Film of the Week: A Tour of Historic Lake Ronkonkoma
Lee Chambers has forwarded this 14-minute YouTube created in 2018 by the Town of Smithtown as part of their "Historic Smithtown" series.
It is one of the best video documentation of the eastern terminus of the Long Island Motor Parkway featuring an interview with Harold Sauter of the Lake Ronkonkoma Historical Society.
Enjoy,
Howard Kroplick
Comments
More on the history of the lake here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Ronkonkoma_(lake)
I enjoyed that…Thanks ..
We used to swim in the lake when I was a boy. I remember we would sometimes get an infection of some kind that my Mom used to call ‘Trench Mouth’. I would say this is around late 1950’s into early 1960’s. We lived off Mt. Pleasant Road in the Village of the Branch, Smithtown.
Our family used to swim in the lake in the late 1970’s to early 80’s. Wasn’t aware that the water was contaminated until the early 2000’s, when I wanted to take a dip in there but no go. Lots of usage in the old days.
The image below is from one of the many calendars that The Lake Ronkonkoma Historical Society has given The Sachem Library. The calendar book is in Long Island History Room. Great images of Ronkonkomas past, several related to the LIMP. Caption for the image - Horseshoe Curve, Vanderbilt Pkwy