‘Tin City’ was a ‘fascinating and unsettling’ story

To the Editor:

Couldn’t let another day go by without commending you on this incredible piece of writing (“Tin City: The story of Riverhead’s forgotten slums, Feb. 29.)

It is difficult to imagine the squalor that took place here, which to this reader seemed as though it must have happened during post-Civil War reconstruction, but was in fact only a generation ago. I also found it hard to believe that this was the Riverhead that my father (b. 1945) grew up in, although it does give context to his youth and serves to affirm some of the stereotypes he may have held.

It’s both fascinating and unsettling to know that these “shanty towns” were sited on a present-day golf course and county park, where I have taken my kids camping numerous times. Time and man have made coldly efficient work of eradicating any remnant of this sad history from the land.

Thank you for taking what I am sure was an enormous amount of time researching and writing this article to remind us of where we’ve been. Hopefully, it will help to keep us from winding up there again.

David Bozuhoski Jr.

Riverhead