Roe Walkway Renovation Celebrated, Archways Coming

The Roe Walkway that runs alongside the  from the Terry Street parking lot to Patchogue’s Main Street held a on Wednesday for its recent renovation.

The pathway features a new concrete path and lighting fixtures. Marion Russo, executive director of the Community Development Agency who managed the renovation of the walkway, said that the path will continue to be worked on with archways and statues coming in the spring.

“I just want to thank everybody who worked really hard to get this done,” Russo said. “It was really done through a joint effort, we have a great grants committee in the Village of Patchogue, we all worked together in making this application.”

Russo said the renovations for the pathway began in Nov. 2010.

Patchogue’s designed several aspects of the pathway, including the archways, concrete paving and the lighting fixtures.

The walkway was funded by a number of grants including $100,000 from the Suffolk County Downtown Revitalization Program, $3,000 from Patchogue Village's Business Improvement District for its design and the remaining $130,000 coming from Patchogue Village's Community Development Agency (CDA)'s allocation of the Community Development Block Grant Funds from the Suffolk County Community Development.

The archways are going to be funded by $21,000 of round 10 funding from the Downtown Revitalization funds from Suffolk County announced Rob Calarco at the ceremony, who was as the Suffolk County legislator for the 7th district.

Patchogue Village Mayor Paul Pontieri said that the renovation of the pathway was important for the artistic identity Patchogue is taking.

“This is critical, it is the connector between the fine arts [referring to ] to the performing arts on Main Street [referring to the ],” Pontieri said.

Outgoing Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy also attended the ceremony.

“[Patchogue Village Mayor Paul Pontieri] reminded me we’ve now invested $8 million in Patchogue in my administration and well worth it,” Levy said.

The walkway is the former location of the Roe Tape Company, which Walter Roe who was in attendance said was run by his grandfather. The company produced steel tape used for measuring from the early 1900s until the 1950s-60s, Roe said.