Babylon Local · Wednesday, September 16 |
Four stories from the Town of Babylon this week — a shuttered marina changes hands, a four-year Chick-fil-A plan quietly dies, Amityville remembers its Super Bowl champion, and fourteen names get a stone of their own. |
Trivia Question❓The Town of Babylon officially recognizes how many communities inside its borders — and what does it call the single entry that covers Gilgo, Oak Beach, Captree and the rest of the shoreline? Answer at the bottom of the newsletter |
Wednesday in the Town of Babylon |
For more than a year, the marina on Post Place did no business at all. That is over.
Hampton Watercraft and Marine has bought five waterfront properties on Post Place and Fire Island Avenue — nearly 1.6 acres, roughly 1,400 feet of dock, room for about 46 boat slips and winter storage for 35 boats. It is the company’s fourth Long Island location and its first in western Suffolk.
Owner Tony Villareale wants the whole operation there: selling, servicing, docking, storing, repairing, starting with winter storage next month. Clearing the sale meant unwinding a foreclosure and a bankruptcy first.
“We’re the new guys,” he said. “We know that we need to earn our stripes there, and I just ask for a little bit of time.”
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Babylon Town Weather |
Mostly sunny and near 75 Wednesday, up around 78 Thursday with a shower possible after dark, then a bright, cooler weekend — 70 and sunny Saturday. |
He was an All-State fullback at Amityville Memorial High School, an All-American lineman at Iowa, and in 1966 the Dallas Cowboys took him fifth overall. Six Pro Bowls and a Super Bowl VI ring followed. John Niland died August 15 in Texas, at 82. His family has sent his brain to the Boston University CTE Center.
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BUSINESS · WEST BABYLON
The long-running question about the Chick-fil-A at the Great South Bay Shopping Center finally has an answer, and it is not the one anyone was waiting for.
It is not coming.
The company confirmed to Greater Long Island that it is no longer moving forward at 805 Montauk Highway, closing out a proposal that sat in front of the Town of Babylon for more than four years.
The site was the old Payless pad in the shopping center. The plan was to knock it down and put up a 5,000-square-foot restaurant in its place.
The Babylon Town Planning Board first approved it in April 2022. Chick-fil-A came back in September 2025 with a modified, expanded site plan, and the board approved that one unanimously. As recently as last fall it looked ready to go.
Then nothing.
“We are always evaluating potential new locations in the hopes of serving existing and new customers great food with remarkable service,” the company said in a statement. “We would very much like to have more restaurants in West Babylon, but we have no new locations to confirm at this time.”
The nearest consolation is one town over: the Bay Shore location, going into the vacant TGI Fridays at South Shore Mall, is still moving ahead.
Sources: Greater Long Island · Town of Babylon Read More... |
REMEMBRANCE · TOWN OF BABYLON
Between Overlook and Cedar beaches there is a rectangular stone with fourteen names cut into it.
They belong to Town of Babylon residents who were at the World Trade Center and did not die that day. They died later, of the illnesses they got there.
The Town unveiled the memorial at its September 11 commemoration, on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the attacks.
It sits just beyond the Town’s existing 9/11 memorial, the one with the metal plaques honoring the 48 residents killed in the attacks. Marble replicas of the Twin Towers flank the new stone, carrying two lines: Never Forget, and Sept. 11, 2001.
The inscription reads: “In solemn remembrance of all Town of Babylon residents who succumbed to illness as a result of their courageous rescue efforts at the World Trade Center. Their sacrifices will never be forgotten.”
Some towns and fire departments have added post-9/11 illness deaths to their existing memorials. Babylon’s is believed to be one of the first on Long Island built for those residents alone.
Thomas Wischerth is one of the fourteen. He was a federal investigator. He died of 9/11-related colon cancer in 2017, at 62.
“My dad was a humble person who would never want that kind of recognition,” his daughter Rhyan Wischerth said. “Just the fact that the town is acknowledging that these guys ultimately sacrificed their lives means a lot.”
Councilman Terence McSweeney put the reasoning plainly.
“They were every much a part of that day as the people who passed away actually on that day,” he said. “It’s important for the families to know their loved ones will be recognized.”
A name qualifies for the stone if the person was a Town of Babylon resident at some point, was at or near Ground Zero, and died as a result of what they were exposed to there. McSweeney was deliberate about how wide that is.
“It doesn’t matter if you were a first responder, if you were installing cable wire, if you were a plumber,” he said. “You were there getting New York, getting the United States back together after the greatest terror attack on this country since Pearl Harbor.”
The Town of Babylon Fire Chiefs Association drove the effort. It cost roughly $100,000, paid out of the Town’s capital improvements budget.
The memorial stands between Overlook and Cedar beaches, and it is open to anyone who wants to visit it.
Sources: Newsday · Town of Babylon Read More... |
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💡 Answer to Trivia Question: Thirteen. The Town lists its beach communities together as one entry, the Barrier Island — which is why the official count is 13 and not the longer list people usually rattle off. |