Newsday from New York, New York • 17

A17 LONG ISLAND OUR STORY Developer Zeckendorf new idea produces a mighty mall at Roosevelt Field A Shopping Giant Arrives KmdarFMs On a barren Roocevelt Field in 1955 construction commences on Macy's largest suburban store in the East By Rhoda Amon STAFF WHITES On a chilly day in late April 1955 five men handsomely garbed in topcoats and felt hats dug shovels into a deserted airfield on the vast Hempstead Plains They were about to change Long style of living and shopping They were breaking ground for the mammoth Roosevelt Field Shopping Center The men all big shots were Nassau County Executive A Holly Patterson Hempstead Town Supervisor Harold Herman Roosevelt Field president Herbert I Sil verson president Wheelock Bingham and most imposing of all developer-tycoon William Zeckendorf The site chosen for the first such project on Long Island was billed as the place from which Charles A Lindbergh began his landmark flight across the Atlantic in 1927 Actually it Lindbergh took off from a field in West-bury where Fortunoff now stands The shopping center was sited in an area that had once been Curtiss Field Curtiss and Roosevelt Fields were united in 1929 as one big Roosevelt Field It had been largest the premier aviation field in the according to Joshua Stoff curator of Nassau Cradle of Aviation Museum As many as 10000 spectators would jam the roads to Roosevelt Field to watch the aerial antics of the early fliers A half century later 50000 shoppers would jam the Roosevelt Field Shopping Center for the opening of largest suburban store in the East In the the airfield was already pressed by development The eastern portion was given over to auto racing later Roosevelt Raceway World War II curtailed civilian aviation and the field was increasingly hemmed in by housing developments Webb Knapp the then-powerful real estate firm headed by Zeckendorf took controlling interest in the floun dering airfield in 1950 and Herbert I Silverson a company director became president of Roosevelt Field Inc Silverson now 87 and a California real estate consultant recalled the debate over how to develop the huge space of our people wanted to build a lot of housing I knew that growing suburbs need jobs and they need After the flying ended in the firm replaced the old hangars with industrial plants in the northeast corner fronting Old Country Road The public was making other uses of the obsolete airport were drag meets on weekends One man was using a runway to teach his wife how to Silverson recalled In 1954 when the Jones Beach State Parkway Authority was planning to extend Meadowbrook Parkway to connect Northern and Southern State Parkways Webb Knapp donated 48 acres so that the extension would cut through the airfield they gave us a cloverleaf in the middle of it we had our shopping Silverson said largest in the The center which some have called Long premier shrine to consumerism was built at a cost of S35 million It began in 1956 as an open-air mall with space for 1 1000 cars Designed by architect I Pei it was to be more than a shopping center put in an ice skating rink the first for a shopping Silverson said There was also a 400-seat community theater an art gallery space for auto and boat shows By the end of '56 Webb Knapp had developed more than 300 acres including the shopping and industrial areas restaurants bowling alleys a hotel a medical building Silverson left Webb Knapp in 1958 convinced that the firm was overextended with nationwide projects His last act as president was to sign on a store Not everyone welcomed the commer cial development The upscale-planned village of Garden City which would have preferred one-family houses agreed to a 55-acre office budding complex west of the shopping center Villagers were assuaged with a 72-foot wide buffer along Clinton Road called Hazelhurst Park But they still resent the "gigantic commercial sharing their Garden City mailing address according to local historian-photographer John Ellis Kordes Roosevelt Field Mall has no relationship to Garden City and pays no taxes to the he said Roosevelt Field also was blamed for the decline of neighborhood retail areas especially Hempstead Village once the shopping hub of Long Island Families could now drive to one-stop shopping at Roosevelt Field The mall did not take ofT in the early In fact it lost nearly S8 million total over '62 and The turnaround came in 1968 when the shopping center was enclosed But Zeckendorf empire had collapsed and the property was sold to a combine for S35 million Corporate Property Investors of Manhattan owners since 1973 expanded the center over two decades In 1993 a second story was introduced In 1996 the upper level was completed and 70 more stores added including a food court Now with 260 stores and increasingly upscale it's the seventh largest mall in the country and the third most successful in sales per square foot In a deal to be completed in July Roosevelt Field along with the Walt Whitman Mall in Huntington will become part of the Simon DeBartolo Group of Indianapolis "We consider Roosevelt Field a crown said spokeswoman Billie Scott Silverson who moved to California in 1966 as consultant to another real estate tycoon Harry Helmsley revisited his of last year Though Webb Knapp went down the drain he reflected "Roosevelt Field got better and better over the WILLIAM ZECKENDORF: PLANNER DREAMER To the young Zeckendorf is a boulevard culling from Old Country less than the ultimate is to do nothing" "Zeckendorf engaged in a real-life game of Monopoly Involving some of the most prestigious properties in the United States including the United Nations site the Chrysler Building and the Chase Manhattan Plaza in Manhattan and Darner's Mile High TJ Collins wrote in 1976 in Zeckendorfs obituary Under his leadership Webb Knapp based in Manhattan built S3 billion worth of commercial projects in 20 years The bubble burst in 1963 and the firm was forced to sel Roosevelt Field Zeckendorf who Kved in Manhattan also resigned as board chairman at Long Island University after 25 years during which the student body grew from 800 to 18000 campuses were developed in Brook-viUe Southampton He died in 1976 at Khoda Amon Road to the Roosevelt Field Shopping Center To another generation William Zeckendorf was a flamboyant real estate magnate who changed the look of Long Island in the post-Workt War years "He was a great planner a dreamer" said Herbert I Silverson who worked with Zeckendorf on the development of Roosevelt Field "but he was overenthusiastic overzeakxis Zeckendorf was "a tank-sized man" with an unquenchable appetite for big real estate deals according to Associated Press writer Hal Boyle In a 1 956 story Boyte described a power breakfast at which Silverson put down a proposal by Broadway showman Bitty Rose for a millkm-doflar enclosed ice rink-amusement area at Roosevelt Field as "lame Zeckendorf NEWSDAV TUESDAY MAY Zfl 1990 Nemday Pluto I960 William Zeckendorf did business on the move ham speaking on a car phone approved Rose's scheme declaring do age 71 and and.