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Updated February 4, 2005

Harbor Hill - Roslyn ANG Station - Soon to be a Park

The map below shows a fifty acre tract of land labeled, "Roslyn Air National Guard Station".  This is an interesting piece of ground to anyone tracking the breakup of Clarence Mackay's 640 acre Harbor Hill Estate after his death in November 1938.

Map courtesy of Yahoo! Inc. and NAVTEQ. This map and others like it can be found by going to Yahoo Maps at http://maps.yahoo.com/

In 1940, the gray area above was leased by Clarence's son, John W. Mackay, to the U.S. Army as an Air Defense Post of the First Fighter Command. From 1948 to 1959, the site was the home of the 26th Air Division's Air Defense Control Center which controlled the entire Northeast. During this period it was known as the Roslyn Air Force Station. From 1959 to 2000, New York State had a lease on the property for use as an Air National Guard communications and electronics training site. And in 2000, as a result of the 1995 Base Realignment and Closure Commission (BRAC), the station was closed and its units moved up to Stewart Air National Guard Base, Newburgh, New York.      Formal title for the property first changed hands in 1953 when John W. Mackay sold the site to the U.S. Government for $250,000 ($5,000 an acre). By the time the Air Force had to place a fair market value on the property, they claimed in 1999 that the value was, "as much as $22.4 million, or at least $14 million". Source: www.globalsecurity.org/military/ facility/roslyn.htm      According to the Roslyn News, village officials from East Hills were concerned that the site might be replaced by "low-income housing, a major commercial post office processing facility, or...a drug rehabilitation center." Consequently, the village moved quickly to purchase the facility from the U.S. Air Force and ultimately were able to do so for $3 million ($60,000 an acre).      The site became property of the Village of East Hills on December 9, 2000. In 2003 the residents of East Hills overwhelmingly (77%) approved development of the site into a park. For anyone interested in reading about the park ground breaking festivities in September 2004, click here www.antonnews.com/roslynnews/2004/09/24/news/ park.html

Click here to view 1918 Topographic map of the Harbor Hill - East Hills area prior to development

Interested in more military history of the activities between 1940-2000 at this site? Click here: www.dmna.state.ny.us/forts/fortsQ_S/roslynAir.htm

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