UDALLS COVE PRESERVATION COMMITTEE

          Prior to the 1950's, the area between Douglaston and Great Neck north of the Long Island Railroad was sparsely developed.  Two small boatyards at the northern end of Little Neck Parkway, at what is now called Virginia Point, were surrounded by salt marsh.  During the 1950's and 1960's many more houses were built, and plans were even made for a golf course to be built on filled wetlands.  At the same time, the wooded uplands were being whittled away also, as development encroached from all sides.  To make matters worse, the remaining marshlands and woods had become dump sites, littered with garbage, demolition debris and even wrecked cars.

          Then one woman said, “Enough.”  Aurora Gareiss, a feisty, middle-aged Douglaston resident whose home looked out on Udalls Cove, determined that what was left of the wetlands and woods around the Cove should be conserved.  And so, in late 1969, along with a few dedicated friends and neighbors, she founded the Udalls Cove Preservation Committee (UCPC).                                                              

          On a Saturday morning in April, 1970, on the occasion of our nation’s first Earth Day, a dedicated group of citizens from Douglaston, Little Neck and Great Neck assembled at the “Back Road” (Sandhill Road) west of the Little Neck railroad station, between Little Neck and Douglaston.  Standing at the edge of a picturesque, one-acre freshwater pond, they committed themselves to preserving the last remnants of undeveloped marshlands, shoreline and wooded uplands in the Udalls Cove watershed. They followed up with the first of what would become annual cleanups of the wetlands and the shoreline.

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          UCPC has been providing "CPR" to the community ever since -- Conservation, Preservation and Restoration of Udalls Cove and the wetlands and wooded uplands in the Udalls Cove watershed.