Here's a bunch of pictures from Bellmore that I took today...
The heart of what's called "Bellmore Village" (it's not a village, it's a hamlet) is Bedford Avenue. A mixed use strip that was first developed in the late 1800s. The entire area occupies about four blocks and has several restaurants, bars and other assorted places you would expect to find in a suburban downtown setting.
I don't know why this picture is so crooked:
Near the train station is a movie theater that is widely known as "The Bellmore Itch" although it's official name is "BELLMORE MOVIES". It's a single screen theater that mainly plays local and indie films. There used to be an impressive marquee out front that fell off a few years ago and was never replaced:
The residential neighborhood in this area is mainly old style bungalows with some newer suburban sprawl era ranches and capes mixed in:
On the east side of Bellmore Avenue is what I call the "Beltagh" neighborhood since the border between it and Wantagh is fuzzy at points, and follows the path of a creek that doesn't show up on many maps nowadays.
Sunrise Highway is the main point of entry to and from Bellmore and surrounding areas and provides easy access to the Wantagh and Meadowbrook State Parkways. It's dotted with gas stations and supermarkets along this stretch. Not very exciting.
Every Friday night during the summer there's a great car show in the train station parking lot:
http://www.wikimapia.org/p/00/00/23/69/15_big.jpg (broken link)
Before the South Side Rail Road arbitrarily named this area "Bellmore" (which roughly translates to "Green Meadows" from German) when it's tracks stretched this far east in 1867, it had been known as New Bridge since the early part of the 19th century. That name comes from the fact that Merrick Road had a "New Bridge" built over an inlet....guess things weren't really all that exciting back then. The SSRR eventually was bought out by the LIRR. Most of the current day Babylon Branch was originally built by the SSRR.
Between Merrick Road and Sunrise Highway, it's generally more of the same...
Heading further south, we finally reach the canals, inlets, old fishing shacks and summer cottages where modern day Bellmore really started to take shape with the growth of the oyster and resort industry.
Bellmore has one of Nassau County's few dirt roads (gravel, actually) and it's even marked by the Town of Hempstead! This road was pure dirt, then paved, then tore up...I believe they use gravel now because it's more permeable and doesn't flood as bad. There are a total of three homes on this tiny peninsula.
The further south you go in Bellmore, the gaudier the McMansions get. These homes were mostly built from the 1960s until now, before that this was all salt marshes. You can't see it, but most of these have a stunning view of East Bay across to Jones Beach.
Well that's it...hope you enjoyed this tour of Bellmore...I'll try to do a better job with the next town I do!
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Tour of Bellmore, NY
