Symposium celebrates Long Island in the 1960s

By Heidi Sutton

In conjunction with its popular exhibition, Long Island in the Sixties, The Long Island Museum in Stony Brook hosted a symposium last Saturday that focused on how the 1960s affected Long Island in terms of suburban and economic trends such as the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair, the local civil rights movement, regional architecture and music.

Guest speakers included Stephen Patnode, Ph.D., of Farmingdale State College’s Department of Science, Technology and Sociology; Christopher Verga, professor of history at Suffolk County Community College and author of “Civil Rights on Long Island”; Caroline Rob Zaleski, preservationist and architectural historian and author of “Long Island Modernism, 1930-1980”; Lawrence R. Samuel, Ph.D., independent scholar and American cultural historian and author of “The End of the Innocence: The 1964-1965 New York World’s Fair”; and John Broven, music historian and custodian of the family-owned Golden Crest Records and author of the award-winning “Rhythm and Blues in New Orleans” and “Record Makers and Breakers.”

According to Joshua Ruff, director of Collections and Interpretation at the museum, the day-long event attracted over 60 attendees and “the audience was very enthusiastic and really enjoyed the day” adding that there was “great audience participation; a few people who attended were actually former band members of prominent 1960s bands on Long Island, and they became involved in John Broven’s talk. All in all, it was a super day and we are just so very thankful for the important support from the New York Council on the Humanities which made it all possible.”