Long Island, New York offers diversity, glamour, the good life, excitement or solitude; all within 125 miles. The quiet waters of Long Island Sound to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the south are a combination vacationers and meeting planners cannot resist. Long Island is an area with a colorful past and a promising future; it is big and sprawling, diverse and dynamic, sophisticated and down-home. There are over 2.5 million people who make Long Island their home. Long Island is located just east of Manhattan on the southeastern tip of New York State. It is comprised of 4 counties; Brooklyn, Queens, Nassau and Suffolk. In general, the heart of Long Island is Nassau and Suffolk, whereas Brooklyn and Queens are part of the 5 boroughs of New York City.
Schools
Whether you’re sending your child to kindergarten for the first time, or returning to college for your doctorate, the Long Island area offers a wide variety of public and private institutions for all of your educational. There are 125 public school districts with nearly 30,000 teachers serving over 400,000 students in th area. There are also 255 private schools with almost 5,000 teachers serving over 50,000 students. The island is also home to 17 four year colleges and five professional institutions. Almost 90 percent of high school students go on to higher education. You can get a list of the schools in the Long Island area here.
If you’re thinking of making a move to Long Island, you’ll want to get more information about the towns you’re considering. The styles and prices of homes vary greatly by area, as does the terrain. Long Island has something for everyone, whether you’re looking for that first home, a larger family home, a waterfront property, a condo or townhome, or a multimillion dollar estate. RE/MAX Central can help make this decision easier for you.
Sports
The 16,000 seat Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale is home to the New York Islanders of the National Hockey League. The 80 game season begins in October and ends in April. The coliseum also also hosts a variety of other sports including basketball, lacrosse, skating and wrestling, including the New York Saints of the Major Indoor Lacrosse League. Long Island is home to the Belmont Stakes, the third jewel in racing’s Triple Crown. Belmont Park, located in Elmont, attracts amateur handicappers, horseplayers and visitors from May through October every day but Tuesday. Sports car, formula car and motorcycle racing can be enjoyed at Bridgehampton from the first weekend in April until the beginning of November. Riverhead Raceway features stock racing every Saturday night from May through mid-November. Baseball fans of the New York Mets can watch their team play in Queens County at the 55,000 seat Shea Stadium in Flushing. The Norstar/Hamlet Challenge Cup is a prelude to the U.S. Open. With no seat more than 80 feet from the court, this is a great chance to see the game’s major players up close. Held each summer, the Northville Long Island Golf Classic, a Senior PGA tournament, attracts such names as Trevino, Rodriguez and others. Polo matches are held each Sunday between May and November at the Bethpage State Park and at Whitney Lane in Old Westbury. Admission and parking are free.
Dining and Entertainment
Dining choices on Long Island are endless, from fine Itallian cuisine, to the best of French food, to the freshest of seafood served in seaside restaurants. Your options are limited only by your imagination and willingness to travel. And, of course, there are the pizza parlors, chinese restaurants and fast food emporiums that will delight the kids. For a list of places to dine, visit Crazy Hungry or CityGuide. Visit LongIsland.com to find the latest events, great shopping and various businesses throughout Long Island. To learn more about Long Island and all it has to offer, visit the Long Island Convention & Visitors Bureau.
Nightlife
There are over 100 nightspots on Long Island offering all types of entertainment from trendy, chic dance clubs to quiet piano bars. You can dance indoors under the strobes and neon light, or square dance or ballroom dance outdoors under the moonlight. Shake it up on the deck of a beachfront dance club, or sip drinks as you watch the sunset in a quiet dockside patio setting. You can find several jazz clubs and other nightspots offering live music. Or for laughs, check in at any of nine comedy clubs, or choose from over 200 screens at 72 movie theater complexes scattered throughout the Nassau-Suffolk region.