Land Surveyor in Rocky Point, Suffolk County, NY

Rocky Point is home to the site where American radio company RCA once operated a large transmitting and transmitter research facility, known as Radio Central. RCA began to transmit transatlantic radio messages from Radio Central over longwave after its opening on November 5, 1921.

On January 7, 1927, AT&T initiated the first transatlantic commercial telephone service, linking London and New York. AT&T’s transmitter was at Radio Central, and their receiver was in Houlton, Maine. The radiotelephone signal from Radio Central was received by the British General Post Office’s receiver facility in Cupar, Scotland.

The 5,200-acre (21 km²) Rocky Point site was decommissioned in 1978 and demolished in the 1980s. It now consists of many concrete ruins and downed telephone poles and radio towers, owned by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. It is part of the Rocky Point Pine Barrens State Forest, which is in the Long Island Central Pine Barrens. The site gives an interesting insight into the 1920s, because-being in the middle of the forest-the footprints of the site remain largely untouched since its operational period. The western terminus of the 125-mile-long (201 km) Paumanok Path hiking trail is in the forest, with the eastern terminus at the Montauk Point Light.