On Aug. 3, Oakdale community leader Mike Burke alerted the Idle Hour area that a historical pillar on the corner of Chateau and Connetquot Road had been defaced with scrawling graffiti incoherently invoking and rebuking God.
Within hours, the Iannotta family offered to restore the pillar and by the next day, a freshly painted pillar was posted in the same community group.
Gabi Iannotta posted a photo of the painted pillar with the caption, “Gentle reminder to be kind to others. We do not know who did the defacing or their situation.”
Many commenters on Burke’s previous post cited a possible mental health situation with the defacer of the pillar, given the unsteadiness of the handwriting and the persecutory subject matter.
The day before discovering the defaced pillar (Burke said he passed by the same pillar on his daily commute), William Bruner had posted a call to the community to restore and preserve the 92 historical pillars in the area.
“My goal is to reignite the volunteer spirit to keep our community beautiful,” said Bruner, who shared an Excel sheet on social media for people to volunteer to maintain specific pillars.
“Volunteers are able to sign up for as many as they like; we ask that they keep them clean and remove any excess dirt. For those pillars that are damaged, we will have a professional come to take a look to estimate repairs and schedule fundraisers to raise money to facilitate these repairs,” said Bruner.
For larger cleanups, donations of cleaning supplies are used and the volunteers often bring their own materials.
“That people continue to take care of them and see them as part of their duty to the community is a benefit for all citizens,” said Bruner.
After tycoon William K. Vanderbilt died, his Oakdale property passed on to his son Harold, for whom the property taxes became too much of a burden.
The Idle Hour mansion and surrounding land were subsequently bought by the E.A. White Organization.
In 1927, Ed and Charles Burke, realtors of the E.A. White Organization, erected 50 concrete pillars topped with urns, marking the street corners of the neighborhood. The Burkes were extravagant in their sales pitches for the Idle Hour real estate, and they seemed naturally to like to stress the property’s Vanderbilt heritage.
On a Sunday in May 1926, the Burkes arranged for trains, which they dubbed the “Idle Hour Special,” to take prospective buyers from Penn Station and Brooklyn to Oakdale for an afternoon at the Idle Hour mansion, where lunch was served and an orchestra played throughout the day.
“Of course, the visitors were also shown property intended for the building of private homes,” said Maryann Almes, president of the Oakdale Historical Society.
The Idle Hour Beautification Project is in charge of the pillars. They began around 1989 by a resident who remembered the pillars as a child and wanted to restore the elegant look of Idle Hour.
“Many of the original pillars have been reconstructed on their original foundations through old maps, residents’ recollection, and by digging in the ground. The project identified 43 of the original pillars,” said Almes.
