station purchased the building and used it as his family's residence for 30 years. It passed many hands until the late 1980s. The Garden City Chamber of Commerce then learned that the owners were going to tear the lodge down. The owner was asked if he would be willing to donate the building if the Chamber moved it and the owner agreed. In 1988, the Village Board agreed to make space in a parking field southeast of Seventh Street. The Chamber uses a portion of the lodge wile the rest is a Vanderbilt Motor Parkway museum that is open to the public.

Toll prices ranged from $2 in 1908 and went down to 40 cents in 1933. During Prohibition, it became known as a rumrunners road since bootleggers found it to be the quickest and fasted way to deliver liquor and it was not watched by police. By 1924, as many as 150,000 cars a year travelled the Parkway. 

When Jericho Turnpike paving was complete and the Northern State Parkway built, the road was doomed. By 1929, the taxes became burdensome to Vanderbilt. In 1938, he signed the ownership of the road to Queens, Nassau, and Suffolk Counties in exchange for cancelling the tax bill. Only sections of the Parkway still exist. A piece crossed Deer Park Avenue, one at the I.U. Willets pass, and some in Suffolk County. 

Vanderbilt created the Vanderbilt Motor Cup Race in 1904. Vanderbilt donated a trophy created by Louis Tiffany that was large enough to hold 35 gallons of champagne. The race was 30 miles long and was one of the most prestigious at the time. Upwards of 100,000 people would come to watch the race. It was first held on public roads until protests forced the Automobile Club of America to refuse to hold the races. It was then Vanderbilt began to create the Parkway. The races in 1908-1910 were run only partly on the Parkway. The races remained on Long Island until 1910 when protests of residents led by farmers angered by the number of their cows killed during the race forced it to relocate. This an a the 1910 race that left four dead and twenty injured led to the race being shut down on Long Island. It kept running in other locations until 1918. 

Sources:

Allison, David W. Jr. and Egan, Dennis. "A History of the Vanderbilt Motor Parkway and the Garden City Toll Lodge." Bayside Times Publishing Corp.

Berliner, Sam. "The Long Island Motor Parkway."  The Freeholder. Winter, 2000

Dudar, Helen. "Motor Parkway Pioneered U.S. Auto Travel." Newsday. November 15, 1951

Famighetti, Jeri. "Vanderbilt Parkway, A First in the United States." LI Heritage. June 1982

Gibbs, Iris and Alonzo. Harking Back. Kinsman Publications, 1983

Peracchio, Adrian. "Traces of a Glory Road." Newsday. July 11, 1978

Wines, Roger. "Vanderbilt's Motor Parkway: America's First Auto Road." The Journal of Long Island History. Fall, 1962.

The only federal cemetery in the area, Cypress Hills National Cemetery in Brooklyn, established in 1862, had limited acreage available for burials. In response, in 1936 Congress authorized the Secretary of War to purchase suitable land to enlarge the existing cemetery. After considerable research and numerous site investigations, the War Department instead purchased 175 acres from Pinelawn Cemetery for the construction and development of a new national cemetery.

The lack of available gravesites in Cypress Hills National Cemetery made it necessary to develop the new facility rapidly, and the land was sufficiently cleared to permit the first burials in March 1937. Moreover, between March and November that year, a total of 426 interments were made. During its first eight years, Long Island National Cemetery held 10,167 interments.

The section of the cemetery containing World War II POWs includes the graves of 37 Germans and 54 Italians. The remains of the 36 unknown Italian POWs are interred in a single mass grave; they were among 1,800 prisoners on board a British ship en route from northeast to northwest Algeria when a torpedo struck the ship. Many prisoners confined in the holds were injured, killed outright, or drowned. The initial search of the ship failed to locate all casualties, and after the ship returned to the United States, the remains of another 36 prisoners were recovered.

A granite memorial to Fallen Comrades of Nassau & Suffolk Counties was erected around 1940.  Two memorials have been installed since 2000: Chosin Few Memorial (Korea) and the AMVETS All Veterans Memorial

Among the interments in Long Island National Cemetery are 39 group burials containing the remains of 112 veterans. For these individuals, the circumstances of death were such that their remains could not be identified for separate burials. These honored dead, who fought and died together, are united once more in the many group burials. Specially designed government headstones bearing their names, ranks, and dates of death designate the burial places of these dead. The largest group burial in the cemetery is one in which the individually unidentifiable remains of ten servicemen are interred. This group burial is the final resting place of three officers, one technical sergeant, two sergeants, and four corporals, all members of the U.S. Army Air Corps, who died together during World War II on May 4, 1945.

