Seaview

This scenic area boasts what is perhaps the most convenient location on the Fire Island map, it is snugly wedged between Ocean Bay Park and Ocean Beach. With a strong emphasis on residential living, Seaview maintains a kid-friendly feel with the community playgrounds, tennis and basketball courts, ball field, and arguably, one of the finest lifeguard-supervised bay beach swimming facilities in the Fire Island community. Seaview is home to Fire Island’s only synagogue which was founded by Herman Wouk. The synagogue runs a youth program and community activities.

Seaview was once the home of a fish factory that established by Gilbert P. Smith in 1895. Unlike Selah Clock’s enterprise in Lonelyville to the west that transported fish for food, Seaview would become a processing plant to produce menhaden oil (a fish attractant) and fertilizer. Gilbert P. Smith’s father (Gilbert M. Smith of Patchogue, NY) was fabled as a master boat builder. He was sometimes called the “Wizard of the Great South Bay,” and his wooden catboats were coveted for their speed. They are still esteemed to be among the finest examples of late 19th and early 20th century watercraft in the history of Long Island. In 1907, Gilbert P. Smith closed his factory and began selling real estate lots on the land parcel where his factory once stood. Since menhaden oil processing plants like the one in Seaview were notorious for their stench, keeping the plant open was not an option once residential development was being considered.

Today, Seaview is a quietly affluent community with interesting architecture on generously-sized green, shady lots. It is something of a curiosity that Seaview is the only Fire Island community to be under the jurisdiction of two separate towns. The boundaries of the towns of Islip and Brookhaven bisect Seaview from north to south in its furthermost eastern blocks. Amenities include a single but well-managed grocery store, a liquor store, plant nursery shop, and residential marina. Seaview does have a direct ferry line from Bay Shore, but it also depends on the Ocean Beach line as service dwindles in the shoulder months.