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one area I never had many friends or paid much attention to in Nassau County is Freeport. (I've visited and/or driven through on scattered occassions, not lately.)
I do remember the restaurants near the water from years back.
I know it's changed some. I also know folks who have moved from there because they didn't like the changes.
So what's really going on in Freeport these days?
Are people coming or going?
Are the homes near the water considered the nicer homes in Freeport?
Is that area considered the nicer area of Freeport?
Is there some sort of dividing line which separates the "unimpressive" area from the nicer or more impressive?
ALSO, what is the difference between North Ocean Avenue and South Ocean Avenue?
you seem to have a decent feel for the area. The quick/simple/crude way of describing Freeport is south = good and north = bad. I'd say Atlantic Ave. is the dividing line, but that's probably not 100 percent accurate.
There is an area in northwestern Freeport that has very nice homes around Brookside Avenue. I think it is called Stearns Park. The children in that neighborhood go to Baldwin schools, not Freeport. There are some beautiful homes there.
Freeport is a village (incorporated in 1892) in the south-center part of the Town of Hempstead, in the south-central part of Nassau County.
Beginning on the north and moving in a clockwise direction, the Village of Freeport is bordered on the north by the Hamlet of Roosevelt; on the east by the Hamlet of Merrick; on the south by the Hamlet of Merrick and the East Channel; and, on the west by the Hamlet of Baldwin Harbor and the Hamlet of Baldwin.
The Village of Freeport has a different border than does the "Freeport, NY 11520" ZIP Code postal zone (i.e., a place can have a "Freeport, NY 11520" mailing address and not be in the Village of Freeport): places with a "Freeport, NY 11520" mailing address that are not in the Village of Freeport are in the Hamlet of Merrick, the Hamlet of Roosevelt and the Hamlet of Baldwin Harbor.
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): //www.city-data.com/forum/long-...-resource.html
North Ocean is a busy street and falls between Sunrise Hwy. and Seaman Ave. I can't envision it now because I haven't been around there in ages, but I would think the further north you go (towards Seaman) on the street the better it should get as it would be closer to Stearns Park. You should go drive around and take a look and see what you can see. Some people don't like to live on a busy street. As for South Ocean, it starts on the other side of Sunrise Hwy. and the further south you go the nicer it gets. There are some very pretty victorians and older houses in Freeport.
One good thing about Freeport on the whole is that it has its own electric utility and people don't get ripped off like the rest of us stuck with LIPA. The crappy thing about Freeport is the school district. I would say that causes houses to cost less than in areas with better school districts. There are some really nice houses in Freeport that rival some of those lovely older ones in Rockville Centre, yet cost much, much less because they are in Freeport.
North and south Freeport are two different worlds. Near the water it's mostly middle-to-upper middle class with some legitimately wealthy residents mixed in. Woodcleft Canal/Nautical Mile is a big party hotspot in the summer and a lot of fishing boats leave out of there. It's extremely nice for the most part, and a lot different from the majority of the south shore. As you go north, Freeport changes for the worse dramatically. The eastern side of the village can be especially rough (east of N. Main), not all that different from Roosevelt. There is crime, there are drugs and there are probably gangs. A lot of homes in the area have been neglected - either by owners who are struggling to keep up with the bills or suburban slumlords who have chopped up their properties for illegal rentals. Plenty of vacant/abandoned stores, though the village has taken to bulldozing many blighted properties in the last 15 years which doesn't look great either. Near the train station, a lot of gorgeous Victorian-era homes were knocked down in the 50s & 60s to build apartment buildings which have now become almost strictly Section 8 housing, or nursing homes.
It's not horrible, it's not "the ghetto", but it's definitely one of the worst areas in Nassau or Suffolk. Most crime committed is either that of the burglary variety, or between two parties that know each other....you don't hear of random violence that often, but would I recommend walking around certain parts alone late at night? Absolutely not. It's hard to draw a divider between "good" and "bad" - because as I_Love_LI_but mentioned, the Stearn's Park neighborhood is one of the nicest (if not the nicest) in Freeport, and that neighborhood is completely north of Sunrise. It's also in the far superior Baldwin School District. Freeport SD is one of the worst LI has to offer and I hear the student body is pretty wild. A lot of families living in all parts of the village send their children to private school, I'd wager nearly all of those living south of Atlantic Avenue do. South Freeport is extremely diverse while north is mostly black & Hispanic.
Don't let all of that scare you off though, near the water it's all gravy. I'd recommend it to anyone, it's just as safe as anywhere else you could live on the south shore, and with a lot more to offer for a (generally) lower price. It's a great deal if you don't have to worry about schools, as is Stearn's Park though it borders some not-so-great areas.
If anyone is interested, I recently found this AMAZING blog run by the Freeport Historic Society that has loads of great info on the history of this village. The pictures they have on here are wild:
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Nobody's familiar with Freeport??
