Historic Long Island maps found in Malverne basement

A treasure trove of original survey maps of the Long Island Motor Parkway — the country’s first road built exclusively for automobiles, in 1908 — have been in the basement of a Malverne business, the Learning Circle, for decades. “I saw them about 20 years ago and I didn’t pay much attention to them,” said Roy Knoernschild, an on-call custodian for the building.

Ten years ago, the building’s owner, Paul Weissbluth, an engineer, reached out to the Malverne Historical Society about the maps, but never received a call back. Weissbluth died two years later, and the maps stayed in the basement, in an old wooden crate, for another eight years.

Recently, Knoernschild, who lives in Baldwin, was cleaning up the basement and saw the chest again. He examined the contents and found many maps documenting the layout of the Motor Parkway. He began researching the parkway’s historical significance, and tried to find someone who would appreciate and preserve the maps.

That person was Howard Kroplick.

“He called me and said, ‘I got a couple of maps,’ and I get that a [lot] … so my first reaction is ‘Yeah, OK,’” said Kroplick, who is the Town of North Hempstead historian, president of the Long Island Motor Parkway Preservation Society, a board member of the Society for the Preservation of Long Island Antiquities and a classic car collector. “So we get together, and he leads me down into … [the] basement, and opens up this chest and I said, ‘Oh my God, there’s like 100 maps in there — and all of them are different!’”

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