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Our People
Since the first human footprint in the sand of Long Island's beaches, the North Shore has been shaped by generations of people - Native Americans harvesting its fruitful coasts and soils, European settlers seeking religious freedom, patriots creating a new nation, industrialists showcasing unprecedented wealth and power, suburban transplants pursuing the American dream of comfortable family life. All of them contributed, and continue to contribute, to the unique history and sense of place of this region. The Planning Commissioners, all residents and volunteers, have developed a management plan for the region that focuses on the aspirations and accomplishments of these diverse forebears. It organizes the phenomenal diversity of people, places and connections that make the area unique, so that it can be comprehended and sustained for this generation and generations to come.
- Two interpretive strategies - or ways of focusing North Shore stories - are presented in the North Shore Heritage Area Management Plan. One is physically based, dealing with architecture and land uses; the other concentrates on people.
- The people-based interpretive strategy builds bridges across time:
Seafarers: The area's earliest Seafarers, Native Americans, are connected to early American whalers, 20th century shipbuilders and today's commercial fishermen through the common bond of deriving a livelihood from the sea.
Builders: The Builders theme looks at North Shore history through the lens of successive waves of settlement - from Native Americans to the first European colonists and later immigrants to modern day urban emigrants.
Naturalists: The Naturalists theme embraces open space preservation and conservation of natural areas, fish and wildlife. It also celebrates those who have taught, and fought for, environmental protection - beginning with the Native Americans who populated the North Shore during the early era of European settlement.
Visionaries: An important inspiration for the North Shore Heritage Area was a ring of Revolutionary War spies who used special codes and the protected bays and inlets of Long Island Sound to provide cover on their dangerous missions. The region hasn't stopped producing dreamers, leaders, patriots, and poets, Walt Whitman among the most notable.
