Jones Beach Island: Gilgo Beach
Dear Walking Companions: You might begin to notice that I’m hopping around a bit with my walks, covering the more easterly Jones Beach Island before hitting Rockaway spit and Long Beach Island for the moment. We will be heading back west later in the fall. And I still need to break into Sea Gate. No straight lines here.
1. A topic I’d rather not
Let’s get this out of the way.
There exists no universe in which I would ever want to spend any time thinking about, no less writing about, LISK. But if I’m going to walk the length of Jones Beach Island, I’m going to have to address this dark side of the island’s history.
It’s entirely possible that you have no idea what I am talking about right now. Well, get ready. This is not pleasant.
Heading east entering Suffolk County along Ocean Parkway
L-I-S-K: The first two letters should be pretty obvious to anyone who has been paying attention at all. They refer to Long Island.
Any guesses on the second part? That’s right: Serial Killer.
The Long Island Serial Killer AKA the Gilgo Beach Killer AKA the Craigslist Ripper allegedly murdered — over the span of two decades — at least 15 people, mostly young women who worked as escorts. The remains of these victims were discovered mostly to the east of Gilgo Beach near Cedar Beach and some to the west of Gilgo near Tobay Beach in late 2010 and early 2011 after the disappearance of Shannan Gilbert. She was reported missing and last seen in May 2010. A search ensued. Whether her death is tied to LISK remains in dispute, but the search for her uncovered the massive scale of this killing spree. Details are murky at best, but some facts are clear: the bodies of more than a few young women were dumped and they remained undiscovered for a very, very long time, probably largely because no one was looking for them. At least not until Shannan went missing.
How could this happen? I’m not a fan of true crime shows, but you don’t have to watch too many of them to understand why a serial killer might choose the low, rolling dunes of this stretch of Jones Beach Island’s Ocean Parkway to hide the evidence. Even though you can actually see the New York City skyline on a clear day from its bay side, this stretch of beach east of Jones Beach State Park at night is just really, really dark, especially in winter. And it’s easy to get to (and to make a quick getaway from), thanks to unfettered access from the “mainland” via the Meadowbrook and Wantagh parkways from the west or, from the east, via the Robert Moses Causeway. The few people who happen to be driving by at night might not really even notice a car pulled over along the parkway’s shoulder. You would be hidden in plain sight. No one would have much reason to go in there either — all scrub pine and thick, low brush leading nowhere. Sadly, no one would be looking for these victims anyway. To be clear, none were found at Gilgo Beach, according to Mike Cavanaugh, whom we’ll meet below, and supported by the maps he sent my way. “In fact, most were found to the east toward Cedar Beach (some even east of Cedar Beach). Furthermore, I don’t think any were found on the beach side of the Parkway but actually in the marsh area to the north. I think the Gilgo name got a bad rap because early on, someone read a map wrong and it stuck,” Mike said.
The murders appear to have stopped now. Still, the investigation is ongoing and active and, though there are many theories, the killer remains unidentified, at least for the moment.
2. Where Gill Goes
I wasn’t thinking about any of this when I met Mike Cavanaugh and his lovely wife, Meg, at their adorable summer home on the aptly named Cottage Walk in Gilgo Beach on a beautiful mid-August morning.
Mike and Meg Cavanaugh with Snoopy
I found out about Mike thanks to an article in Newsday that featured him — Mike has been documenting the antique glass bottles that he has been finding while taking his kayak out into Great South Bay. I’m hoping to get a look at the collection, which he keeps at their permanent home in East Rockaway, on a future trip.
Born in New York City and now retired from his job as a civil engineer, Mike, who divides his time between Gilgo and East Rockaway, is the historian of Gilgo. He knows a lot. . . . and he knows everyone. If Gilgo had a mayor, I suspect he would be it. I would vote for him.
Mike and Meg’s cottage is one of the few remaining originals of those that had been moved from Hemlock Beach west to the ocean side of Gilgo around 1914 and then moved again to their current location on the north side of the island in 1930, by agreement with the town of Babylon, to make way for Ocean Parkway, according to Robert Moses’s plan for the Island.
One of their neighbors dubbed Mike and Meg’s cottage “The Inn Between,” as it sits snugly between two more recent and far larger constructs on either side.
