Sweet Hollow Park To Be Renamed In Honor Of Civic Leader

MELVILLE, NY — Sweet Hollow Park will be renamed next week in honor of longtime civic leader Alissa Sue Taff, the Town announced.

Sweet Hollow Park, which opened in 2017, is the Town of Huntington’s newest park. Taff, who passed away Aug. 14 after battling a long illness, was one of the driving forces behind the park's creation.

The ceremony will be held Monday, Aug. 26 at 11 a.m. at Sweet Hollow Park, located on Old Country Road and Round Swamp Road, Melville. From then on, the park will be called Alissa Sue Taff Sweet Hollow Park.

Taff is a former Half Hollow Hills school board president and longtime president of the Civic Association of Sweet Hollow.

The park was the result of an innovative, creative partnership among the Town of Huntington, a private developer and a Hindu group that had purchased the eight-acre Meyers Farm and had been looking to erect a temple of the site. The Town eventually bought the site and transferred development rights from five of the eight acres to a parcel in Melville, which it rezoned to allow construction of the Hindu temple and a 260-unit affordable senior condominium community.

As an influential civic leader, Taff had for years spearheaded the community effort to create a park in the southwest portion of the Town and was a driving force in the conversations among the Town, the developer and the Hindu group Bochasanwasi Shri Akshar Purushottam—Northeast (BAPS). She also served on the advisory committee that recommended the park’s features.

At the Aug. 6 Town Board meeting, council members Mark Cuthbertson and Joan Cergol presented a resolution to name the park after Taff. The resolution passed unanimously, with Supervisor Chad Lupinacci and Councilman Eugene Cook joining as sponsors and Councilman Edmund Smyth seconding the resolution.