The East Hampton Town Board passed three resolutions to name preserves and parks for deceased residents of the town last Thursday.
The Amagansett Youth Park will be dedicated to Lee A. Hayes, a member of the 477th Bombardment Group of the Tuskegee Airmen, the first African-American military aviators in the United States Armed Forces. Hayes, who died at 91 in 2013, moved with his family from Virginia to East Hampton in 1930, attending the Amagansett School and East Hampton High School.
Drafted in 1943 and sent to an airbase in Florida, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant before being sent to Tuskegee, Ala. Though trained as a pilot, he “continued to face discrimination and inequality in civilian life” after World War II, Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc said, “unable to obtain a job as a pilot with the rapidly growing commercial airline industry.” He persevered, Mr. Van Scoyoc said, performing manual labor and acquiring land in the town. Many of his descendants still live in the town.
The town also agreed to name a preserve at 880 and 888 Springs-Fireplace Road in Springs for Nancy Nagle Kelley, a longtime advocate for land preservation and stewardship on the East End who died in August. Ms. Kelley was the director of the Long Island chapter of the Nature Conservancy from 1999 until last year. Under her leadership, the chapter helped raise billions of dollars for land preservation here and around the world, her family told The Star. She lobbied and partnered with state and local governments to preserve tens of thousands of acres of unique Long Island habitats and open spaces.
The property at 958 Springs-Fireplace Road in Springs was named the Cile Downs Town Nature Preserve. Ms. Downs, an abstract painter, lived at the 1.35-acre property for more than 60 years until her death last year, after which the town acquired it. She and her husband, the artist Sheridan Lord, moved to the hamlet in 1954 and were contemporaries of the celebrated Springs artists Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, James Brooks, and Charlotte Park. Ms. Downs played a significant role in the women’s liberation movement in the 1970s, said Mr. Van Scoyoc, and was a longtime advocate for the protection of Accabonac Harbor.
