Public Transportation and the Lighthouse (Glen Cove, Manhasset: houses, buying, school)

[Johninwestbury]

The Lighthouse should be built in Hempstead. Here is a town desperately in need of revitilization. It already has much mass transportation in place because of the LIRR and the Hempstead Transit Center where most LI Bus routes originate.
Putting this in Uniondale means NO rail access, only accessible by 4 or 5 bus lines. They want to put it here because it's by the parkways, because once again they assume everyone will drive. It will cause major traffic jams.
I think Suozzi and co. need to take a trip up to White Plains in Westchester. See how this town has been getting better, by having new development in places suited for development, like our downtowns.
In White Plains you have 2 malls within easy walking distance of the train station, easily accessible on foot with sidewalks. Actually they just opened up a 3rd mall. They have built new high rises which have apartments and condos. As well as offices. White Plains literally has everything, all within walking distance. What town on Long Island can even come close?
That's why we need to redevelop our towns and put a moratorium on development outside of our towns. Imagine a Hempstead full of high rises housing residential and offices. Shopping centers will go up as well. All this will replace the projects and strip barrios currently in Hempstead. It will all be within walking distance of the LIRR's Hempstead line.
Mineola has potential too. Freeport too. We just need politicians who aren't afraid of offending some people, and to get the process started on razing the slums and building a new town full of promise and opportunity.

[fopt65]

There is a unused LIRR spurr running along St. James Street South in Garden City that parallels Stewart Ave and goes into the area of military housing at Nassau Community College. The circus uses this spot to park their trains when they are in town. This places it about 1/2 mile north of the Colisseum.

[sean sean sean sean]

Originally Posted by Johninwestbury

The Lighthouse should be built in Hempstead. Here is a town desperately in need of revitilization. It already has much mass transportation in place because of the LIRR and the Hempstead Transit Center where most LI Bus routes originate.
Putting this in Uniondale means NO rail access, only accessible by 4 or 5 bus lines. They want to put it here because it's by the parkways, because once again they assume everyone will drive. It will cause major traffic jams.
I think Suozzi and co. need to take a trip up to White Plains in Westchester. See how this town has been getting better, by having new development in places suited for development, like our downtowns.
In White Plains you have 2 malls within easy walking distance of the train station, easily accessible on foot with sidewalks. Actually they just opened up a 3rd mall. They have built new high rises which have apartments and condos. As well as offices. White Plains literally has everything, all within walking distance. What town on Long Island can even come close?
That's why we need to redevelop our towns and put a moratorium on development outside of our towns. Imagine a Hempstead full of high rises housing residential and offices. Shopping centers will go up as well. All this will replace the projects and strip barrios currently in Hempstead. It will all be within walking distance of the LIRR's Hempstead line.
Mineola has potential too. Freeport too. We just need politicians who aren't afraid of offending some people, and to get the process started on razing the slums and building a new town full of promise and opportunity.

By utilizing the tracks that I'm talking about (which are the same ones fopt65 mentions), you could have rail access right into/under the proposed Lighthouse complex. 15 minutes from Babylon, <50 minutes to the city, shuttles running between Hempstead/Garden City all day. If they wanted to take it a step further, it would require less than a mile of track put back in place to connect Mineola and the entire Oyster Bay Branch to the area. I don't think what you're saying is necessarily a bad idea, but I prefer the current plan of building it on top of where the Coliseum is now since it provides more open space and is a totally clean slate. You'd have to pretty much annihilate the village of Hempstead to build this there, a much bigger and costlier project.

Another reason I say leave Hempstead is because I think that area will see economic growth of it's own as a result of it's proximity....and leave it as an affordable way for local business to buy into the area. There is still plenty of space left in downtown Hempstead to build smaller scale mixed-use properties and a lot of the remaining apartment buildings/storefronts have potential they just aren't living up to it because it's economically depressed. I do agree with you completely that the future is in rebuilding our downtowns that were booming 50 years ago (ie Freeport) and I think this is something that will happen quicker than we realize.

[Walter Greenspan]

Originally Posted by Johninwestbury

Putting this in Uniondale means NO rail access, only accessible by 4 or 5 bus lines.

But, alas, it's not being put into Uniondale ...

The Nassau County Veterans Coliseum -- the site of the proposed Lighthouse development -- is in East Garden City (Uniondale P.O.), and for those who may not be familiar with East Garden City:

East Garden City is a hamlet (an unincorporated area) in the northeast part of the Town of Hempstead, in the central part of Nassau County, along the Hempstead/North Hempstead town line.

Beginning on the north and moving in a clockwise, the Hamlet of East Garden City in the Town of Hempstead is bordered on the north by the Hamlet of Carle Place and the Village of Westbury in the Town of North Hempstead (the Hempstead/North Hempstead town line); on the east by the Hamlet of East Meadow; on the south by the Hamlet of Uniondale and the Village of Hempstead; and, on the west by the Village of Hempstead and the Village of Garden City.

East Garden City is one of those many villages and hamlets on Long Island where none of the places in the community have the hamlet name as part of their mailing address: places in the Hamlet of East Garden City have either a "Garden City, NY 11530", a "Westbury, NY 11590", a "Uniondale, NY 11553" or a "Hempstead, NY 11550" mailing address.


Here are some more well known places that are in the Hamlet of East Garden City:

Cradle of Aviation Museum, East Garden City (Garden City P.O.)
Fortunoff, East Garden City (Westbury P.O.)
Hofstra University Dorms, East Garden City (Hempstead P.O.)
Mall at The Source, East Garden City (Westbury, P.O.)
Nassau County Community College, East Garden City (Garden City P.O.)
Roosevelt Field, East Garden City (Garden City P.O.)


