[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 86 (Thursday, May 24, 2018)]
[House]
[Pages H4725-H4726]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     GLEN COVE'S 350TH ANNIVERSARY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Gaetz). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 3, 2017, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Suozzi) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. SUOZZI. Mr. Speaker, today marks the 350th anniversary of the 
founding of my hometown, Glen Cove, New York, on May 24, 1668. Earlier 
this year, we also celebrated the 100th anniversary of Glen Cove's 
designation as a city.
  I love Glen Cove. I served as the city's mayor from 1994 to 2001. My 
father, Joseph, an Italian immigrant and an American success story, was 
the first Suozzi to serve as mayor from 1956 to 1960.
  My uncle, Vincent, also known as Jimmy Suozzi, was the second. He 
served from 1973 to 1979 and again from 1984 to 1987. The most recent 
Suozzi to serve as mayor, my cousin Ralph served from 2006 to 2013.
  In fact, in the 100 years since Glen Cove became a city, a Suozzi has 
served as mayor for 32 years. We Suozzis have devoted a great deal of 
our lives to serving the city we love, and we have been repaid with the 
satisfaction of knowing our friends, neighbors, and family will 
continue to strive to work to ensure our best days are still yet to 
come.
  Glen Cove was the first industrial center of Long Island. The 
Carpenter, Simkin, and Cole families purchased over 2,000 acres of 
waterfront property overlooking Hempstead Harbor and the Long Island 
Sound from the Native American Matinecock Tribe.

                              {time}  1100

  There they built a lumber mill and a gristmill powered by the fresh 
water of Glen Cove Creek.
  Originally named Musketa Cove, which means ``a place of rushes'' in 
the Matinecock language, Musketa Cove went on to become one of the top 
four ports for smuggling on Long Island, as no one wanted to pay the 
English taxes on brandy, rum, and wine.
  The area grew with professional craftsmen, weavers, carpenters, wool 
spinners, tailors, millers, and shipbuilders. Corn farming developed in 
the surrounding area.
  A second major industry began in the early 1800s when Dr. Thomas 
Garvie discovered massive clay deposits and began to mine and ship the 
clay to potteries in New York City and elsewhere on Long Island. Dr. 
Garvie also began a daily steamship operation between Glen Cove and New 
York City that began to attract residents looking to escape the city's 
sweltering summer heat.
  Tourism-minded residents started to worry that the name Musketa Cove

[[Page H4726]]

