Oakdale, New York | |
|---|---|
 Sign on Oakdale-Bohemia road greeting passersby | |
 | |
  Oakdale, New York | |
| Coordinates:40°44′23″N73°8′23″W / 40.73972°N 73.13972°W /40.73972; -73.13972 | |
| Country | United States |
| State | New York |
| County | Suffolk |
| Area | |
• Total | 3.80 sq mi (9.83 km2) |
| • Land | 3.18 sq mi (8.23 km2) |
| • Water | 0.62 sq mi (1.60 km2) |
| Elevation | 9.8 ft (3 m) |
| Population (2020) | |
• Total | 7,430 |
| • Density | 2,338.8/sq mi (903.03/km2) |
| Time zone | UTC-5 (Eastern (EST)) |
| • Summer (DST) | UTC-4 (EDT) |
| ZIP code | 11769 |
| Area code | 631 |
| FIPS code | 36-54144 |
| GNIS feature ID | 0959162 |
Oakdale is ahamlet (andcensus-designated place) inSuffolk County,New York, United States, situated on theSouth Shore ofLong Island. The hamlet's population was 7,974 at the 2010 census. Oakdale is in theTown of Islip. It has been home toGilded Age mansions, theSouth Side Sportsmen's Club, the main campus ofDowling College and theLong Island Sharks hockey team. TSPL, “Trampoline Soccer Premier League” was also created here. It is now home toConnetquot River State Park Preserve.
 | This sectionneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources in this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.(August 2016) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Oakdale was founded around two Native American trade routes, whereSunrise Highway andMontauk Highway currently lie. Oakdale was part of the royal land grant given to William Nicoll, who foundedIslip Town in 1697. Local historian Charles P. Dickerson wrote in 1975 that Oakdale's name appeared to come from a Nicoll descendant in the mid-19th century. The community includes:St. John's Episcopal Church, built in 1765, is the third oldest church on Long Island.
The community originated with a tavern owned by Eliphalet (Liff) Snedecor in what is nowConnetquot River State Park Preserve. Soon after its founding in 1820, Snedecor's Tavern began drawing New York bluebloods and business barons who wined and dined in remote joy when they weren't fishing and hunting nearby. "Liff's food is as good as his creek", a magazine writer declared in 1839 referring to the food and Connetquot River.[citation needed] The writer added: "and the two are only second to his mint juleps and champagne punch; whoever gainsays either fact deserves hanging without benefit of clergy."
In 1866, as the railroad reached the area, Liff's wealthy patrons formed theSouth Side Sportsmen's Club, and soon the race was on to see who could create the most superb spread in the thick forests adjoining Great South Bay. The most prominent were built byWilliam K. Vanderbilt, grandson of railroad magnateCornelius Vanderbilt;Frederick G. Bourne, president of theSinger Sewing Machine Co., and Christopher Robert II,[2] an eccentric heir to a sugar fortune. Meanwhile,William Bayard Cutting, a lawyer, financier and railroad man, built his estate next door inGreat River, New York which had once been west Oakdale.
In 1912, Jacob Ockers of Oakdale organized the Bluepoint Oyster Co., which became the largest oyster producer and shipper in the country.
Gilded Age estates were a feature of Oakdale's past toward the end of the 19th century and into the early 20th century.
In 1882,William Kissam Vanderbilt built the most noted one,Idle Hour, 900-acre (3.6 km2) on the Connetquot River. The lavish, wooden 110-room home was destroyed by fire on April 15, 1899, while his son,Willie K. II, was honeymooning there. Willie and his new wife escaped. It was promptly rebuilt of red brick and gray stone, with exquisite furnishings, for $3 million. The building at the time was considered among the finest homes in America. His daughterConsuelo had also honeymooned there when she married theDuke of Marlborough in 1895.
After Vanderbilt's death in 1920, the mansion went through several phases and visitors, including a brief stay duringProhibition by gangsterDutch Schultz. Around that time, cow stalls, pig pens and corn cribs on the farm portion of Idle Hour were converted into a short-lived bohemian artists' colony that included figures such asGeorge Elmer Browne and Roman (Bon) Bonet-Sintas as well as sculptor Catherine Lawson, costume designer Olga Meervold, and pianist Claude Govier, andFrancis Gow-Smith and his wife Carol.[3] The estate was most recently the home ofDowling College, a struggling school which closed in August 2016.
By 1888, Christopher R. Robert II (son ofChristopher Robert) built a spectacular castle just east of Idle Hour called Pepperidge Hall, furnished in the French style for his wife. But the pair didn't get along. On January 2, 1898, she told police she found Robert shot to death in his Manhattan apartment. It was ruled a suicide and she moved to Paris. The mansion featured in silent movies 1916–1920,[4] fell into disrepair and was razed in 1941.
In 1897,Frederick Gilbert Bourne, who began with 438 acres (1.77 km2) but later owned land reaching toWest Sayville, completed his mansion,Indian Neck Hall, on the east side of Oakdale. Bourne was active locally, as commodore of theSayville Yacht Club, and was generous to the local fire department. The eastern part of his estate now comprises the West Sayville County Golf Course and the Long Island Maritime Museum, while much of the middle portion is developed with homes. Bourne died in 1920. Six years later the mansion, on the western end, became the site ofLa Salle Military Academy, operated by the Christian Brothers, a Catholic order. In 1993, the brothers converted the academy into a kindergarten-through-high-school "global learning community". In 2001, La Salle was closed and it was bought by St. John's University of New York.
Oakdale is located at40°44′23″N73°8′23″W / 40.73972°N 73.13972°W /40.73972; -73.13972 (40.739858, -73.139696).[5]
According to theUnited States Census Bureau, the CDP has a total area of 3.8 square miles (9.8 km2), of which 3.3 square miles (8.5 km2) is land and 0.4 square miles (1.0 km2) 11.70%) is water.
| Census | Pop. | Note | %± |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 7,430 | — | |
| U.S. Decennial Census[6] | |||
As of the2020 United States census, there were 7,430 people and 2,717 households residing in the CDP. The racial makeup of the CDP was 88.3%White, 6.4%African American, 0.6%Asian, 0.3% fromother races, and 4.4% from two or more races.Hispanic orLatino of any race were 4.7% of the population.
In the CDP, the population was spread out, with 14.7% under the age of 18, 4.3% under the age of five, and 24.1% who were 65 years of age or older.
The median income for a household in the CDP was $112,464, while theper capita income for the CDP was $54,058. About 6.3% of the population were below thepoverty line.[7]
Oakdale is within theConnetquot Central School District.[8]Connetquot High School is the comprehensive high school of that district.
The formerSt. John's University Oakdale campus was partially in Oakdale.[9] The university had acquired it, then La Salle Center (previouslyLa Salle Military Academy), in 1999.[10] The university leased the center to La Salle Center until its 2001 closure.[11] In 2016Amity University had purchased that campus.[12] Amity then decided to establish a New York branch ofHarrow School.[13]Harrow International School New York is scheduled to open, in the former St. John's campus,[14] in September 2025.[15]
TheLong Island Rail Road provides service to Oakdale via theMontauk Branch.Suffolk County Transit buses also serve Oakdale via the 2 route which include stops adjacent toOakdale's LIRR station.
Saint John's University Oakdale Cmps- See 2010 mapof Oakdale CDP. See 2000 mapof Oakdale.
| |||||
| Academics |  | ||||
| Athletics |
| ||||
| Campus life | |||||
| People | |||||
| History | |||||
| Former campuses | |||||
Authority control databases: Geographic |
|---|
