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.