Pride in Port 2011 Essay Winner Emily Sanders

A note from the Pride in Port Committee: The Band Shell at Sunset Park is a popular place, and is also the favorite spot written about in Emily’s reflective essay. Emily is a senior at and a Port Washington native. She is the daughter of Ann Latner and Peter Sanders. Emily is thinking about becoming a teacher and plans to study English and possibly Environmental Science in college. Currently a member of the literary magazine and Tree Huggers at Schreiber, she pursues her musical interests on violin with the symphonic orchestra and plays piano.

The Band Shell at Sunset Park by Emily Sanders

After watching far too many Gilmore Girls episodes and taking annual trips to tiny towns in Vermont that revolve around weekly syrup tastings, I have grown to accumulate a particular taste for small town charm. In Port Washington, a town in which it has been proven that 7 or 8 quaint pizzerias named after nice-sounding Italian men can easily fill the void of having a McDonald’s on every other street corner, this charm is prominent. It is difficult to name one location in this town where all this quirky appeal has amassed; each part of Port Washington is essential in creating the impression of the whole town as a close-knit community. However, one small place stands out in my mind—the band shell at Sunset Park, a dome which captures this town’s personality and even my own memories.

Merely looking at the band shell doesn’t tell you much. Sure, the surrounding view is beautiful; the sound behind it is often surrounded by a purplish sky and clouds stained orange by the dimming sun. The band shell itself looks pretty boring—just a sphere cut in half with a few stairs in the middle. However, the range of what goes on inside is what makes me love it so much. While it may not be the stadium at Jones Beach, the concerts that go on inside are far more loveable—often, a large group of cheery-looking elderly men in red jackets line up with their tubas and trumpets to play John Phillip Sousa’s most renowned marches. Other times, movies are hosted at the band shell, fulfilling one of my most intense desires to go to a drive-in movie in the ‘40s… minus the car. In both of these scenarios, families of all ages set up lounge chairs on the grass to sit and watch while their children draw in the dirt with sticks and look out on the water. It seems pretty much like a Norman Rockwell portrait to me.

As disgustingly cheesy as it may sound, I went to the band shell on my first date. It was the middle of January—not really the ideal time to be outside next to the water. Yet there was something about that band shell that lured me to it, and for the next hour we sat, bearing the biting wind, just talking. I remember bringing up one of my earliest memories of when I was four or five, seeing how far I could jump from each step of the shell. Now, I demonstrated, I could almost jump from the tallest one.

I don’t think I’ll ever really be able to sum up my town in one of its locations. Yet, the band shell at Sunset Park, in all its old-fashioned simplicity, almost does the trick.

Editor's Note:  were announced on Patch on Sept 17. Patch will be running each of the winning essays this week.