Sometimes when you’re living amidst the numbered blocks and wide avenues of Manhattan it’s hard to imagine that sleepy little towns exist just a borough away. So I enlisted a friend and decided to take the road slightly less traveled (Route 25A) and explore the Main Streets of Long Island’s North Shore.

The convenient thing about 25A is that it winds through towns, often briefly turning into Main Street as you pass through.

On Main Street in Cold Spring Harbor, there are old houses with chipping paint and plaques boasting construction from the early 1800’s which abut refurbished cottages.  Amongst the houses sits Cold Spring Harbor’s Whaling Museum, displaying an old whaling boat and other relics from the town’s fishing days. Richard Timm, the volunteer docent at the Museum, told us that Main Street actually used to be called “Bedlam Street” due to the rowdy drunken fishermen and the mixed tongues of foreign sailors.

Cold Spring Harbor's Whaling Museum

The Whaling Museum, founded in 1936, is surprisingly modern compared to the rest of downtown.  T.V. monitors play old videos of fisherman, a light-up screen shows the paths of whale pods across the Atlantic, and a detailed diorama shows Cold Spring Harbor in the mid 19th century, the days of thriving commercial fishing. The tiny Main Street of old is a tree-lined dirt road leading out to the water where the big ships once moored.

A diorama of Old Main street in the Whaling Museum

Richard tells us that though the museum is popular for school groups (16,000 kids came through last year) the walk-in crowd is modest, to say the least. But Richard still enjoys being there.  “After all,” he tells me “Whaling is the background of Long Island, the culture, it’s the way Long Island grew up.”

According to Richard, Main Street hasn’t changed much in appearance.  But other things have.  “I remember towns before shopping malls when every neighborhood had a little shoe store and a penny candy store. My mother never drove to buy food, she walked down the block!”

“Death” he says.  “So many places have died.”  The towns are trying to bring them back, he says, but it’s tough.

Today my friend and I are the only foot traffic along Cold Spring’s Main Street.  A few cars honk, bewildered, as they whiz by on their way to the beach.

Driving into the sunset on Main Street in Gila Bend, Arizona

Arizona sunsets make you feel like you’re in a movie.  After Buckeye, we drive down I-85 south until we hit Gila Bend.  I grew up in Phoenix for a bit and my mother still lives there, so there is something about this western landscape that feels normal.  Normal that is, in spite of seeing two concrete dinosaurs, a UFO themed hotel (complete with two-story UFO in the parking lot) and a field of old saguaros used as target practice.

We pull off the highway and onto Main Street in Gila Bend.

It’s the abandoned west I love.  We drive into a dirt parking lot where “Ben’s Bar” used to be.  I assume it was a cowboy bar because of the silhouette of the rodeo rider on the side of the building.

We walk down the street and I pick some creosote so I can bring the smell of  desert rain back to New York.  There are a few houses on this Main street. We see a man in a cowboy hat standing on his driveway holding his son.  We go up and talk to him.

“Hi! What’s going on here?”

His name is Jason and his son’s name is Drason.  Jason works for the railroad in Gila Bend, a lot of people who live in Gila Bend do.

“This isn’t much of a Main Street.  Just a few houses.  There’s a roping arena up the road where people practice once a week, but that’s about it.”

We drive up the road to see if there’s any roping going on.  Not right now, although  we see a few beer bottles on the ground.  There are some horses off in the distance creating the most typical Arizona landscape you could imagine.  The only thing missing are the howling coyotes.

We get back into the car and drive off into the sunset.

Picturesque Main Street in Buckeye, Arizona.

This is what Main Street looks like in Buckeye, Arizona.  It’s pretty picturesque, isn’t it?  The Main Street in Buckeye is about 25 miles west of downtown Phoenix off of I-10.  It’s part of the dreamed filled vision called “Verrado Way.” A place billed by its developers as a neighborhood with “a warm welcoming ambiance and small-town charm.  Verrado is a diverse community where you can build your own path to happiness.”

Looks can be deceiving though.

A foreclosed house on Main Street in Buckeye, Arizona.

I drive out Main Street in Buckeye and at first I don’t find anything wrong.  Then I get out of my car and see a young man trying to corral two dogs that have escaped their owner’s backyard. These dogs are not friendly. They keep chasing kids on bikes and running after cars. But they have tags, so the mutts belong to someone. Kyle Sweet is the man I meet.  He’s down from Boulder where he goes to college and is visiting his mom who lives on Main Street.

“I thought there were a lot of foreclosures on this block?”

“There are.  My mom’s had about three different neighbors on both sides of her and she moved here only a few months ago.  She got a great deal on her house.   The foreclosure rate is really high here. ”

We continue to walk, talking with a few other people trying to figure out what to do about these damn dogs roaming Main Street.  We can’t seem to get close to them. Eventually someone calls up the home owner’s association to see if they can get animal control out here.

