The Big Pictures at the Front of The Profile
Now we know what the Eagle's readers were told in an effort to sell them on Hicksville. Keeping that in mind, let's finally look at those eye-catching pictures that were placed up-front to entice people into reading the profile.
The photograph of the 1906 Fire House is well-known to many readers, many of whom know that the structure eventually was moved across Marie Street, renovated extensively, and turned into Peppercorn's. North Broadway (a raised crossing gate can be seen left of the picture's center) displays the rough macadam paving of which the town fathers felt compelled to brag. Today, the photo of the old St. Ignatius school building, with its quaint cupola, and the Protectory look rather charming.
Let's pause to consider if these four photographs convey anything useful to a would-be commuter, someone who is trying to choose one future commuter town from all the rest. The presence of the Protectory seems irrelevant to the choosing. Good fire departments, schools, and paving are things that most Nassau County towns on the railroad also have. These pictures may keep Hicksville in the running, but they give it no advantage.
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Marketers sometimes say, "Don't sell the steak; sell the sizzle!" Well, compared to some other would-be suburbs, 1908's Hicksville seems to have been awfully low on sizzle. Clearly, it needed something more in that department. Hence, we have the final picture (lower left in the group).
Question: Just where in Hicksville did M.S. Burrill shoehorn in her/his little cottage?
Answer: S/he didn't.
Middleton Schoolbred Burrill was a prominent New York City lawyer, and he was even better at being wealthy than he was at being prominent. In Manhattan, he lived in a brownstone that since has been designated a landmark. In 1906, as the tidy Hicksville Fire House was receiving its finishing touches, so was Burrill's country home, Jericho Farm. Designed by John Russell Pope, then a fashionable architect, it was the centerpiece of an estate of nearly 1,000 acres.
Aerial View of Jericho Farm, from American Architect, 1927
OldLongIsland.com/2014/08/jericho-farm.html
The "estate next door" belonged to William K. Vanderbilt.Obviously, the Burrill Residence was not located in Hicksville.
Presumably, the Eagle thought that Hicksville would make a poor showing, juxtaposed as it was to Roslyn and Port Jefferson, both of which had an abundance of sizzle - beautiful lakes, thickets of aged trees, sailboats in the harbor. The overview had lowered reader expectations at the outset, pointing out that the village was flat, with no trees that predated settlement, and that it was as far from water as one could be on Long Island. Hicksvillians probably were grateful that the phrase "remarkably unscenic" was not used.
To remedy this weakness, the reporter must have scoured the area for something photogenic, in the end settling on Jericho Farm. It wasn't in the village, but that was not a problem. Would anyone move to Hicksville, and complain afterwards to the Eagle that Jericho Farm turned out to be in Jericho?
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