Long Island Game Farm

The arrival of the 70s brought a new attraction to Long Islanders who loved animals and rural surroundings. Just off of Exit 70 in Manorville, NY, The Long Island Game Farm has hosted a steady stream of visitors young and old ever since.

In 1970, Stanley and Diane Novak opened the doors of their 25 acre farm to the public. Lovers of the outdoors and the animals, they wanted to educate and entertain the public with their rural attraction.

 

And so they did. Throughout the 70s, countless school buses pulled into their parking lot, filled with kids on field trips. You might have been one of them.

You didn’t even necessarily have to come to the zoo. In the early years, they maintained an educational Zoomobile that would travel to various schools and libraries on the island, with a dozen or so animals in tow.

The farm hosted the typical barnyard critters you might expect, such as sheep and chickens, as well as things you might not expect, like alligators, elephants and monkeys. The Game Farm also originally hosted a sea lion show and a trained animal show.

In more recent years, additions such as lemurs and a very popular giraffe named Clifford have captured the public’s affection. The more exotic animals reside in Florida for the winter, in case you were wondering.

Did you visit the Long Island Game Farm with family or on a school trip? What do you remember most? I would love to hear all of your recollections in the comments section below.

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4 Responses

  1. Christopher Santoro says:

    My dad knocked out a lama that wouldnt leave me alone. Punched it right in the head

  2. LDN says:

    I remember going to the farm with my family, running into a former classmate from fourth grade, when I was new at my elementary school-a tough year of transition; lying to the classmate by the baby goats, in a corner of the farm, by telling her my younger brother was my twin (and we were having tons of fun!), to decrease my sense of being pathetic (?)

  3. Gina Kipybida Wagner says:

    The only thing I remember about that place is staring at an orangutan from about 20 feet away. In an instant the crazy thing picked up it’s excrement and threw it at me. That was my first and last visit lol.

  4. James Van Vorst says:

    I grew up in Manorville until I was 8 in 1977 when we moved to Arizona.
    My mom was an animal science major in college and worked at the game farm for a few years before taking a job driving a school bus for Adelworths in Riverhead.
    I remember the deer they had there.
    I also fondly remember learning to ride a bicycle at about 5 years old and riding all over Manorville.

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