East Meadow, one of the Images of America Series books, chronicles the history of this unincorporated area of the town of Hempstead, in Long Island. East Meadow is so named because it was the meadow east of Meadow Brook. This stream once flowed from the middle of Nassau County to South Oyster Bay. Now the stream is nearly gone, buried beneath a highway (some portions still flow to the very south).
East Meadow was part of a 60,000 acre prairie, called the Hempstead Plains, that was primarily rural until after the Second World War, when the post-war expansion of New York City, returning GIs, and the baby boom, transformed the area.
This book lays out the area’s transformation and development with a series of fascinating photos. What they show, in the end, is that the promise and failure of Long Island: a rural oasis for New York City workers, green open spaces near an urban area, which has become a golem of over development that can no longer be controlled.
Take the area around Nassau Coliseum, not far from East Meadow; it is a nearly abandoned vista of acres of parking lot. The residents are unwilling to allow building projects to take some of the windblown, post-apocalyptic vibe from the area, fearing (rightly) the traffic and congestion such a project would bring, in an area that is no stranger to either.
In the end Long Island can no longer grow, since residents (except for real estate moguls) nearly all think that there has been too much growth; too much traffic; too many malls, roads, and concrete. Yet there isn’t an effective strategy to create more green space; to allow areas to “revert” to nature, to give the island the initial promise it held for those who moved there: a green spot of earth. A bit of breathing room. An uncrowded American Dream.
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| what is left of Meadow Brook |
East Meadow was part of a 60,000 acre prairie, called the Hempstead Plains, that was primarily rural until after the Second World War, when the post-war expansion of New York City, returning GIs, and the baby boom, transformed the area.
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| the Hempstead Plains in the 1900s |
This book lays out the area’s transformation and development with a series of fascinating photos. What they show, in the end, is that the promise and failure of Long Island: a rural oasis for New York City workers, green open spaces near an urban area, which has become a golem of over development that can no longer be controlled.
 |
| the Hempstead Plains Preserve, a few acres of plains remaining |
Take the area around Nassau Coliseum, not far from East Meadow; it is a nearly abandoned vista of acres of parking lot. The residents are unwilling to allow building projects to take some of the windblown, post-apocalyptic vibe from the area, fearing (rightly) the traffic and congestion such a project would bring, in an area that is no stranger to either.
 |
| parking lots surrounding the Nassau Coliseum |
In the end Long Island can no longer grow, since residents (except for real estate moguls) nearly all think that there has been too much growth; too much traffic; too many malls, roads, and concrete. Yet there isn’t an effective strategy to create more green space; to allow areas to “revert” to nature, to give the island the initial promise it held for those who moved there: a green spot of earth. A bit of breathing room. An uncrowded American Dream.
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