Rich Long Islanders chose mosquito infestations over attracting outsiders to their area

Evidence

In 1923, Suffolk County established a Mosquito Control Commission and asked various members of the club for contributions. “God, the mosquitoes in the summer were unbelievable on that golf course,” Hollins says. “You’d look at the fellow you were playing with and there might be twenty on his face.” But most Timber Pointers gave nothing. If the commission got rid of the mosquitoes, Mrs. Hollins explained, more “foreigners” might find the South Shore attractive and try to live there. “I’d rather have the mosquitoes,” she told her friends. — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 683

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the exclusion logic in Caro’s later treatment of Jones Beach and Moses’s designs that discouraged mass transit access; also resonates with the ‘grafting as infrastructure’ piece on how amenities are withheld to control who benefits.
• CANDY: The mosquito quote is a memorable, tweetable line capturing exclusionary self-harm.