During the first half of the twentieth century, the triangle at the intersection of York Street and Long Sands Road was a busy village center in York, with groceries, sundries, hardware, taverns, a barber shop, a gas station, a Methodist church, attorney's offices, and the village post office. In 1890, the area still had a late nineteenth-century village atmosphere, with hundred-year-old trees lining narrow dirt streets that turned to mud each spring, picket fences and stone walls, a sign pointing to Sea Coast and Long Beach two miles away, the Baker apartment house, and the Grant House. By 1920, the intersection had changed to accommodate automobile travel after trolley cars had come and gone, the streets had been widened and oiled, and the island at the center had been defined by a curb and pipe fence; the Civil War monument erected there in 1906 remained a central feature, and the view included the Baker family residence, the Baker apartment house, and the Grant House, which over the years served as a private home, tavern, restaurant, and later a medical complex. In 1950, the central island remained much the same though many old trees were gone, and the corner was still dominated by the Baker residence and Baker apartment house, alongside village businesses including The Village Fruit Market run by Arthur Kougins and Steve Makris, Cyril Lessard's Barber Shop, the A&P, and nearby Nat Marshall's Hardware store and the post office.