Oyster Bay

Across the way from Sea Cliff lies the sleepy hamlet of Oyster Bay. Though known as the summer residence of Theodore Roosevelt, it was also the childhood home of the writer Thomas Pynchon and likely inspired the setting of his short story "The Secret Integration." Other notable figures associated with the area include Captain Kidd, Typhoid Mary, and Robert Townsend of the Revolutionary War-era Culper Spy Ring.


Moore's Building on a downtown intersection. Originally a humble grocery store, later the location of Roosevelt's Summer Executive Offices.




Snouder's Drug Store, for decades the location of the town social center, aka soda fountain.


Oyster Bay Harbor.


The Raynham Museum, originally known as the Townsend Homestead where the Culper Spy Ring allegedly thwarted Benedict Arnold's plot to surrender West Point to the British.









The Derby-Hall Bandstand. The base of the civil war cannon was fashioned from scrap metal taken from the USS Maine, the sinking of which led to the Spanish-American War, a subject close to Roosevelt's heart.


A house across the harbor on Centre Island, as viewed from the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Park.


Moments after I snapped this photo a seagull dropped an oyster from a great height which smashed against the pavement close enough to pelt my pantleg with shrapnel. The winged perpetrator acted like it was just a standard technique for getting the food out, but I saw the cold-blooded glint of murder in his eyes. He was hunting bigger game than oysters.


Cove Neck in the distance.


The Theodore Roosevelt Monument Assemblage. Each rock represents a chapter in his life. There were a lot of chapters.