Long Island – My Home Town

 Long Island – My Home Town

My Family's home in the Township of Huntington Summer/Winter

Holidays are upon us and it's the time of year where one thinks about family. As an adult, I have rarely seen my family on holidays as we live on separate coasts. Even though I have not been a huge fan of the holidays I have to admit that I do reflect back on my family back east and growing up on Long Island around this time of year. So with that in mind below are a few thoughts on my old home, Long Island.

Long Island lies just east of Manhattan and it stretches for about 118 miles. It sits below Connecticut and Rhode Island on the south side of the Long Island Sound. Long Island is long but it's thin as it is just 23 miles wide at it's widest point. The island's peak elevation is only about 400 feet above sea-level and the house I mostly grew up in sits at the base of that hill. Long Island has 4 counties on it – Queens, Kings (AKA Brooklyn), Nassau, and Suffolk. If you say you live on Long Island you are living in Nassau or Suffolk counties. If you say you live in Queens you live in Queens and if you say live in Brooklyn you live in Kings. No one who lives in these two counties will admit to living in or on Long Island. And that's another thing, you don't live in Long Island, you only live on it. Everyone who lives in either Queens or Brooklyn insists they do not live on Long Island. See, Queens and Brooklyn are both part of New York City (NYC) and there is a status with living within the city. However it's really only Manhattan that is called “The City”, as that's what all New Yorker's call it, including those in Queens and Brooklyn. Status-wise, living in Queens and Brooklyn is a step down from living in Manhattan but it's still a step up from living on Long Island even though they are on Long Island as well. So, let's sum up. NYC officially has about 8 million residents but only about 2 million of them actually live in “The City”. Long Island has a population a little under 8 million but only about 3 million of those believe they “live on Long Island”.

Just in case that's not confusing enough, in 1985 our Supreme Court (SC) declared Long Island to be a peninsula. I'm not sure how they came up with this as it is surrounded by water, what most of us generally agree is the definition of an island. Merriam-Webster defines an island as a tract of land surrounded by water and smaller than a continent. Merriam defines a peninsula as a portion of land nearly surrounded by water and connected to a larger body of land. Long Island is not attached to the mainland except by a few bridges. It's connected to Manhattan by a number of bridges as well as a tunnel. By the way, Manhattan is also an island with the Hudson River on one side and the East River on the other. So even if they somehow thought Long Island and Manhattan were connected together they would still qualify as an Island. How did we end up with 9 people deciding which laws conform to our Constitution who are not even able to determine when a tract of land is an Island? Of course this is the same branch of our government that investigated a tomato and determined it was a vegetable when by definition it is in fact a fruit. Rhode Island is not an Island by anyone's definition. I don't think anyone has asked the SC to weigh in on that yet. Let's hope they don't.

Alright, back to Long Island:

Long Island is very pretty, especially in the warmer months. Although it has that northeast weather and high humidity, in the summer it also has the ocean breezes to help mitigate it. Summer on Long Island means going to the beach and there are many to choose from. On the downside it's not easy to get off the island because the main way out is through NYC and getting through NYC is a major undertaking. The only way to avoid going through NYC is to take a plane or take a ferry off the north shore to New England. Consequently, locals tend to only leave the island to either go into “The City” or head off for a vacation. Long Islander's activities tend to be restricted to the island.

My home Town Downtown Huntington circa 2008

The end of the Island (which means the east end) used to be rather provincial, maybe still is, I don't know as it's now 50 years later. To be considered a local out east you had to have lived there for a few generations, a lot like the towns in New England. The end of the island was, at that time, largely agricultural and the residents tended to ignore outsiders, who were anyone who hadn't lived in the community all their life. This was one of the reasons celebrities bought places in the Hamptons, because they would be left alone, and their privacy would be respected.

My favorite Pizza Place - less than a mile from my home

Long Island, of course, has great seafood but it also has great delis, pizza, and bagels, the best I've ever had or been to. Long Island does have it's share of quirks. Below are a few things about Long Island that is familiar to all the locals:  

• You can buy beer in lots of places but not at a Liquor store.

• A sandwich on a roll is a hero not a sub or hoagie.

• Everyone knows what “Change in Jamaica” means.

• The North Shore (sometimes called The Gold Coast) is considered the upper class but the beaches mostly suck. The South Shore has all the beautiful beaches.

• Dunkin' Donuts is a coffee shop that also has donuts not the other way around.

• All the town Historical Societies tell you that George Washington slept there.

• Hamburgers come with only ketchup, no freakin' mustard, what's wrong with the rest of you?

• It's a pizza pie – you get a pie or a slice and no self-respecting Long Island pizza place has pineapple as an option for a topping.

• We have Carvel, not Dairy Queen and we like it that way

• A buttered roll is a thing (Kaiser roll only)

• There's a very well known popular little eatery out on the end of the Island that is famous for Lobster Rolls among other things. The locals call it Lunch, most don't know what the actual name of the place is.

• We have Dairy Barns, which are drive-thru convenience stores.

• We have plenty of Stationery stores but we don't buy stationery there. (Do they sell it?) I used to buy “Spaldeens” aka pinky's there, for stoop ball, stick ball and hand ball.

• Lacrosse has always been a very popular sport

• We think NYC is the only real city and is the center of the world. However, Florida is the promised land where we will all go to retire.

• If you are going somewhere it's either “Out East”, to “The City”, or “Upstate”. Any NY location outside of Long Island and NYC is considered upstate to a Long Islander.

• Everyone goes to the Walt Whitman Mall but no one goes to Walt Whitman's historical birth place that's right across the street (This is maybe mostly true in my neck of the weeds as there are other malls but Walt Whitman was the first on the Island - built when I was a teenager).

• The main difference between Nassau and Suffolk counties is the sidewalks – Suffolk ain't got em, Nassau does.

• A question all Long Islanders have asked multiple times is: “Why is everyone out on the LIE (Long Island Expressway) at 3 o'clock in the F#@&ing morning?” My father called it “New York's largest parking lot”. My brother still calls it “The Distressway”. I just try to avoid it.

• The Seaford-Oyster Bay Expressway (I like to call it the SOB Expressway) does not go from Seaford to Oyster Bay. It goes from Seaford to Syosset and doesn't go to or through Oyster Bay – don't ask.

• Long Islanders go to the diner after a late night out.

• We can correctly pronounce Patchogue, Wyandanch, Ronkonkama, Hauppauge, and Quogue but probably not spell them.

I've been gone for over 50 years but as they say “You can take the boy out of the country but I'll always have Long Island” That is the expression, isn't it?....