sounded too much like mosquito cove, and, in 1834, they changed the 
name to Glen Cove. It worked. By the mid-1850s tourism was booming with 
daily steamship operations, leading to the development of six major 
hotels, taverns, and boarding houses.
  A new industry emerged. The Duryea Starch factory took advantage of 
the fresh water, the gristmills, and the plentiful corn and became one 
of the world's largest starch factories. In fact, in 1878, Duryea won 
the Paris Gold Medal for the best starch in the world. Industry 
flourished, tourism flourished, and Glen Cove began to attract more 
attention.
  In the early 1900s, some of the wealthiest families in the world made 
Glen Cove their home. J. P. Morgan, the wealthy financier, who bailed 
out the U.S. Government; F. W. Woolworth, the founder of the original 
five-and-dime department store, whose marketing began the 
commercialization of Christmas gift giving; and the Pratt family, who 
amassed their fortune by controlling the kerosene market and, 
ultimately, merging with John D. Rockefeller to form Standard Oil, all 
built their massive summer estates in Glen Cove, leading to the moniker 
of the ``Gold Coast.''
  Between the industries that flourished on the waterfront and the Town 
& Country magazine rated Gold Coast estates, Glen Cove with its vibrant 
downtown of merchants was booming. Immigrants from all over the world 
and America flocked to the area to work at the starch factory, or the 
Ladew Leatherworks that tanned hides to be used for industrial belts. 
Immigrants like my grandfather and father from Italy, and others from 
Ireland, Poland, Germany, and elsewhere, worked not only in the 
factories, but in the gardens, kitchens, pantries, and garages of the 
Gold Coast estates. African Americans from the South migrated to the 
area and found work, many as experts training and caring for 
thoroughbreds and polo ponies.
  Around 1917, Glen Cove residents, who saw the economic vibrancy from 
the estates, the factories, and the vibrant downtown, populated by 
Jewish, Italian, and English merchants, no longer wished to share their 
plentiful property and sales tax dollars with the town of Oyster Bay, 
under whose jurisdiction Glen Cove existed as a village. Community 
leaders worked with the State legislature and the Governor to break off 
and become Long Island's first city.
  Glen Cove has traveled a long journey. Its population exploded, as 
did much of Long Island, with veterans returning from World War II.
  Its industrial vibrancy, which went on to include Li Tungsten, a 
munitions factory; Mattiace Petrochemical; Columbia Ribbon and Carbon; 
Powers Chemco; Konica; and Photocircuits, a circuit board manufacturer, 
all left behind a negative environmental legacy that the City has now 
cleaned up as it moves forward to a new age of development and 
waterfront revitalization.
  With hundreds of acres of publically-owned nature preserves, three 
public beaches, golf courses, a fishing pier, and multiple ballfields 
and parks, Glen Cove has been restored to a waterfront community with a 
short commute to Manhattan that once attracted some of the wealthiest 
families in the world.
  Unlike much of Long Island, that is either all rich or all poor, or 
all Black or all White, or all this or all that, Glen Cove remains a 
diverse community with the wealthiest of the wealthy and a large supply 
of low-income housing that is anchored by a solid middle class. It is 
home to over 60 ethnicities: two Catholic churches, two Baptist 
churches, two Jewish synagogues. It also has houses of worship for 
African Methodist Episcopalians, Lutherans, Methodists, Episcopalians, 
and Evangelicals. The Presbyterian church is one of the most beautiful 
architectural marvels of the City. Glen Cove is also home to a Russian 
Orthodox church, a Sikh gurdwara, Jehovah's Witnesses, and several 
Latino churches.
  Many movies, television shows, and commercials have been filmed in 
Glen Cove, including Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest, starring 
Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint; and Sabrina, starring Audrey Hepburn, 
William Holden, and Humphrey Bogart. In fact, as mayor, I met Harrison 
Ford while filming the remake of Sabrina with Julia Ormond and Greg 
Kinnear. I met Michael Douglas while filming A Perfect Murder, and told 
him how his dad, Kirk Douglas, had filmed A Lovely Way to Die in the 
1960s in Glen Cove. A former Pratt estate, now the Webb Institute of 
Naval Architecture, was stately Wayne Manor in Batman Forever. A host 
of other movies, such as Annie Hall, Hair, Eyes Wide Shut, and one 
obscure favorite, A New Leaf, were all filmed in Glen Cove as well.
  Famous historical figures called Glen Cove home. Bobby Kennedy 
resided in Glen Cove when he ran for United States Senator of New York. 
Jackie Kennedy called West Island home after the President had been 
shot.
  The first female congresswoman from New York was Ruth Baker Pratt. 
Baseball legends, including Roy Campanella, Whitey Ford and, more 
recently, Yoenis Cespedes of the New York Mets. Billy Joel spent a 
short time in Glen Cove. And Ashanti grew up in Glen Cove--I attended 
her sweet 16 birthday party--while many other artists record here 
regularly at Cove City Sound Studios.

  And Sergeant Major Dan Daly, a marine, is one of only 19 men in U.S. 
history, in our entire Nation, to have received the Medal of Honor, 
twice.
  Many of the old estates have been repurposed, including Killenworth, 
a former Pratt estate that served as the home of the Soviet Ambassador 
of the United Nations, and still serves the Russian Ambassador. Nikita 
Khrushchev visited the estate after pounding his shoe on the lectern at 
the United Nations back in the 1960s. Welwyn, another former Pratt 
estate, is a 200-acre nature preserve and serves as the Nassau County 
Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center.
  Not every Glen Cover has a boldface name, but every Glen Cove 
resident contributes in their own unique way to the community: the 
first responders, the business owners, and the volunteers; the elected 
officials, city employees, the coaches, and the moms and dads; the 
teachers, preachers, and the gadflies that show up at the city council 
meetings; the world-class restauranteurs and bakers, the 
multigenerational shop owners, and the too many to mention fraternal 
and service organizations. Glen Cove is alive and will continue long 
after these words are forgotten.
  As I said, I love Glen Cove and Glen Cove is why I love America. It 
has diversity. It has history. And it has wonderful people.
  Glen Cove has offered opportunity to so many families, including 
mine. It is what makes America great.
  E pluribus unum, ``out of many one.''
  Glen Cove has every type of ethnicity, religion, and income group. It 
enjoys low crime, low unemployment, and a robust community life. It 
works and it will continue to work.
  Happy anniversary and congratulations to my friends and neighbors. 
God bless our warm city with the cool sound, and God bless the United 
States of America.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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