-------------------- The Jones Beach Tower --------------------
This is a Virtual Cache, which means that there is no cache container at this spot, you simply have to visit the site and answer 5 easy questions The questions can be found near the end of the text below. Send the answers to me to get credit for this find, single word answers are fine. Please do not post close-up photos, as that would give away the answers for future finders!
New York State Park Permit # 18-0552
The Creation of Jones Beach and the Jones Beach Tower
(aka RM's Successful Project # 1)
In 1923, a young, ambitious city planner named Robert Moses visited Jones Beach, a desolate barrier beach on Long Island's south shore. Countless times, he’d launch a small boat from across the bay and spend days alone out there. Across the dunes, Moses would look onto the Atlantic, the Fire Island lighthouse further east, and New York City 25 miles west. Besides a few men who lived in caves among the dunes and seasonal hunters who visited Jones Beach, the place was empty, wild, and far away. It conjured up something in Moses. After hundreds of visits, Moses had an epiphany while looking over maps of the city’s reticulated infrastructure. The water-supply properties of Nassau County led in a row toward Jones Beach, making it possible for a network of roads to connect the city to Jones Beach with a causeway over the bay. The idea, which was to be the future Southern State, Meadowbrook and Wantagh parkways, became Moses' first public-works project, an indicator of his career ahead.
When Moses' group first surveyed Jones Island, it was swampy and only two feet above sea level; the island frequently became completely submerged during storms. To create the park, huge dredgers worked day and night to bring sand from the bay bottom, eventually bringing the island to 12 feet above sea level. Another problem that followed was the wind — the fine silver beach sand would blow horribly, making the workers miserable and making the use of the beach as a recreational facility unlikely. Moses sent landscape architects to other stable Long Island beaches, who reported that a beach grass whose roots grew sideways in search of water, held dunes in place, forming a barrier to the wind. In the summer of 1928, thousands of men worked on the beach planting the grass by hand. He was ready to demand millions of dollars at a time when putting public money into recreation was unheard of and he was ready for a long, bloody siege to win the lands of wealthy Long Islanders who badly wanted to keep the lesser classes of New York City far away from them.
The first engineering stake was driven into the sands of Jones Beach at the precise spot where the water tower stands. While legal battles over ownership of other parts of Jones Beach continued, a 3½-year construction project ensued. At a final inspection of the new facility a few weeks before it opened, Moses not only extolled his vision of the new park but, perhaps cognizant of the bitter opposition he had faced, sought to reassure any doubters that Jones Beach would be unlike any other seaside resort. There would be no carousels, no sideshows, no hotels. Moses did not want the "cheesiness" of Coney Island.
Jones Beach opened on Sunday, Aug. 4, 1929. In a ceremony at the new East Bathhouse, Moses stood next to then-New York Gov. Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1930, its first full season, the park attracted 1.5 million visitors. By 1933, that number had more than doubled. By the end of the decade, Jones Beach was known worldwide and today attracts 6 million to 8 million visitors a year. They now come not only to splash in the Atlantic Ocean but to attend concerts at the music theater and enjoy the annual air show, which features the Navy's Blue Angels flight team, the Army's Golden Knights parachute team and vintage airplanes.
The Jones Beach’s water tower is the focal point in the park. The Ocean Parkway and the Wantagh Parkway meet here in a wide roundabout that skirts the lawn at the base of the tower. Looming over the park and the nearby South Shore, the tower stands at 188 feet, but it extends more than 1,000 feet underground as it stores the water supply for the entire park. The four-sided tower stretches up from a base of Ohio sandstone, with Art Deco details adorning the edge where the sandstone meets Barbizon brick. The tower returns to sandstone before it reaches the pyramid spire. The tower ingeniously hides a water tower inside it. Affectionately referred to as "the pencil," this tower was modeled after the campanile of St. Mark's Cathedral in Venice.
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Visit this Long Island landmark and answer the following five questions to get credit for finding this virtual cache. Single word answers are fine. (The first question was going to be "What is the tower used for?", but the answer "water" was a bit too easy).
1. There are 12 Ohio sandstone pillars rising above the outer perimeter walls and all of them housed the same item at one time. Now, 4 pillars are missing this item but the other 8 still have this item installed in them. What item was removed by workers from each of the 4 pillars?
2. What same four-letter word is imprinted (in metal, not stone) at the Northeast, Southeast and Southwest inner corners of the outer perimeter walls? (This word is not imprinted at the Northwest inner corner)
3. What year is engraved in cement at the corner of the tower?
4. Find the 9-letter Latin word carved on the North face of this huge Masonic obelisk. Now, look “ever upward” and you will find the Roman Goddess Iustitia and next to her, the Roman Goddess Libertas. The one that has a Phrygian cap raised on a pole has her left foot treading on an item, this action being a symbol of our freedom from the Kingdom of Great Britain. What is this item?
5. Behind Iustitia's raised sword, with its eyes looking to the east, is heraldic depiction of an ancient Roman symbol Aquila. What round object is this ”bald” National symbol, that represents freedom, clutching with both its talons?
To get more info on the creation of this famous park and many others on Long Island, I suggest reading the 1974 Pulitzer Prize winning novel “The Power Broker” by Robert Caro. If any cachers want to learn how New York City was connected to Long Island so that the city-dwellers could escape for recreation purposes, it is a good 1200 page biography. Moses always wanted his parkways to end in his parks, as you can see at Sunken Meadow, Heckscher and this one. He was called the “Master Builder“ and to his employees “the Boss”. It was once said that Moses built more roads than Caesar and had more power than the presidents and governors that he served under, combined. His brilliance was to get "appointed" to his many positions as he knew that no politician would dare to fire the benevolent "parks creator" for fear they would lose their next election as a result. He controlled billions of dollars of government funds, yet could (usually) not be bribed. He always favored planning for automobile routes over public transportation use. The ironic thing is that although he created roads for people to leave the city and visit Long Island in their motorcars, he never learned how to drive himself. If any of you’ve ever sat in bumper-to-bumper traffic and wondered "who planned out this ridiculous system of roads and bridges on such a highly populated place like Long Island and NY City?" …. well, from my back seat, my kid always answers that same question with "yeah, I know Dad… Robert Moses"
Directions: Take Wantagh State Parkway south and it ends at the Ocean Parkway roundabout. I parked in the bus stop on the south side and carefully crossed the traffic circle to get to gz. You can also pay the fee, park in field 5 and walk south through the tunnel under Ocean Parkway and walk west, then north. Please be careful crossing the circle, I don't want anyone to get hit by a car just to solve a virtual. *Please do not post close-up photos, especially of the north face of RM’s phallic monument, as this will spoil it for future finders. If I see any posted, I will have to delete them, thanks.
New York State Park Permit # 18-0552
Virtual Reward - 2017/2018
This Virtual Cache is part of a limited release of Virtuals created between August 24, 2017 and August 24, 2018. Only 4,000 cache owners were given the opportunity to hide a Virtual Cache. Learn more about Virtual Rewards on the Geocaching Blog.