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Hilda Lindley, born Hilda Livingston, (5 October 1919 – 12 December 1980) founded the Concerned Citizens of Montauk (CCOM) in 1970. At the time, she lived in a private house in the middle of what is now 
After the land was saved, Hilda Lindley received a notice from Suffolk County telling her she had thirty days to leave the property. She spent the next several years working out an agreement with the county, by which she was allowed to stay in her house for thirty-five years, after which it would revert to the county and neither she nor her estate would receive any compensation for the house or the two acres of land it was on. Hilda Lindley died in December 1980. According to her wishes, her ashes were scattered on Squaw Hill in Indian Field.
In December 2010, the Suffolk County Legislature passed a bill naming her house the
Theodore Roosevelt County Park
Montauk County Park, formerly known as Theodore Roosevelt County Park, is located approximately east of Montauk, New York. The park is in size, running from Montauk Highway north to Block Island Sound and is bordered on the east by Montauk Poin ...
in Montauk, New York
Montauk ( ) is a hamlet and census-designated place (CDP) in the Town of East Hampton in Suffolk County, New York, on the eastern end of the South Shore of Long Island. As of the 2020 United States census, the CDP's population was 4,318.
The ...
. Lindley became alarmed when she learned that developers planned to build 1,400 housing units in Indian Field, in the area of Big Reed Pond
Big Reed Pond is a freshwater pond located in Montauk, New York on Long Island. A site including the pond, brackish marshland and natural sand dunes was designated as a National Natural Landmark in 1973. The largely undeveloped pond is located ...
, and to construct a second inlet into Lake Montauk
Lake Montauk is a 900-acre (360 ha) artificial embayment in Montauk, New York that is home to the largest commercial and sporting fish fleets in the state of New York.
History
The lake was originally referred to on maps as Lake Wyandanch and com ...
from Shagwong Point. She put an ad in ''The East Hampton Star
''The East Hampton Star'' is a weekly, privately owned newspaper published each Thursday in East Hampton, New York. It is one of the few independent, family-owned newspapers still existing in the United States. The owners live in East Hampton Town ...
'' inviting anyone who was interested to come to a meeting at her home in Indian Field. Those who showed up became the first members of CCOM. It took three years and countless hours of travel and testimony, but Lindley and the original CCOM finally prevailed upon Suffolk County to establish much of Indian Field as a county park.
After the land was saved, Hilda Lindley received a notice from Suffolk County telling her she had thirty days to leave the property. She spent the next several years working out an agreement with the county, by which she was allowed to stay in her house for thirty-five years, after which it would revert to the county and neither she nor her estate would receive any compensation for the house or the two acres of land it was on. Hilda Lindley died in December 1980. According to her wishes, her ashes were scattered on Squaw Hill in Indian Field.
In December 2010, the Suffolk County Legislature passed a bill naming her house the Hilda Lindley House The Hilda Lindley House is a former U.S. Army fire control station in Indian Field in Montauk, New York. The house is named for the woman who lived there and saved Indian Field from development in the 1970s, but who had her house taken from her by ...
in her honor.
See also
Renee V. H. Simons - Anti-gentrification activist for SANSReferences
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lindley, Hilda 1919 births 1980 deaths Parks in Suffolk County, New York East Hampton (town), New York American environmentalists American women environmentalists 20th-century American women 20th-century American people