Another group burial marks the final resting place of four American servicemen and two members of the British Armed Forces. Their plane crashed in the Burmese jungle in April 1945, and attempts to locate the wreckage were fruitless. It was not until 1957 that the Army, acting upon information supplied by Burmese tribesmen who had found a wreck in the jungle, finally discovered the place and its ill-fated passengers. After an agreement with the families of the deceased were made, the remains of the six men were interred on Feb. 5, 1958 in Section M, Grave 27188.

In 1948 the remains of 16 Civil War soldiers of the 14th Rhode Island Heavy Artillery were removed from the cemetery at Fort Greble, R.I., and reinterred in Long Island National Cemetery. Additional burials were made in 1952 when 104 remains from Fort McKinley, Maine, were reinterred.

Source:

Long Island National Cemetery 

Frank Looney was born in 1916 in Plainview, New York.  His family moved to Bethpage in 1923.  Frank attended St. Ignatius School and then Farmingdale High School. He graduated St. John’s Law School in 1940.

Looney was drafted in 1941 and reported for basic training in 1942. His investigative abilities were soon recognized and he was assigned to military intelligence. He was assigned to the Army Counter-Intelligence Corps in Algiers in 1943.  His training was put to use ferreting our spies and counter-espionage agents whose activities were damaging the Allied war effort. His most exciting case was the Carla Costa affair. According to master spy-catcher Colonel Stephen Spingarn, Carla Costa was one of the best spies of the German spy network. When she was captured, she was enroute to Rome to gather top level political and military intelligence. While her actual arrest was uneventful, she refused to confess, even after five days of intensive questioning. She mentioned her parents in Rome and Colonel Spingarn sent Special Agent Looney to find them and gain their cooperation. Looney was able to get a full report from them and another spy that detailed how she was trained and briefed for her missions. Upon hearing her parent’s report, Carla made a full confession, giving a detailed account of German intelligence at its highest levels.

Looney returned home in 1946. He then began his meteoric career in the Nassau County Police Department. He began his career as a patrolman in the then 2^nd District in Old Brookville. By that October, Looney made detective and in 1947, he passed the sergeant’s test and was assigned to the 3^rd Precinct in Mineola. In 1949, he was made legal advisor to Chief of Staff Andrew N. Kirk.

In 1950, Looney was promoted to lieutenant in 1950, captain in May 1954, and deputy inspector in October 1954. On January 1, 1956 he was promoted to inspector and then to chief of district for all uniformed police. He was named chief inspector in 1961.

On October 31, 1964, Commissioner James J. Kelly was involved in a near-fatal automobile accident. Looney was asked to assume command on November 10 as acting police commissioner. The next year, Kelly resigned and Looney became Nassau County Police Department’s next commissioner. He served in this role for five years. His proudest accomplishment, was offering college training to all NCPD personnel. After his stint at NCPD, Looney was named assistant to the police commissioner of the New York City Police Department and then deputy police commissioner. He helped streamline the criminal justice system in New York City and introduced cost-efficient administrative and operational improvements which saved taxpayers millions of dollars per year.

In 1992, he received the President’s Medal from Niagara University, their highest honor for extraordinary community service. He served as a consultant advisory to the New York State Director of Criminal Justice in 1993.

Looney died in 2013 at the age of 96.

Source:

Notes from Edward J. Thompson

John Lorentz graduated Farmingdale High School in 1971. After his graduation, John joined the US Army National Guard. After completing his service, he attended NYIT, where he received a BS in Accounting. He received an MBA in Finance from CW Post University.

He became Assistant Superintendent of Business in 2001 before becoming Superintendent in 2006. He retired in 2018. Lorentz served as a member of the Legislative Committee of the Nassau County Council of School Superintendents.

Source:

“Superintendent John Lorentz Retires from the Farmingdale School District.” Our Schools, Spring 2018.