No. 87: Heckscher Park

Business was booming on a recent sunny Sunday in .

From passive recreation to spinning dizziness on the playground, the park surrounding the Heckscher Museum of Art along Main and Prime streets in Huntington was host to families, seniors, children in strollers, jugglers and the usual denizens of squirrels, ducks, geese and swans.

Right now the park is putting its spring foot forward as it prepares for the , which is scheduled for 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday. A full day of activities is planned, rain or shine, around a backdrop of 20,000 tulips.

Ashley, 10, and Robbie, 11, tossed a lacrosse ball in the park with their dad, Mike McSweeney of West Islip, before sitting down to Easter dinner at grandma Dorothy Lufker’s house in Huntington. The kids are regular visitors to the park when they come to visit their grandmother, and Robbie fondly remembered a catch-and-release fishing derby, one of the few times fishing is allowed at the park. “I caught lots of sunfish and you should see the big carp in there,” he said, motioning with his hands.

The park was dedicated in 1920 when August Heckscher opened the building that housed his art collection. He bought the land from the Prime family in the 1910s, according to the e-newsletter, and deeded the land to the Heckscher Trust he created on Dec. 26, 1917. He first built the cobblestone gates, caretaker’s cottage and gazebo in 1918 and by 1920 built the art museum, after the war in Europe was over. The pond that powered a nearby thimble factory became we now call Heckscher Pond.

Things went swimmingly for a decade, but the Depression depleted the funds in the endowment and the museum’s doors were shuttered. A group of art lovers and artists with the Huntington Art League revived the museum after World War II, with assistance from the town government, according to a thumbnail history offered by John Coraor, the town’s director of cultural affairs. There were objections to the town’s involvement and a successful lawsuit, with the upshot that the museum and 18-1/2 acres of park were conveyed to the town in 1954 in exchange for the town agreeing to continue to operate them.

The museum incorporated as a non-profit in 1957, Coraor said, and in 1964 governance of the museum was delegated to a museum board. Works acquired after 1964 were owned by the non-profit museum organization, he said.

Heckscher Park is the most heavily used park in the town’s park system, based on surveys, Coraor says, helped by attendance at the museum and crowds at the Summer Arts Festival shows. This summer will mark the festival’s 46th year, with performances at 8:30 p.m. six nights a week (7:30 p.m. Tuesdays for family night shows) on the Chapin Rainbow Stage.

Opening night this year is scheduled for June 25. The festival offers everything from fully-staged musicals to Tuesday night family performances to local dance groups, community bands, soul, jazz and rock musical performances and the local philharmonic, scheduled this year for Aug. 13, the night before the festival ends. The season calendar should be available in early June on the ’s site. 

In addition to the ballfield and tennis courts at one end of the park, the grounds also function as a public art space, with many sculptures scattered throughout its grounds. The town owns the tubular steel pipe sculpture, Intervals of Prime # 3, donated in 2004 by native Huntington artist John Clement, and has on display several other outdoor sculptures loaned by the artists. There is a recently redone playground with rubberized mats for the toddler and under-12 set and public restrooms near the playground area.

The park was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1985. It is free and is open year-round, dawn to dusk, except in the summer when it is open till 11 p.m. during Summer Arts Festival events. In October, it is home to the Long Island Fall Festival, and a carnival sets up shop in the ballfield area.

Stay tuned for No. 86 next week, same time same place, as Huntington Patch explores the places and activities in town.