As many Forgotten NY readers know, I have an affinity for Port Washington, NY as I worked in town for 12 years, in two separate stints from 1992-1999 and again from 2006-2011. I have walked its streets, and rode in a company van that took me from the train station to work in the north part of town. Throughout that time, I passed this beautiful 3-story brick building with terra cotta panels at the roofline at one of the town’s major crossroads, at Main Street and Shore Road. The building was constructed for candy store and later drugstore owner Alfred C. Bayles (pronounced bay-less) in 1914. Born in Oyster Bay, he later resided in Locust Valley and later worked in Roslyn and Little Neck. At the time all those locations were still in Queens County. Bayles moved to Port Washington in 1868.
According to the Cow Neck Peninsula Historical Society, Bayles (1846-1941) opened a candy store at the intersection in 1872 and was the first area resident to use a telephone. Bayles’ store was connected to the Flushing Exchange, the only one in use in northern Long Island in those early days. At the time the device was used to take down messages, which were delivered to area residents by messengers on foot or by horsecart. His original woodframe structure also was used as a post office. It burned down in 1902. Bayles’ second store stood alongside the new building on the corner for some time after the “new” building was built in 1914.
The ground floor, formerly hosting Bayles’ drugstore, is home to an art dealer, but for several years it housed the Dolphin Bookstore, which I patronized on occasion. The store, now closed, was in business in several locations from 1946-2022. The Bayles name is remembered in a Port Washington avenue.
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7/28/26
4 comments
Port Washington residents who commute on the LIRR are lucky, as they don’t have to deal with Jamaica.
With the arrival of the Long Island Rail Road in Port Washington in 1898 this once sleepy peninsula began a rapid change into the bustling, vibrant community it is today. To share that history, the Cow Neck Peninsula Historical Society provides tours of the Manhasset Bay shoreline, the Mill Pond and of the two homes from the pre-Revolutionary era which it maintains. It is working with the Town of North Hempstead to restore the Monfort Cemetery, in which a dozen Patriots of the American Revolution are buried. More information about the Society and the rich history of the greater Port Washington area can be found at http://www.cowneck.org.
That must have been when you worked at Publishers Clearinghouse.
Oh,the joy you must have brought to so many people as you presented
them with giant checks and basked in the glory of their gratitude.
Bless you
They wouldn’t let me, I’;m not exactly a people prson and certainly not one carrying balloons.