The Big Duck
(U.S. National Register of Historic Places)
The Big Duck was constructed in the 1930s to help its owner's duck farming business.
Location:	Flanders, New York, Suffolk County, New York, USA
Coordinates:	40°53′17.36″N, 72°33′25.53″W
Built/Founded:	1930-31
Added to NRHP:	April 28, 1997[1]
Governing body:	Private Ownership

The Big Duck is a ferrocement building in the shape of a duck located in Flanders, New York, on Long Island. It was originally built in 1931 by duck farmer Martin Maurer in nearby Riverhead, and used as a shop to sell ducks and duck eggs. The building has been moved several times. Motto: (Out Of Many, One) (traditional) In God We Trust (1956 to date) Anthem: The Star-Spangled Banner Capital Washington D.C. Largest city New York City None at federal level (English de facto) Government Federal constitutional republic  - President George Walker Bush (R)  - Vice President Dick Cheney (R) Independence from... A typical plaque showing entry on the National Register of Historic Places. ... Flanders is a census-designated place located in Suffolk County, New York. ... Suffolk County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York. ... A typical plaque showing entry on the National Register of Historic Places. ... April 28 is the 118th day of the year (119th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 247 days remaining. ... 1997 (MCMXCVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Ferrocement is both a method and a material used in building or sculpture with cement, sand, water and wire or mesh material - often called the thin shell. ... // Subfamilies Dendrocygninae Oxyurinae Anatinae Merginae Duck is the common name for a number of species in the Anatidae family of birds. ... Flanders is a census-designated place located in Suffolk County, New York. ... Map showing Long Island; to the north is Connecticut and to the west are New York City and New Jersey. ... 1931 (MCMXXXI) was a common year starting on Thursday (link is to a full 1931 calendar). ... The Riverhead is a hamlet in the Town of Riverhead in Suffolk County, New York. ... The word duck was also used as slang for the WWII amphibious vehicle called a DUKW. It is also a cricketing term denoting a batsman being dismissed with a score of zero; see golden duck. ...

Description

The Big Duck is a prime example of literalism in advertising. The building measures 15 feet wide, 30 feet long and 20 feet tall to the top of the head. The duck's eyes are made from Ford Model T tail lights and the interior floor space is confined to 11 feet by 15 feet. The wood frame, wire mesh/concrete surface building was designed in the shape of a Pekin duck in order to house a retail poultry store. Ford may mean a number of things: A ford is a river crossing. ... 1908 Ford Model T advertisement The Model T (colloquially known as the Tin Lizzie and the Flivver) was an automobile produced by Henry Fords Ford Motor Company from 1908 through 1928. ... This article is being considered for deletion in accordance with Wikipedias deletion policy. ...

History

Owner Martin Maurer had The Big Duck building constructed in 1930 and 1931 on a prime spot on the busy Main Street in the town of Riverhead on Long Island, New York. In 1937, he moved the building four miles southeast to Flanders, where it occupied a prominent location near the duck barns and marshes of Maurer's new duck ranch. The entire area, including Flanders and Riverhead, was the center of Long Island's well-known duck-farming industry. By 1939 there were about 90 duck farms in Suffolk County.^[2] Map showing Long Island; to the north is Connecticut and to the west are New York City and New Jersey. ... NY redirects here. ... Suffolk County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York. ...

The Big Duck's unusual building and prime location helped garner much customer attention until it closed in 1984. In 1988, Suffolk County acquired The Big Duck and moved it to Route 24 on the edge of Sears-Bellows Pond County Park between Flanders and Hampton Bays on the eastern part of Long Island. The building houses a gift shop operated by the Friends for Long Island Heritage.^[2] Hampton Bays is a hamlet (and census-designated place) in Suffolk County, New York, United States. ...

Legacy

Buildings such as this are classified as follies. However, in architecture the term "duck" is used more specifically to describe buildings that are in the shape of an everyday object they relate to. According the Long Island newspaper Newsday, "The Big Duck has influenced the world of architecture; any building that is shaped like its product is called a 'duck'."^[3] Edward Tufte's The Visual Display of Quantitative Information uses the term "duck", explicitly named after this building, to describe irrelevant decorative elements in charts. Broadway Tower, Worcestershire, England The folly at Wimpole Hall, Cambridgeshire, England, built in the 1700s to resemble Gothic-era ruins In architecture, a folly is an extravagant, useless, or fanciful building, or a building that appears to be something other than what it is. ... Newsday is a daily tabloid-size newspaper that primarily serves Long Island and the New York City borough of Queens, although it is sold throughout the New York City metropolitan area. ... Edward Rolf Tufte (IPA /ˈtʌf. ...

The Big Duck was the target of widespread criticism during the 1960s and early 1970s but the building did have its architectural defenders. Robert Venturi said that since the building combined functional and symbolic aspects of architecture it was noteworthy. It was Venturi who coined the term "duck" to describe a building in which the architecture is subordinate to the overall symbolic form.^[2] Robert Charles Venturi (June 25, 1925 -) is a Philadelphia-based architect who worked under Eero Saarinen and Louis Kahn before forming his own firm with John Rauch. ...

The Long Island Ducks, of the Atlantic League of Professional Baseball, are named after the Big Duck. The Long Island Ducks are a minor league baseball team which plays in Central Islip, New York. ... The Atlantic League of Professional Baseball, based in Camden, New Jersey, is a professional, independent baseball organization located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic United States, especially the greater metropolitan areas of New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, D.C. It operates in cities not served by Major or Minor...

Footnotes

References

• Roadside America
• The Big Duck on Google Sightseeing

	U.S. National Register of Historic Places - (List of entries)
	National Park Service . National Historic Landmarks . National Battlefields . National Historic Sites . National Historic Parks . National Memorials . National Monuments File links The following pages link to this file: Image:Delicatearch. ... A typical plaque showing entry on the National Register of Historic Places. ... This is a list of entries on the National Register of Historic Places. ... The National Park System of the United States is the collection of physical properties owned or administered by the National Park Service. ...