Mike and Meg’s porch
I loved it. . . everything about it: the buoys hanging from the ceiling of the front screen porch, the numerous jars of sea glass, the ship’s stairs up to the sleeping loft, the wide and inviting porch off the back overlooking the bay. What a great place.
Mike had generously agreed to meet me and to allow me to record our conversation as we walked along the beach and I learned a lot. You can listen to excerpts from our conversation below. Please excuse the audio quality as it was windy and we were walking the beach, but it’s definitely worth a listen.
I asked Mike what he knew about the origins of the name “Gilgo.” He isn’t buying the widely circulated story that the name derives from a Civil War-era fisherman named Gill, who had great success catching fish on this particular stretch of beach. If you want to catch fish, they said, go where Gill goes. And over time, “Gill Goes” became “Gilgo’s”, which became Gilgo. Or so the story goes.
This is all a bit too convenient for Mike. He believes the name has far deeper roots in the language of the Native Americans who once lived here.
Frankly, I have to agree with him; the theory just doesn’t stand up under scrutiny and has been largely dismissed as a myth, albeit a charming one. The name Gilgo (one word) appears to have been around, as Mike says, for a very, very long time.
But where does the name come from? Gilgo Inlet is specifically mentioned in a book titled "The Indian place-names on Long Island and islands adjacent, with their probable significations" that was published in 1911. Perhaps the author, a certain William Wallace Tooker, whose title in the book is listed as “Algonkinist,” assumed Gilgo was a Native American reference without cause. There is no “probable signification” of the name noted in the book. However, that seems unlikely given his area of expertise. Perhaps some intrepid linguistic anthropologist will find the real answer someday. Gilgo offers yet another mystery to solve.
Tunnel to Gilgo Beach from the bay side under Ocean Parkway.
3. When they suggest, I “unsuggest.”
After my informative and pleasant visit with Mike, I had a chance to spend a lovely hour with “Dorothy” (she requested that I not use her real name) in her charming mid-century cottage on Broadway, which lies at the western end of Gilgo Beach.
To be honest, Dorothy was a bit skeptical about meeting me. I can hardly blame her. She is the great aunt of a friend of a friend whom I met at a party. Hardly a close tie. She was also a bit confused, understandably so, about what exactly I was trying to accomplish by walking the length of Jones Beach Island. She is not alone.
Still, she graciously invited me into her beautiful home and shared the photos that were held in a well-worn scrapbook she had on the table next to her recliner chair. And she told me about her life.
Nearing in on 100 years old, Dorothy left the “mainland” of Long Island and moved full-time to the Gilgo Beach cottage — built by her husband, Bob, in 1953 — after his death. She never looked back. “It’s marvelous living here,” she told me. “I see nature all around me.” From her perch in this small, sturdy cottage built upon stilts, this small, sturdy woman can certainly see out in every direction and take in spectacular views of the bay to the north and the ocean to the south. Although it is close by, Ocean Parkway is a barely perceptible hum behind the dunes. When I asked Dorothy if the cottage had sustained any damage from Hurricane Sandy, she bristled a bit. “Not this cottage. My Bob built it.”
The cottage’s fireplace
Dorothy and my mother were born in the same year – 1925. Quick-witted and tack-sharp — like my mother had been before the dementia muddled things — Dorothy doesn’t mince words. “People tell me all the time I should do this or that. I should paint the (dark wooden) walls white, brighten it up a bit in here.” With a wag of her finger for emphasis, she added, “Well, let me tell you something, when they suggest, I ‘unsuggest.’”
And in that moment, it was my mother sitting in Dorothy’s chair. And in that moment, I remembered how much I continue to miss her every day, six years after her death — and why.
At the end of our visit, diminutive Dorothy stood to walk me to the stairs. When she reached up to hug me, her kiss landed squarely on my left collarbone. She held my hand tightly as we made our way past the impressive, soot-covered stone fireplace that graces the cottage’s central living space. She told me that, shortly after he built the cottage, Bob had made such a big fire in the fireplace that smoke blackened its stone front. “I thought he might try to clean it off after he did that, but he never did. I guess he wanted it that way. And since this place is mine and his, I’m leaving it that way, too.”
I hope I can visit with Dorothy again before too long.
A special thank you to Dorothy and to Mike, Meg, and their friends for making we feel so welcome and for making my visit to Gilgo a real treat — even before I walked the beach.