BY CARL CORRY

 

Apr 6, 1997

 


IT'S THE TYPE of community where parents take turns waiting at the bus stop for one another's children, where everyone knows one another or is related in some way. But as residents of Gordon Heights prepare to celebrate its 70th anniversary this summer, they also are keenly aware of the problems in the area.

 

During the day, Gordon Heights, an almost entirely residential area, is peaceful. Its lush trees hover over the community like omnipotent protectors. But at night, they produce the shadows for the drug pushers and prostitutes whom residents have been fighting to get rid of for years.

 

"It's still bad, but not as bad" as it had been during the 1980s, says Elsie Owens, who also has led a Neighborhood Watch program in this predominantly black community for the past nine years.

 

Owens, 69, the Brookhaven NAACP chairwoman, says things have changed for the better in recent years, thanks to more police presence, a town-created, federallyfunded neighborhood revitalization plan called Operation Firestorm II and the determination of residents who say they want to restore pride and integrity to their community.

 

Gordon Heights covers about 1.4 square miles between Middle Country Road and Granny Road, with Mill Road to the west and Bartlett Road to the east. It has no separate postal district - most homes have a Medford post office address - and is surrounded by Coram, Medford, Middle Island and Yaphank. There's also no commercial center.

 

The predominantly residential Gordon Heights area means that residents also don't have stores to call their own. Residents generally do their food shopping at a Pathmark store in Coram - scheduled to close next month - or the Edwards and Waldbaum's supermarkets in Selden.

 

Gordon Heights was created in 1927, when a white developer named Louis Fife sold five 100-square-foot plots to black residents in New York City, in an effort to give them a chance at owning their own land in a rural environment. Fife bought the property from a man known as "Pop" Gordon, hence the name.

 

To market the community, Fife knocked on the doors of black communities and churches in Harlem, Brooklyn and the Bronx, offering them land for as low as $20 down and $10 a month. Early residents who moved to the area raised vegetables, canned their produce and kept chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese and pigs.

 

Sam Spence, a retired Interborough Rapid Transit motorman, bought five lots on Seymour Lane from Fife in 1936 when he was 18 years old. It cost him $200.

 

"I bought it for an investment. I wanted a piece of the action," recalls the 79-year-old, holding an old, black, leather-covered Bible in his hands, sitting in the second pew of the Seventh Day Adventist Church on Teller Avenue, which his father started as the first church in Gordon Heights.

 

There are now nine churches in Gordon Heights, as well as a community center for children.

 

Spence says the promise of low-priced land lured him and others from the Bronx.

 

"Originally, some came out and stayed, but it was mostly a summer place for a while," he says. "It used to be difficult for black people to get a mortgage."

 

Spence waited and saved for 18 years to build a modest home. He married, and he and his wife of 56 years, Ethelyn, raised four children in the community and sent them all to college.

 

But not everyone has stayed. Dan Mitchell, 38, a real estate agent in Middle Island, grew up in Gordon Heights, four houses away from Owens. At 18, he joined the Navy. In 1989, he returned home to find what he called "hell."

 

"When I came back it was very bad," Mitchell said. Rampant prostitution and drugs led him to join the community's neighborhood watch. A year later, he moved to Middle Island, because, he says, he didn't want to raise a family in the community. His brother still lives in Gordon Heights.

 

Residents say much of the crime followed the dumping of welfare clients by the county in the 1980s. Dennis Nowak, spokesman for the county's Department of Social Services, while disputing the dumping charge, says the agency has been working to address the community's concerns. Between 1993 and 1996, welfare caseloads in the Gordon Heights area declined faster than in Suffolk as a whole, he says.

 

Still, residents say, the situation has had some lasting effects. Some of those are being counteracted by the revitalization program, which is financing efforts to reduce drug trafficking and pursuing illegal and substandard residences, unsafe buildings and auto "chop shops."

 

The local enforcement efforts also are being aided by the Neighborhood Watch program. Members of the group make their presence known every night by going from street to street, flashing their headlights to the drug pushers, letting them know they are being watched. If a suspicious car cruises through the streets, members write down the license plate number and hand it over to the Sixth Precinct.

 

Despite its problems, residents say they love Gordon Heights and are proud of its history and accomplishments. In 1946, they produced an honor roll of 123 men who enlisted in the military during World War II. The following year, the fire department was organized. The current firehouse is on the site of a former church that burned down. Also in 1947, residents pressured town officials to put in street lights. Years later, they established a water district and had parks built.

 

John Pryor, 75, has been a member of the Gordon Heights Fire Department for 44 years. "I have served more time than anyone else," he laughs. "We have pride that we don't have to depend on the surrounding districts. We think that it enhances the community."

 

POPULATION: 2,402

 

MEDIAN INCOME: $37,048

 

MEDIAN AGE: 29.1

 

SCHOOL DISTRICT: Longwood

 

Carl Corry is a free-lance writer