Restore Ellisburg's Southwick's Beach Concession Stand

With support and approval from the Ellisburg Village Board, other interested parties, and Rosie the Labrador Retriever dog (pictured), we plan to restore the vintage and iconic early 1900's Southwick's Beach concession stand at the Ellisburg-Hudson Community Park, the former Firemen's Park or Ballpark.

The concession stand was donated to the Ellisburg Fire Department in the late 1950s - early 1960s when Southwick's Beach in the Town of Ellisburg was moving from private ownership and management to become a New York State Park. Despite extensive research into its provenance, the details of its origin are unknown. It may be as early as the 1920s, the heyday for private management of Southwick's bathing beach, dance hall, picnic grounds, and baseball fields along the sandy eastern shore of Lake Ontario.

The building, with its unique concession stand architecture allowing people to stand close to the protruding wooden countertops with plenty of foot space, was carried to the Firemen's Park from Southwick's Beach and perched along Bear Creek where it was utilized for candy and soft drink sales, the deliciously eclectic and beloved cake wheel, and even Blackjack during the annual Ellisburg Fire Department Field Days and Parade, and other special events such as the circus.

The vintage building that we all remember so well, needs new roofing, foundation stabilization, and caulking and painting. The pier foundation suffered damage during flooding from Tropical Storm Debby in July 2024. If enough funding is raised, perhaps a concrete pad foundation can be installed to prevent erosion in the future.

The Ellisburg - Hudson Community Park, and the vintage concession stand within it, are now owned by the Village of Ellisburg. With a recent nod from the village board, the fundraising here is an effort to include Town of Ellisburg people near and far in donations for maintaining such a memorable vintage building for future generations.

As Ellisburg people have done in the past few decades with the vintage structures at the Ellisburg Cemetery, we want to raise the funds and then organize a volunteer work day to get the job done.

With supervisory oversight from village officials, funds raised would be spent at South Jefferson County, New York businesses to purchase the materials needed for restoration: asphalt shingles, underlayment, drip edge, nails, cement, stone, and caulk (we have a paint donation). Any extra or unspent donations would be put into the general fund for future maintenance of the building and park. Labor for the workday restoration would be from volunteers.