Suffolk County Built The Jets Of The Cold War (1957)

The  Aircraft Companies that built the Aircraft that won 2 World Wars  was primarily built here on Long Island Nassau and Suffolk county had space to build ,test and fly all sorts of Aircraft and the local population supplied the workers, Grumman , Republic, Fairchild,Gyrodyne,Douglas , Etc had operations on Long Island and the airbases and airfields were here also as it was convenient to already crowded NYC Long Islands Potato fields provided lots of room. Just about any Long Islander who has lived here at least 4 decades had family who worked at any one of these aircraft suppliers, My Grandmother Was "Rosie The Riveter" For Republic (not actually rosie just a Female worker) since all the men were fighting the war and my Grandfather worked at Grumman and was directly involved with the "Lunar Module" for the first Moon Landing, and Went on to build F-14 "TOMCATS" carrier  based Jet Aircraft . Everybody had family or Relatives that worked at one of the aircraft companies or Defense Contractors during the Cold War. Jet aircraft were a common sight during the years after WW2 and through the 1970's i remember seeing many military aircraft being tested out over the Atlantic Ocean.The jet pictured is a Republic "Thunder Streak" Built during the late 1950's. and is one of the cold war jet fighters that could dogfight and carry Atomic Ordnance if the need arose. The hole that the Avionics Field left when Defense money was being spent on the prediction that since the Cold War ended wars would be small engagements and special forces type actions. One by one these companies shutdown, moved to cheaper areas of the US,or downsized and built something non defense related. Long Island never fully recovered when the big avionics industries left and as a home framer in the early 1990's out building homes near Calverton Naval Weapon  Plant Grumman which was closing down by the end of summer we had daily airshows as the planes left or were repaired there moved on. The pilots would good naturedly would buzz us and dip their wings and wave some who were testing the jets stopped by the work site to talk and let us know they would fly by again, These pilots were genuinely sad knowing a era had come to a end, A lot of good came from the end of the Cold War great times to live in, But you could not feel that we all would be missing the sight and presence of these great Jet Aircraft that won wars. Now what was the Birth place of some of the worlds best aircraft and Space craft laid open to developers and to the decay of abandonment and they also are gone bulldozed and malls built on their place and if you did not know what history once existed in that space you would never know.