Why is the Constellation's nose gear so long?
The Connie's fuselage has a subtle S shaped contour which was intended to conform somewhat to the upwash ahead of the wing and downwash aft of the wing, with a final upturn at the end to place the horizontal tail at the desired vertical location.



They also tapered the fuselage to the smallest cross sectional area possible at the nose, to part the air gently you might say, so the bottom ends up sloping up toward the nose.

Then you have main gear legs that are fairly long because the R3350's propellers are quite large.  

The wing incidence is set to optimize the fuselage curvature's presentation into the airflow in cruise. 

At the same time, you want to have wing chord in a certain desirable AOA range sitting on the ground, and you want to keep the tail from sitting too high (the Connie has the 3 surfaces to keep the vertical height of the tail low enough to fit the common hangars of the day).

Combine all those factors together and you end up having to the make the strut really long, and ending up with the most graceful airliner ever designed.