Making a Place on Montauk Highway

A trip through East Patchogue along Montauk Highway looks a lot like a trip along any number of other commercial strips on Long Island or, for that matter, across the country: gas stations, drive-thrus, the occasional vacant lot and retail businesses of different kinds - some healthy, some struggling – but all of them automobile-oriented and set back behind ample parking lots. Over the years the focus became the size of the parking lot in front of the store without regard for appearance or appeal from the street. To the driver passing through this is ​“Anywhere USA”.

But to Focus East Patchogue (Focus), there is the potential for part of this road to become something very different: a ​“place” with its own identity. And while it may not be possible to make a complete downtown or ​“Main Street” in the conventional sense of the words – like the Village of Patchogue immediately to the west – it is possible to move beyond the commercial strip to a place that is attractive, walkable, and a mixed-use destination that attracts high quality development.