Where are some nice places to live on Long Island? (New York: house, buy)

[Transpl]

Originally Posted by S.I.B.

the quickest train out of babylon takes 1:02 to Penn. How many nassau commutes are longer than that?

The Speonk train is 51 minutes, nonstop from Babylon to Penn. Leaves a bit early at 6:07, but is fast and a doubledecker for plenty of room.

[AlexisT]

That's a freak train, though. They never did expand the one-seat ride--didn't they have huge technical problems with the dual-mode locomotives?

As for Nassau commutes over an hour: yes, if you actually try using the Oyster Bay branch. The first few stops are doable, but past that, forget it (and service on that branch is poor anyway so it would never be my choice if I wanted to commute to NYC).

[Crookhaven]

Originally Posted by AlexisT

Crooks, Huntington express service is excellent--you need to catch the right train though. Huntington, CSH, Syosset, Penn. That's it. 58 minutes IIRC. Huntington service is a notch below Babylon generally, but rush hour express service is good.

I'd take Bayside over Valley Stream, but not over one of the nicer areas in western Nassau.

Youre right.

LIRR North Shore west isnt too too bad.
But the Babylon Cannonball is awesome.

Id take Jamaica Estates over Hicksville too.



Crooks

[STrapani1105]

Originally Posted by Crookhaven

I dont think Nassau sucks.
I just think Western Nassau has very little to offer.
If it were me, Id just as soon stay in Queens ans spend an hour on the subway.

An express commute from Babylon is cake and better than half of Nassaus.

I would also check out Bethpage/Farmingdale.

Crooks

yeah, Farmingdale looks pretty nice

[STrapani1105]

Originally Posted by AlexisT

Crooks, I know you think Nassau sucks, but your commute estimates are invariably unrealistic.

You want close? Stick to western and central Nassau. 1hr on the LIRR is easily 90 mins or more door to door, especially if you don't live right by the station or have a subway trip from Penn. Done it, it sucks, and I won't tell anyone different. My sister commuted from East Northport. She spent 3.5 hours a day traveling.

STrapani - if you live outside the village, you don't deal with the village hall in VS - everything is done through ToH or the county. However, if you ever had to deal with the town specifically it would always be the same place, Town Hall in Hempstead. Villages add a 3rd tier to local government.

Towns here are huge, bigger than townships or boroughs in NJ as far as I can tell. Hempstead has 750K people--that would make it the 2nd largest place in the state if we counted towns the way we do cities. I don't think there's a good NJ analogue - both NYS and NJ have unusual local government structures anyway. On top of that, postal zones don't conform to hamlet/village boundaries, which causes a headache on MLS.

Baldwin is not a village and doesn't have a PD. School districts are independent of villages (e.g. I believe there are houses in the village of RVC that are in Oceanside SD, and South Hempstead is zoned to RVC) and not all villages have a PD. Some do some don't. Some seem to exist primarily for zoning reasons.

yeah, that's really inconvenient. haha, but i guess that's what makes New York what it is. your towns are huge.

[Jay813629]

Muttontown and Lattingtown still have my vote.

[Railmomma]

Originally Posted by STrapani1105

I've also been looking in Queens, and may expand my search down to Brooklyn. What are some nice places on Long Island? I'm looking for a nice, typical long island town. Diversity is nice, I like a nice large mixture of different cultures. I am partial to my own culture though, I'm an Italian-American, and Long Island has tons of them. The closer to the city, the better. If I have to move into a homogeneous (not diverse) area, I wouldn't want to be the "black sheep", if you will. I'm not a racist, I just don't want to be the only white family on the block, kinda like Howard Stern growing up in Roosevelt.

I've gotten some suggestions already, here's a few:

Valley Stream, Lynbrook, Oceanside, the Massapequas

Many of the Italian- Americans in VS have moved or are trying to move out. I've lived here quite a while, so I have definitely witnessed the trend. The only ones that are staying are the Seniors (some are set in their ways). I would consider Rockville Centre. It is more affluent and has great restaurants (including Italian) and a great downtown. Valley Streams Rockaway ave is very bland in comparison.

[STrapani1105]

Originally Posted by Railmomma

Many of the Italian- Americans in VS have moved or are trying to move out. I've lived here quite a while, so I have definitely witnessed the trend. The only ones that are staying are the Seniors (some are set in their ways). I would consider Rockville Centre. It is more affluent and has great restaurants (including Italian) and a great downtown. Valley Streams Rockaway ave is very bland in comparison.

yeah it goes Valley Stream, Lynwood, and then Rockville Centre am i correct? I'm trying to get a feel for your area, because it's a lot different than New Jersey. A lot of people have suggested Rockville Centre to me. It looks like a decent town. It's got a lot of Irish and Italian families, and I like that. True hard-working people, am I right?

[AlexisT]

Yeah, the train line is VS - Lynbrook - RVC. It's the seat of the diocese--very Catholic! Solidly middle to upper middle class I'd say. School district is one of the best in the area--South Side HS has won awards. I would look specifically in the village of RVC. That power plant will save you $$$ over LIPA.

If you haven't, I recommend a poke around MLSLI.com – Long Island Real Estate – Find A Home in Nassau, Suffolk & Queens to see what's available.

[I_Love_LI_but]

Originally Posted by Crookhaven

Unless you love South Queens, I'd pass on Valley Stream
http://www.city-data.com/forum/long-...-stream-3.html

Check out Babylon Village.

crooks

Cripes, crookhaven! You have to trot that one out again? How's YOUR NEIGHBOR, the schoolteacher/rapist/jaw breaking woman beater, that lives in Rocky Point doing? Tell the Mrs. to avoid strolling down Gooseberry Road in your hometown of Rocky Point, as one never knows when that nut will get frustrated and fly out of his house to assault another helpless woman. "The people in your neighborhood. La la la!"

As for the OP, I would say if he has $700K to spend, I would NOT recommend Valley Stream because with that budget he is out of the league for Valley Stream. He can also do better than Lynbrook unless he wants to own the most expensive (overpriced for the neighborhood) house there. As for the south shore, nobody mentioned the Five Towns areas, except Lynbrook. They are pretty nice too: Cedarhurst, Hewlett, Woodmere, Lawrence. Only problem there is avoid the Lawrence School District if you want to send your kids to public school because the super-religious Jews who don't send their children to the public schools control the school board and are giving a beating to the kids in the public schools via the budget. As for the north shore, a really pretty town that has homes within your budget in western Nassau is Sea Cliff. As for Central Nassau, you can't go wrong with Garden City. You won't get one of the most expensive houses there, but as per "location location location" it is better to have the worst house in the best neighborhood than the best house in a lesser neighborhood. (And the "lesser houses" in Garden City are still pretty nice anyway.) For the southest of Nassau's south shore, Long Beach has nice homes in his price range too.