Lindbergh Flight Liftoff Recognition Starts To Soar

WESTBURY, NY — On an unmarked, pothole-riddled road that abuts parking lots and the back of commercial buildings lies a monument that is equally unassuming, given the significance of the event it memorializes.

The approximately 5.5 x 8.5-foot concrete relief sculpture marks where Charles Lindbergh and his plane, christened the Spirit of St. Louis, first went airborne en route to Paris, the first nonstop transAtlantic flight in 1927.

For more than 10 years, Salisbury resident Adam Sackowitz has worked to bring greater recognition to the site behind Samanea New York mall on Transverse Road in Westbury, commemorating the most important aeronautics feat after the Wright Brothers manned the first heavier-than-air motorized flight near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, in 1903.

In 2012, Sackowitz was a 20-year-old undergraduate majoring in American studies at Hofstra University when he single-handedly spearheaded efforts to have the Town of Hempstead place a historical marker at the site that once was part of Roosevelt Field airfield. Today, he remains determined to bring to the site everything from a New York State marker to a statue of Lindbergh to a street renaming to further honor the aviator on the 100th anniversary of his trailblazing flight in 2027.

"At that time, Lindberg and the site were a big focus for me," said Sackowitz, who has since taken a great interest in astronaut John Glenn. "Living in Salisbury, next to Westbury, and knowing he took off from around that area, flying right overhead, really inspired me."

Sackowitz's fascination with Lindbergh led him to read several books about the heroic aviator, including "The Flight: Charles Lindbergh's Daring and Immortal 1927 Transatlantic Crossing" by Dan Hampton. Another author, Westbury resident Richard Panchyk, who has written such books as "Roosevelt Field Through Time" (with a forward by Reeve Lindbergh, the aviator’s daughter) and "A History of Westbury Long Island," shares Sackowitz's surprise that a site of such significance hasn't received more recognition.

"It's very unassuming considering what it is commemorating," Panchyk said of the monument at the site that was commissioned by the Fortunoff family and completed in 1997.

Originally named Hazelhurst Field, Roosevelt Field airfield encompassed the area now bordered by Clinton Road and Old Country Road in Garden City and Old Country running eastward to Ellison Avenue in Westbury, and part of a broader flat grassland known as Hempstead Plains. The area was recognized as ideal to fly planes, and starting around the early 1910s a hub of hangers were built in the northwest corner of Roosevelt Field, where the mall of the same name is located today. In that area on May 20, 1927, a crowd had gathered as Lindbergh started the engine of the Spirit of St. Louis, taxied east on the airfield and achieved liftoff about where the monument now stands, beginning a 33.5 hour, 3,610-mile flight to Paris.

In subsequent years, the northeast corner of Roosevelt Field, near present-day Ellison Avenue, was deemed expendable and split off from the airfield in the early 1930s. In 1936, Roosevelt Raceway was built and opened in that area, stretching roughly across the land now occupied by an AMC Theater, Target and the Meadowbrook Pointe condominium complex on Zeckendorf Boulevard. That year, a New York State marker was placed on Merrick Avenue to note the Lindbergh takeoff site, but was later moved to the parking lot at the Cradle of Aviation Museum in Garden City, according to Panchyk. In 1940, the motor raceway was converted to the first harness horse racing track in the United States.

When Roosevelt Field airfield closed in 1951, a mall of the same name opened on the site five years later. Eventually, the hangar where Lindbergh housed his plane, the last surviving structure on the former airfield, was demolished without any substantial effort to save it, Panchyk said.

"There was a movement–not a very strong one–back in the day when Roosevelt Field was about to be shut down, to save this historic airfield or part of it, but nothing came of it," Panchyk said. "It's kind of a sign of the times in those days when there was less reverence for the historic sites."

In 1963, in the area near Lindbergh's liftoff, Orbach's department store was built and opened, and the following year the Fortunoff family debuted their flagship store next door, increasing the commercialization of Old Country Road in Westbury.

In 1988, the racetrack closed and more retail and other commercial structures were built in and around that area. Also during the 1980s, Orbach's was converted into a Steinbach's, which was later demolished to make way for the Mall at the Source. The Fortunoff-anchored shopping center, at 1500 Old Country Rd., opened on the 38-acre site in 1997, featuring 500,000 square feet of retail space and more than 65 stores and restaurants.

After Fortunoff closed in 2009 in the wake of the 2007 financial crisis, the Source turned mostly vacant. The China-based Lesso Home acquired the property in the mid-2010s, renovated and rebranded the property to Samanea New York, and is working to fill the former vacancies.

Learning of Sackowitz's efforts to bring greater recognition to Lindbergh's liftoff site on the mall property, Dominic Coluccio, head of leasing for Samanea New York, said: "[A]s we work with our tenants and local officials to gear up for new tenant grand openings, we also feel an important responsibility to the community to help resurrect this iconic site where the beloved Mall at the Source and iconic Fortunoff superstore was born."

Sackowitz's vision for the site also includes a potential visitors center. In an effort to build momentum for his cause, he's tried to gain the support of Lindbergh's aviator grandson, Erik Lindbergh, whom he has corresponded with on Facebook.

"We have the 100th anniversary coming up in 2027, and there hasn't really been that much talk about it," Sackowitz said. "So, I'm really interested in getting support to hold a big event there. It will be here before we know it."