Marconiville

The story of Marconiville, a subdivision in Copiague, is fascinating in many respects. One man, John Campagnoli had a vision of an ethnic community within Copiague’s boundaries. He saw that vision through to reality. He named it Marconiville after the 1909 Nobel Prize winner and one-time classmate Gugliemo Marconi. Mr. Campagnoli was instrumental in many facets of the neighborhood. Buildings and monuments built at that time attest to the vibrant town. Marconiville is also a study in the struggle against an unfriendly and at times hostile social climate. Marconiville did not survive. There is hardly any evidence of it today.

This is a piece of a fence that remains on Great Neck Road that bears the name Marconiville. The fence now stands about one block south of the railroad on the west side of the street, south of the old Marconiville boundary.

• Early Settlement
• Marconi’s connection to Marconiville
• Buildings and Monuments in Marconiville
• Discrimination
• Schools
• Succession from Copiague

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Early Settlement

“Italians Excluded,” was the blunt, unmistakable message included in a turn-of-the-century broadside which advertised property for sale in a Long Island community. Ironically, Italian Americans came to be the largest single nationality group on Long Island only two to three generations alter. Simultaneously, other entrepreneurs and developers extended themselves in efforts to encourage the immigrant people to move to Long Island. In the late 1880s real estate notices advertised “Italian” colonies on Long Island such as Marconiville in Copiague¹.

Although the identity of the first Italian to settle in Copiague is elusive, it appears that the farm land that was the site of the future Marconiville passed into the hands of speculative real estate companies, one of which, the Sovereign Realty Company, was presided over by Nicholas Cimino in 1906. A map of that year shows that of the few streets in the area, a couple bore recognizable Italian names².

The Map of Section The Brinckerhoff Manor, Copiague, Long Island, Suffolk County surveyed in 1906 shows very few streets in the area and only two recognizable Italian names. This was before Campagnoli’s time³.

Giovanni (John) Campagnoli was undoubtedly the catalyst for Italian settlement in the community. He was a one-time classmate of Guglielmo Marconi and owner of the land he christened Marconiville in 1913. Campagnoli emphasized the unique opportunity Marconiville represented. He played on home ownership and the goal of living among fellow ethnics⁴.

Many of the founding families of Marconiville were from the Amillia-Romagna⁵ region of Italy.

Copiague bears more streets named for historic Italian figures than any other settlement in New York, and quite possibly the nation⁶. Some street names are historical: Verrazzano, Verdi, Dante, Marconi, Vespucci, Caboto, Colombo and Garibaldi. Others are named after the early settlers such as Campagnoli and Barcellona.

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Marconi’s connection to Marconiville

John Campagnoli was a one-time classmate of Guglielmo Marconi. For the small enclave of Marconiville, the personal visit or even the possibility of a visit by Marconi was regarded as an auspicious occasion. A visit in 1913 was planned, but there is doubt it occurred. Marconi did come to Marconiville in 1917 to gather support within the United States for his home country embroiled in World War I. He returned for another visit in 1927⁷.

Guglielmo Marconi had a radio station built to communicate with inbound and outbound ships on Fire Island Ave in Babylon. There is a picture of the radio shack in Babylon Historical Museum, Montauk Hwy, Babylon. The original site is marked with a plaque at Fire Island Ave and Virginia Avenue in the town of Babylon.

Edwin Armstrong bought the shack and planned on exhibiting it at the 1930s Worlds Fair in Chicago. The project never materialized. He instead presented it to the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) located in Rocky Point, Long Island, New York. The 12x14 foot shack is currently at the Joseph Edgar Intermediate School on Route 25A in Rocky Point, New York.

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Buildings and Monuments in Marconiville

John Campagnoli’s house (up to a few years ago relative to the year 1973) stood on Great Neck Road opposite Church Place. Eventually it was vacated, condemned, and demolished.

The Marconiville Hotel was built in the early 1900s. The hotel went through several ownerships before being destroyed by fire in 1925.