Kevin and I continue to walk and we soon realize that there are more empty houses than we had thought.

“The thing you have to do is look at the grass.”

Once the ground is brown, the house is empty. A foreclosed home on Main Street in Buckeye, Arizona.

Brown grass = empty house.  Even if they don’t have signs.  Even if they look beautiful.

“It’s worse that it looks.  Everything is hidden here.”

Kyle and I walk up and down Main Street looking for brown grass, the walk up to the homes to see if they’re empty.  I’m surprised by each vacant home.  They look like palaces.  There are so many houses on this Main Street that are empty, I lose count after a while.  It’s like a Disneyland Ghost Town.

I make Kyle stand by a Main Street sign and take his picture.

Kyle Sweet, my Main Street Buckeye tour guide, stands by a sign.

After our informal adventure and tour, I get in the car and drive off.  I never did find out what happened to those dogs.

A tractor heads down Glenbeulah's Main Street

Just a few miles from the resort town of Elkhart Lake is the small town of Glenbeulah, population 378.  The Main Street, running right through the center of town, is flanked by a few businesses and houses with empty front porches.  I’m there around midday so things look fairly deserted, people off tending to their farms or perhaps working at the nearby resort.  I jump out of my car to take a quick picture of the Main street sign just in time to see a massive tractor drive down the center of the street.  It’s likely headed to Weiss’s Lawn and Garden, a large storefront with tractors and other farming supplies sitting outside.

Weiss's has been on Main Street since 1946

Weiss’s interior is like the floor of a car dealership except the customers come there in search of shiny new John Deeres, not hot rods.  In the back office Mary Marciano sits at her computer, placing orders for tractors and other farming items.  She tells me she has been working at Weiss’s for 32 years.  The business was started by her father in 1946.  She’s lived on Main street her whole life, and supposes her family goes back about a hundred years in Glenbeulah.  “It’s a small town,” she says “With its quirks like any other town.” Mary tells me that they just put up a subdivision at the other end of Main Street.  She used to know everyone in town, but now it’s getting bigger.

Mary has worked at Weiss's for 32 years and lived in Glenbeulah all her life.

Down the street next to the gas station is Marshall’s gateway, a new-looking mini mart.  Mike Miller, the manager, stands at the front counter inside.  He tells me that Marshall’s opened about 3 years ago on the empty lot that use to house a metal manufacturing company before it closed down.  I ask Mike about the major construction going on next door and he tells me, “Oh that’s going to be the new Fudgienuckles.”

Fudgienuckles?

It turns out the original “Fudgies” was the town bar that burned down a year ago, leaving a big hole in the community, “It was a mainstay on Main Street” he says.  I notice a PT Cruiser next to the construction site with a license plate that reads “Fudgies” and nearby a woman in pink authoritatively surveys the site and talks to the constructions workers.  I guess she has something to do with Fudgies.

The famous "Fudgies" of Glenbeulah is the mainstay of Main Street

I guess right.  Carrie Lewitz is the daughter of the owners of  what most people in town called “Ma and Pa Fudgies”.  She tells me about the day it burned down.  “People were on the street bawling, just bawling.”  Fudgies was clearly more than just a bar.  “On Christmas we’d have a Santa Clause who really looked like Santa Clause.  And Halloween we’d have a basket of candy for the kids.  It was family oriented.”  But things are looking good with construction and Carrie is confident it will be finished by August.  “They always knew they’d rebuild, I mean there’s only one Fudgies” Carrie says with a laugh.  Karen Hefter, who lives  nextdoor to the old Fudgies site tells me “We just want our bar back.”  Fudgies is something of a community center in Glenbeulah – a place to gather and bring the family, see familiar faces, and shake Ma and Pa Fudgie’s hand when you walk in the door.  Carrie says, rather wistfully “Small towns are cool, they really are.”

Outside the temporary "Fudgies." The original Fudgies that burned down last year, is due to be rebuilt by August.

Main Street in the middle of a field in Navasota, TX

As we pulled into Navasota, TX Case and I were really excited. Looking at the map, it appeared to be very un-Main Street type Main Street. Very far from downtown.

When we arrived, we were not disappointed. It was a one-block, one-lane gravel road on the edge of a field. It was so small there weren’t even any driveways off of it. It sort of felt like it was in everyone’s backyards.

While we were out there taking photos and taking the opportunity to  jump a little rope, a man Terry Collins walked up to us. He grew up in Navasota. He said it was a pretty safe town. Not too many gangs.

When we told Terry what we were up to, that we were documenting Main Streets across the country he said, “Hmmm. I don’t think Navasota has a Main Street.”

I told him “This street is Main Street!”

He thought I was joking until I showed him the sign at the end of the gravel road.