Shutdown disappoints some Sagamore Hill visitors but preservation society keeps Fire Island lighthouse open

Ten days after the federal government shut down at Sagamore Hill National Historic Site, the lights were on at Theodore Roosevelt’s house, but the doors were locked. Some of the porta-potties down the hill were locked too. No docents or park rangers could be seen.

At Fire Island National Seashore, hundreds of visitors climbed the steps  of the tall lighthouse, open because it is staffed by the nonprofit Fire Island Lighthouse Preservation Society, not the National Park Service, but nobody answered the phone at the William Floyd Estate, a National Seashore site in Mastic Beach.

More than a quarter of national park sites across the United States, many of them historical properties, are closed to the public; any facility or area that is typically locked during nonbusiness hours must be locked during the shutdown, according to an NPS contingency plan from September.

According to that plan, park websites won’t be maintained, trash won’t be collected, restrooms won’t be cleaned and roads won’t be maintained. Activities including law enforcement and border protection continue.

Under those somewhat daunting terms, visitors parked about a dozen cars at Sagamore Friday morning.

Paul and Carolyn Rezza, of Seaford, sat on rocking chairs on the Roosevelt deck and looked down over the rolling meadows where the Roosevelt children rode ponies. Paul sounded frustrated when he talked about the elected leaders who caused or permitted the shutdown.

"They don’t care about a single person they represent," he said. "It’s all about them." But he said he was not frustrated. "I’m enjoying the day," he said. "It’s so peaceful. The colors are starting to change."

Carolyn, whose grandfather, as a toddler, shook Roosevelt’s hand, according to family lore, said she didn’t mind being unable to tour Roosevelt’s house. It was enough to take in the day. "I could sit here for hours," she said. "I always say to Paul, ‘If we could bottle this North Shore air.’"

Kevin and Debbie Harwell had driven five hours from State College, Pennsylvania. They are history buffs who bought a travel trailer during the pandemic and traveled America visiting national parks. They had made their third attempt to tour Roosevelt’s house, the first two having failed for logistical reasons. They were set up for success this time, Debbie said. "Then the shutdown happened. We’re not meant to go in the house," she concluded. The closure of national parks, which she considered "hallowed ground," made her uneasy, she said.

Kevin Harwell, too, was uneasy, about more than parks. "Our laws and our government systems are being challenged in ways they haven’t been challenged before," he said. "I don’t know what the outcome is going to be. I’m hopeful that our better angels prevail."

By the Sagamore parking lot, Katherine Greco said she had hoped to show the president’s house to her husband, Zac. They live in Dallas, but she grew up in Bayville, and they flew up to visit. "I grew up coming here," she said. "My dad died when I was 16, and this was his favorite place." They used to get ice cream at Gooseberry Grove in Oyster Bay and sit on the rocking chairs, eat ice cream and watch wild turkeys, she said. But the visit was not a bust; they downloaded an app to take a self-guided tour.

At the Fire Island lighthouse, Jonathan Gaare, of Babylon, the Preservation Society’s executive director, said the shutdown had been announced just as his group was  preparing for its biggest fundraiser of the year, a beer- and wine-tasting event called the Keeper’s Craft Tasting.

It will go on as planned Saturday, but "we were sweating," Gaare said, due to concern about the shutdown's impact. He and his co-workers use money they raise to maintain the lighthouse and its navigation beacon, archive its history and educate visitors.

Gaare said some of his visitors worried about the shutdown. "They’re worrying about their park, their backyard. They want the boardwalk to be maintained, the bathrooms to be maintained," he said.

Gaare, a former park ranger, said he worried too. "I feel for the federal employees who dedicated their careers to public service, especially to the rangers here who dedicated their careers to protecting this land for Long Islanders," he said. "We’re so urban — these little nuggets of wildlands, they definitely need to be protected."

With AP