For a good set of town-by-town maps showing all the villages and hamlets in each of LI's 13 towns (3 in Nassau County and 10 in Suffolk County):

http://www.city-data.com/forum/long-...-resource.html

[GCGuy]

Originally Posted by Johninwestbury

The Lighthouse should be built in Hempstead. Here is a town desperately in need of revitilization. It already has much mass transportation in place because of the LIRR and the Hempstead Transit Center where most LI Bus routes originate.
Putting this in Uniondale means NO rail access, only accessible by 4 or 5 bus lines. They want to put it here because it's by the parkways, because once again they assume everyone will drive. It will cause major traffic jams.
I think Suozzi and co. need to take a trip up to White Plains in Westchester. See how this town has been getting better, by having new development in places suited for development, like our downtowns.
In White Plains you have 2 malls within easy walking distance of the train station, easily accessible on foot with sidewalks. Actually they just opened up a 3rd mall. They have built new high rises which have apartments and condos. As well as offices. White Plains literally has everything, all within walking distance. What town on Long Island can even come close?
That's why we need to redevelop our towns and put a moratorium on development outside of our towns. Imagine a Hempstead full of high rises housing residential and offices. Shopping centers will go up as well. All this will replace the projects and strip barrios currently in Hempstead. It will all be within walking distance of the LIRR's Hempstead line.
Mineola has potential too. Freeport too. We just need politicians who aren't afraid of offending some people, and to get the process started on razing the slums and building a new town full of promise and opportunity.

Yeah, welll NIMBYs just shot down a $2BILLION proposal for mixed use on 26 acres on teh GC border... a crap heap now. ACORN and other assorted a-holes wanted all 2000 units to be "affordable" housing...um, this is Crack-stead, it's all affordable.

This is an ideal place to put it b/c few people live in the immediate area, just on the outskirts, and it's mostly all barren parking lots. Also, the point is to create a critical mass of people in the Coliseum and connected convention center, along with the existing offices and hotels. You can't create on such a large scale in Hempstead, and there's little to no existing entities to build off of.

If this gets built, I would like to think there would be a big carry over in Hempstead since it's next door.

[nancy thereader]

There are a lot of old tracks that were once used , but now are dormant. That might be a great new thread. One is a detour in Saint James where Gyrodyne once had a factory during WW II . They made gyroscopes which I never understood as a child because to me they were these kinds of metal kites that balanced on strings. What would a huge factory make just these toys?

[sean sean sean sean]

Originally Posted by nancy thereader

There are a lot of old tracks that were once used , but now are dormant. That might be a great new thread. One is a detour in Saint James where Gyrodyne once had a factory during WW II . They made gyroscopes which I never understood as a child because to me they were these kinds of metal kites that balanced on strings. What would a huge factory make just these toys?

There are tons of them, literally all over LI.

Long Island Rail Road History Page
LONG ISLAND RAIL ROAD HISTORY, Online Museum of Long Island Rail Road and Photo Gallery

Those two sites catalog pretty much all of them and have some amazing old pictures.

[nancy thereader]

Thanks for the link sean4 . Do you work for the LIRR?

[Joe L]

Originally Posted by sean sean sean sean

Separately (and as usual), your racist take on a situation where it isn't warranted is just as obnoxious as it is absurd. None of us gained some mythical birthright by being born on this island, anyone of any color or background is allowed to come here and "do just fine" for themselves.

Since when is wanting to protect ones culture & heritage racist? These new people do not come here to be Americans but to bring there crappy country’s and ways here and force there crummy cultures and pestary up our a** !
They and the political prostitutes they elect are the racists!

In 2007 with all this PC liberal bullstuff whenever somebody says something people dont like they called a "racist" to get everbody react up in arms to shut them up.
It like yelling FIRE in a crowded movie theater als well as opposing the US Constitution all in one !!

-J

[sean sean sean sean]

Originally Posted by Joe L

Since when is wanting to protect ones culture & heritage racist? These new people do not come here to be Americans but to bring there crappy country’s and ways here and force there crummy cultures and pestary up our a** !
They and the political prostitutes they elect are the racists!

In 2007 with all this PC bullstuff whenever somebody says something people dont like they called a "racist" to get everbody react up in arms to shut them up.
It opposing the US Constitution !!

-J

Let's go back to the beginning first and not forget that you are worried about this development attracting Asians because Charles Wang is behind it. First of all, that's a ridiculous assumption (is that what happened to the Islanders?) but that's also a big stretch from "protecting culture and heritage". Look west, it's possible for people of several different backgrounds and cultures to coexist with each other, and the NYC urban sprawl will continually push that closer to us. That's just a fact, so if you don't like it then leave. I'm sure the millionaires and potato farmers were none too happy about Levittown and all the other suburban "slums" bringing Jews, Italians and Irish out here in the 40s, but I'd bet most of us on this board live in places like those....and 50 years on we're still doing OK!

My point here is that none of us individually own this island or the ideas and values behind it. Times change, people change, demographics change....your choice is either to adapt or move away, but nothing is threatening your "culture and heritage". If Asians are moving here, buying houses and voting, they're doing it legally as American citizens and have the same right to be making crappy decisions as you and I. The "PC culture" of 2007 is complete BS to me, but I find most of your comments paranoid and racist. I even agree with your feelings on the negative aspects of plenty of minority groups, but it's not our place to say that anyone can't/shouldn't live here.

nancy - nope, don't work for the LIRR...I just read a lot of useless old local history