John Campagnoli commissioned the erection of a 24-foot high monument to honor the Marconiville residents who served in World War I. In the 1950s, the stone was moved to Veterans Memorial Park near the train station⁸. It now stands at about 3 feet high.

The Our Lady of the Assumption Church was built in Marconiville with the aid of John Campagnoli, because the nearest church was in Amityville and too far away for local participation. The Our Lady of the Assumption Church still stands and is active today (year 2007).

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Discrimination

The southern Copiague residents held a low opinion of the Marconiville residents. The people of Amityville had a low opinion of Copiague people⁹. In the 1920s there was a drive to create organizations conversant with local issues. The Copiague Civic Association was founded by residents south of the train tracks. Membership was virtually non-existent for the Italians in the northern part of town. Long Island Italians formed their own societies and were destined to play integral roles in the wider sphere of Long Island community life¹⁰.

Discrimination was also felt in the fire department and in the schools.

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Schools

In the schools, the Marconiville residents were met with prejudice. Names that were too long and too un-American were changed by the schools. Either because of pronunciation difficulties, illiteracy or a display of superiority, native Americans did not always call Italians by their Christian names. Misspellings were frequent¹¹.

The passage of the National Origins Quota Act in 1924 severely restricted Italian immigration. There was also a push for United State nationalism. The Americanization movement was in full evidence in Copiague. The aim was to teach foreigners the English language and American customs¹².

Copiague residents attended the Amityville High School. In 1924, Amityville built a new high school. Students from Copiague, Massapequa, Seaford, and Wantagh attended the school¹³. The Copiague Walter O'Donnell High School was built in 1957.

In the 1920s the first Italian was elected to the three-person Copiague school board. He was Louis Campagnoli, son of the town’s founder. By 1925 the Board had seven members, thee Italian. An official report in 1933 shows that 60 percent of the school population was Italian. By 1940 there were two Italian teachers in the faculty¹⁴.

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Succession from Copiague

In the 1920s, Campagnoli suggested that Marconiville should be considered as separate from Copiague proper. Although the Amityville Record newspaper supported it, many local residents did not. Campagnoli approached the Copiague postmaster, the state senate, and the Long Island Lighting Company to change the address of mailings from Copiague to Marconiville. This seems to have happened about 1948¹⁵.

In 1949, a major controversy over a proposal to change the street names in the old Marconiville section of Copiague. At least one complaint expressing embarrassment over the Italian street names reached the Town of Babylon in 1945. This might have been because of World War II when Italy was an enemy nation. The succession campaign idea was traced to the Copiague Lions Club. It may have stemmed from the residual animosity between the old Copiaguers in the south and the Italians in the north. It could have also been from the revived nationalism after World War II¹⁶. The Italian named streets of Copiague remain today.

Marconiville was not destined to be a separate entity from Copiague and, after a number of years, virtually ceased to be the reference to the community¹⁷.

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Footnotes

1. LaGumina, Salvatore J., “From Steerage to Suburb: Long Island Italians.” Center for Migration Studies, New York, 1988. page 1.

2. ibid. Page 22.

3. ibid. Pages 36-37.

4. ibid. Pages 34-35.

5. ibid. inner front cover.

6. ibid. Pages 36-37.

7. ibid. Pages 34-35.

8. ibid. Page 103.

9. ibid. Pages 35-36.

10. ibid. Pages 97-98.

11. ibid. Page 67.

12. ibid. Page 70.

13. The Amityville Historical Society. Images of America — Amityville. Arcadia Publishing, Charleston, SC, 1960.

14. LaGumina, Salvatore J., “From Steerage to Suburb: Long Island Italians.” Center for Migration Studies, New York, 1988. Pages 171-172.

15. ibid. Pages 68-69.

16. ibid. Page 77.

17. ibid. Page 69.

Web Explorations (external links)

There are many internet sites about Guglielmo Marconi.

“Distant Sparks” based in Sayville, NY, is the Long Island WIreless Historical Society. www.liwhs.org