West Hempstead Street Cred

I’m excited to start my new blog, Chris from Park Avenue. After all these years, I feel like I’ve built up enough West Hempstead street cred to tell these stories right.

At the tender age of four, I moved into our new home on Park Avenue. It was a small house — two bedrooms, one bath, and the bath was off the kitchen. You could sit on the toilet and fry an egg at the same time.

There’s so much about West Hempstead I can’t wait to write about: the woods across the street from my home; Hempstead Lake State Park and “the res”; Shoppers Village; Gardener’s Village; the Fire House restaurant; Korvettes; Friendly’s; Sanitation District #6; Santa Claus on fire engines; Marion Delaney Elementary; the Kissing Girls (a scary elementary school gang); Boy Scout Troop 240; Carl’s on the corner of Eagle and Woodfield; West Hempstead Chiefs Soccer; amazing diners; Blockbuster Video; the Courtesy Hotel; that time I got to play Dopey in the fifth-grade production of Snow White; marching band in high school…

It’s all going to be in this blog. Including the time I accidentally belly-flopped off the high diving board at Echo Park.

I guess part of growing older is realizing how much nostalgia you carry for the town you grew up in. Truth be told, I know some people who call West Hempstead “Waste Hempstead.” They graduated, moved away, and never gave the town a second thought. They didn’t enjoy it, and they’ve left it in the rear-view mirror.

Me? I’ve never forgotten. To me, as a kid, West Hempstead was the center of the universe.

And if you’re not from West Hempstead, tell us about your neighborhood. We all have hometowns. What was special to you growing up?

Stay tuned — and thanks for checking in.

Go Rams!