30 LONGISLANDPRESS.COM • APRIL 2019
THE A LIST: BUSINESS
INVENTIONS LONG ISLAND GAVE THE WORLD
INVENTION INVENTOR YEAR
INVENTED WHAT IT DOES
1
Anti-theft
Clothing Tags Arthur Minasy 1966
This Woodbury engineer who invented a clothing tag that triggered an alarm if someone tried to sneak the item
past a cashier launched a $40 billion industry that has helped protect everything from Italian salamis to Wall
Street bonds. The original device measured five inches, sported a C battery and weighed half a pound.
2 Ben & Jerry’s
Ice Cream
Bennett Cohen
and Jerry
Greenfield
1978 These lifelong friends from Merrick founded one of America’s favorite ice cream brands known for its inventive
flavor combinations and for being a pioneering force in the annals of socially conscious business management.
3 Ellio’s Pizza
Elias Betzios
and George
Liolis
1963 The pioneering frozen pizza brand, which got its start in Great Neck and is now distributed by a German company,
was first tasted in the kitchens of Long Island, securing itself as a staple in suburban homes for decades to come.
4 Pirate’s Booty Robert Ehrlich 1987
Marveling at how cheese was not listed as an ingredient in cheese puffs, this Sea Cliff man set sail to plunder his
piece of the bloated American snack-food market armed with all-natural white-cheddar cheese rice and corn puffs
— a healthier alternative to traditional junk food.
5 Maglev
Gordon Danby
and James
Powell
1966
These Brookhaven National Lab scientists first published a paper on superconducting maglev — a mode of
transportation that uses the fields generated by superconducting magnets to levitate and move trains. While
Maglev trains are used in cities around the world, none are on LI.
6 Miracle-Gro Horace
Hagedorn 1940s Besides having a catchy name, the liquid fertilizer proved successful because of its ability to help weak plants
receive nutrients quickly, and the fact that it is less likely to burn plants.
7 The Miracle
Mop Joy Mangano 1989 Working from a small office in her Smithtown home, Mangano invented the self-wringing mop that became the
first in a long line of products that the Home Shopping Network star patented.
8 Monkey KID
Sensor Kim Gavin 2017
This Manhasset mom launched a disposable beacon that can be fastened to a child’s clothing. It pairs with a
smartphone app that alerts parents when their children wander outside of a perimeter, using geo-fencing
technology.
9 MRI Dr. Raymond
Damadian 1971
The founder of Melville-based Fonar Corporation who invented the Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scanner
to detect cancer has since racked up honors for the discovery. But in 2003, the Nobel Prize for the MRI went to
Paul Lauterbur, a professor of chemistry at Stony Brook University, and another scientist. The debate over who
invented the MRI first is unsettled.
10 Nomorobo Aaron Foss 2013 The Port Jefferson man created an app that intercepts and filters out illegal prerecorded calls using technology to
“blacklist” robocaller phone numbers and “whitelist” acceptable numbers.
11 Segway Dean Kamen 2001
The electric self-balancing scooter is this Rockville Centre native’s best-known invention, but it’s far from his
only one. His company has patents on more than 400 other innovations worldwide, from a wheelchair that climbs
stairs to the insulin pump.
12 The Submarine
Tunnel
Joseph de
Sendzimir 1857
Thirteen years before the Brooklyn Bridge was built, this Amityville resident proposed a tunnel running under
the East River, connecting Brooklyn and Manhattan. It required no demolition, as it was simply a series of ironclad
chambers laid on the riverbed connected by large tubes.
13 ThermoLift
Peter Hofbauer
and Paul
Schwartz
2012 The product developed at the Advanced Energy Center at Stony Brook University is a natural gas-driven air
conditioner and heat pump that aims to replace heating, cooling, and hot-water systems with a single appliance.
14 Trangleball Mark Miller 1953 A game invented on Fire Island in which players volley a small ball off the surface of a pyramid-esque structure at
the center of a circular court. Sort of like a cross between handball, beach volleyball, and tennis.
15 TV antenna Marvin
Middlemark 1991
This Old Westbury tinkerer invented the “rabbit ears,” helping millions of Americans get the fuzz, or some of it,
out of their pre-cable television reception. Though not completely original – the design was based on the dipole
antenna invented by Heinrich Hertz in 1886 – the update was the most commercially successful of his 62 patents.
16 Video Games William
Higinbotham 1958
The physicist created Tennis for Two to make the Brookhaven National Laboratory visitors’ day more interesting.
It wasn’t sold commercially, like Atari’s like-minded game “Pong,” one of the earliest video games, which wasn’t
released until ’72.
17 Water Skis Fred Waller 1925
A Huntington native and special effects man at Paramount Pictures’ Astoria studios back in the 1920s, Waller first
imagined water skis as a way to mount motion picture cameras behind speedboats. In the end, riding the things
proved to be too much fun to waste on cinematography.
18 Wireless radio Guglielmo
Marconi 1901
This one-time Babylon resident and Italian immigrant pioneered the use of wireless communications between a
radio station and ship at sea. One of those stations, essentially a shack that was moved to Rocky Point, still stands
today.
19
Wireless
electricity Nikola Tesla Early
1900s
The eccentric inventor from Manhattan is said to have succeeded in wirelessly transmitting electricity at
Wardenclyffe Tower in Shoreham, but his investors balked at his idea to provide electric globally for free. Among
his many other inventions are alternating current, the remote control, the neon lamp, and many more.
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