Five Towns

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File:Welcome to Five Towns LI jeh.jpg
"Welcome to the Five Towns", Far Rockaway border
File:Nassau County New York incorporated and unincorporated areas Five Towns highlighted.svg
Location within Nassau County

The Five Towns is an informal grouping of villages and hamlets in Nassau County, United States on the South Shore of western Long Island adjoining the border with Queens County in New York City. Although there is no official Five Towns designation, "the basic five are Lawrence, Cedarhurst, Woodmere, Hewlett and Inwood."<ref name=NYT1983>Barron, James. "If You're Thinking Of Living In: Five Towns", The New York Times, July 10, 1983. Accessed March 24, 2022. "The basic five are Lawrence, Cedarhurst, Woodmere, Hewlett and Inwood. But the area also includes some unincorporated communities and two tiny villages, Hewlett Bay Park and Woodsburgh, that are not added to the final total."</ref> Each of these "towns" has a consecutive stop on the Far Rockaway Branch of the Long Island Rail Road. All five communities are part of the Town of Hempstead. Woodmere is the largest and most populous community in the Five Towns, while Inwood is the second-largest community in the Five Towns.

The area also includes some unincorporated communities and two small villages, Hewlett Bay Park and Woodsburgh, that are not added to the final total.<ref name=NYT1983/> Despite the name, none of these communities is a town. The Five Towns is usually said to comprise the villages of Lawrence and Cedarhurst, the hamlets of Woodmere and Inwood, and "The Hewletts,” which consist of the villages of Hewlett Bay Park, Hewlett Harbor, and Hewlett Neck, and the hamlet of Hewlett, along with Woodsburgh.

North Woodmere is technically one of the "Five Towns" as it is served by the Five Towns' two local high schools and its constituents use the "Five Towns" many public services. Others do not consider it to be part of the "Five Towns," as it is a section of Valley Stream, separated from the rest of the Five Towns by Motts Creek. Atlantic Beach, which is located across a drawbridge from Lawrence on a barrier island it shares with Long Beach, Lido Beach and Point Lookout, is culturally linked to the Five Towns, with its students attending Five Towns public schools, but it is usually — though not always — excluded from the designation.

History

The name "Five Towns" dates back to 1931,<ref name=NYT1983/> when individual Community Chest groups in the area banded together to form the "Five Towns Community Chest", consisting of Inwood, Lawrence, Cedarhurst, Woodmere, and Hewlett. The organization still exists (as of 2018) as a local charity, but the "Five Towns" moniker caught on as a designation for the entire area.<ref>Shaman, Diana. "If You're Thinking Of Living In: Five Towns", The New York Times, November 20, 1988. Accessed March 24, 2022. "The area's name dates to 1931, when Community Chest organizers pooled their efforts and formed the Five Towns Community Chest to serve Inwood, Lawrence, Cedarhurst, Woodmere and Hewlett. The name clung, even though Cedarhurst and Lawrence are incorporated villages. The Five Towns area, which lies within the Town of Hempstead, also includes five other villages - Hewlett Bay Park, Hewlett Harbor, Hewlett Neck, Woodsburgh and East Rockaway. Many also include Atlantic Beach, which is in the Lawrence Public School District."</ref> A 1933 article in The New York Times references a Girl Scouts of the USA encampment by the "Five Towns Council, embracing the villagesTemplate:Sic of Inwood, Lawrence, Cedarhurst, Woodmere and Hewlett", listed in order by LIRR station.<ref>"TO BREAK CAMP AT AEN.; Girl Scouts of Rockaways Leave Wednesday After 2 Weeks' Stay.", The New York Times, July 25, 1933, p. 16. Accessed September 15, 2008.</ref>

One notable characteristic of the Five Towns is that despite the reputation of the South Shore of Nassau County being more urbanized than the North Shore, the Five Towns retains hamlets that resemble areas along Long Island's Gold Coast on the North Shore with enormous mansions and exclusive private communities along the water. The New York Times used the term "affluent" in describing the area.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Inwood, however, is much less affluent than the other "towns," with a more urban character and a significantly more ethnically diverse population.

Education

There are two school districts in the Five Towns, the Lawrence Public Schools (District 15) and the Hewlett-Woodmere School District (District 14).<ref name=NYT1983/> Roughly speaking, the Lawrence school district contains all of Lawrence, Cedarhurst and Inwood, and parts of Woodmere, North Woodmere, and Woodsburgh, while the Hewlett-Woodmere district contains all of Hewlett and part of Woodmere and extends partly into the neighboring villages of Lynbrook and Valley Stream (North Woodmere and Gibson in particular).

In addition, there are many private schools in the Five Towns. Among them are the independent school, Lawrence Woodmere Academy, and Jewish schools, Hebrew Academy of the Five Towns and Rockaway (HAFTR), Hebrew Academy of Long Beach (HALB), and Yeshiva of South Shore.

Five Towns College

Although Lawrence was planned to be the location for Five Towns College, the original site was no longer available by the time the school received its charter in 1972. The college is currently located in Dix Hills, Suffolk County. Other than the proposed original site, the school never had a physical connection to the Five Towns.<ref>Five Towns College: Our History Template:Webarchive, accessed July 6, 2006</ref>

Jewish community

By the 1980s, the Five Towns had developed a large Jewish community. The UJA-Federation of New York estimated that 35,000 Jews lived in the area, out of a total of 47,048 counted in the 1980 census, with a growing number of Orthodox Jews.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> By 2010, the Five Towns hosts 53 orthodox synagogues. And a number of Jewish private schools, and kosher restaurants. The Orthodox community had become so large that many incoming Orthodox families chose to move to adjoining areas like Far Rockaway and North Woodmere.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Publications

As of February 2019, the Five Towns has two weekly local publications: The Nassau Herald and The Five Towns Jewish Times.

  • The 1993 movie Amongst Friends, by Rob Weiss, was filmed and set in the Five Towns.<ref>Lyall, Sarah. "Film; 'Amongst Friends' Tops Off a Journey Of Self-Discovery", The New York Times, July 18, 1993. Accessed March 24, 2022. "Now comes Rob Weiss, a brash 26-year-old whose first movie, Amongst Friends, portrays a world of mobsters and drug dealers in the Five Towns, a cluster of mostly affluent communities east of Kennedy Airport and near Mr. Weiss's birthplace."</ref>
  • The television show Entourage features a fictional show titled Five Towns, in which Johnny Drama stars as a character. The producer of the show was supposed to be actor-director Edward Burns, who in real life grew up in Valley Stream but attended Hewlett High School. When shown on Entourage the Five Towns is oddly portrayed as a gritty industrial area.
  • In Thomas Pynchon's 1963 debut novel V., he mentions the Five Towns; however, he includes Malverne as being part of the group.
  • In the film Goodfellas, when trying to get Henry to come along on a double date, Tommy mentions that his date lives in the Five Towns.
  • Opening scene to Married to the Mob was filmed at the Cedarhurst train station (but with the trains going in the reverse direction per the director's decision).

Notable people

Template:Alumni Notable current and former residents of the Five Towns include: Template:Dynamic list Template:Div col

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References

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