Commack, NY — Crash Data, Roads, History & Law

History

Commack is a hamlet and census-designated place divided between the Town of Smithtown and the Town of Huntington in Suffolk County.^[25][1][6] Smithtown, founded in 1665, lists Commack as one of the six hamlets that make up the town, along with Kings Park, St. James, Nesconset and Hauppauge.^[1] Huntington's own history describes the town's settlement as dating to 1653.^[6] A 1911 study of Long Island's Algonquian place-names by Suffolk County historian William Wallace Tooker describes the hamlet under an older spelling as a "hamlet in the eastern part of Huntington town, and partly in Smithtown" — the reverse of the modern balance, in which Smithtown holds the larger share; the sources reviewed here do not resolve why the description of the split has changed.^[23]

The name is a later form of Winnecomac, recorded in a Native land conveyance of November 1689 in which Secatogue Indians conveyed a tract "known by ye name of Winne-comac bounded on ye north side by Witmans Hollow" to John Skidmore and John Whitman of Huntington.^[24] Tooker traces the word to Algonquian roots meaning "good, fine, pleasant" joined to a term for "a house" or "a place," together signifying "a pleasant field" or "good land."^[23] Later records show the spelling shifting across the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, including Winecomack (1787), Weno Comack (1791), Wenecomack (1795), Winnecomak (1797) and Wenea-Commack (1812).^[23]

Methodism reached the hamlet in 1783, when a society formed after a sermon by John Phillips, a Methodist local preacher whom James Hubbs had invited to preach after hearing him in Cow Harbor (present-day Northport); the congregation, known as the Comac Society, was the second Methodist society organized on Long Island, after one at Newtown in 1768.^[21] In 1789, during the pastorate of William Phoebus, James Hubbs and the congregation built what the church's own history calls "a neat, substantial and commodious house of worship" on land bought from Von Hadah Robbins.^[21] The congregation describes that building, still standing as the Commack United Methodist Church's "1789 Chapel," as "the oldest Methodist Church in continuous use in New York in which people still worship in the original building, with but few alterations."^[22]

How the roads got here

New York State's official touring-route description places Commack at a highway junction. NY 454, known as Veterans Memorial Highway, is described by the New York State Department of Transportation as beginning "(NY 25) Commack" and running through Hauppauge to west of Patchogue.^[17] That starting point sits on NY 25, the road historically known as Jericho Turnpike; NYSDOT's route description for NY 25 carries it through the neighboring hamlets of South Huntington and Smithtown, on either side of Commack, on its way from New York City to Orient Point.^[20]

The Long Island Expressway (Interstate 495) runs the length of Suffolk County past Commack, from the Queens-Midtown Tunnel to an eastern terminus at NY 25 in Riverhead.^[19] West of Commack, NYSDOT assigns the single reference number NY 908K to two distinct roads under state-park rather than highway-department jurisdiction: the Sagtikos and Sunken Meadow State Parkways, both maintained by the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation.^[18]

Law and legal history

The Town of Huntington's prior-written-notice law is codified at Code of the Town of Huntington §174-3, which the Appellate Division, Second Department, describes as making written notice of a defect "a condition precedent to maintaining an action against a municipality."^[9] In Parthesius v. Town of Huntington, arising from an October 9, 2018 fall on an uneven asphalt patch in a sidewalk inside a Town parking lot, the court reversed the denial of summary judgment and dismissed the suit, holding that affidavits from the Town Clerk's and Superintendent of Highways' offices, which had searched five years of records without finding notice of the defect, met the Town's burden under §174-3, and that the plaintiff had not raised a triable issue on the narrow "affirmative negligence" exception to the notice rule.^[8][9] The same opinion cites Coventry v. Town of Huntington, 165 A.D.3d 750 (2d Dept 2018), as an earlier application of the same ordinance.^[9]

The Town of Smithtown's equivalent law is Chapter 245, Article III of its Town Code, titled "Civil Claims Notice," adopted April 23, 1991 by Local Law No. 3-1991 and later amended, which the Town Board enacted to supersede New York Town Law §65-a(1) and (3).^[3] Under §245-13, no civil action may be maintained against the Town of Smithtown for injury caused by a defective highway, bridge, sidewalk, sewer, manhole, curb or missing highway sign "unless written notice of such defective, unsafe, dangerous or obstructed condition shall be filed with the Town Clerk at least 15 calendar days prior to the event giving rise to the alleged claim."^[4] A related section bars any claim based on constructive notice of a long-standing defect or an employee's actual knowledge of it in the absence of that filing, without displacing the separate notice-of-claim requirement of General Municipal Law §50-e.^[4]

Government, courts and policing

Commack has no government of its own; policing, highway maintenance and the applicable prior-written-notice law all change at the line between the Town of Smithtown and the Town of Huntington that runs through the hamlet. The Suffolk County Police Department's Second Precinct, headquartered at 1071 Park Avenue in Huntington, states that it "proudly serves the residents of the Town of Huntington," which includes the Huntington portion of Commack.^[15][13] The Fourth Precinct, headquartered at 727 Veterans Memorial Highway in Smithtown, covers the Smithtown side of the hamlet.^[14]

Each town's highway department maintains only the roads inside its own boundary. The Town of Huntington's Highway Department, at 30 Rofay Drive in Huntington, states that it "has jurisdiction over Town roads" and directs residents to Suffolk County's Department of Public Works or NYSDOT for County or State roads.^[7] The Town of Smithtown's Highway Department, at 758 Smithtown Bypass, maintains "more than 470 miles of roads, drainage systems, recharge basins, driveway aprons, and curbs" townwide.^[2] Because Commack straddles the two towns, a road or sidewalk defect claim is governed by whichever town's highway department and prior-written-notice ordinance covers the side of the town line where the defect sits — Code of the Town of Huntington §174-3 or Code of the Town of Smithtown §245-13.^[7][2][9][4]

Civil suits against the Town of Huntington over street and sidewalk conditions are brought in Supreme Court, Suffolk County, as in Parthesius, which was litigated before Justice George Nolan.^[8]

Civic amenities follow the same line: Hoyt Farm Nature Preserve, a Town of Smithtown park at 200 New Highway inside Commack, states that it "is only open to Smithtown residents ALL year round," with non-residents admitted only as a resident's guest and charged a parking fee.^[5]