Broadway

On the Broadway stage in Hewlett and Woodmere

Broadway has multiple meanings to many people, from the famous Manhattan theatre district to the roadway that runs through that borough, the Bronx and up across Westchester County.

To those growing up in the Five Towns — and specifically Hewlett and Woodmere — it is the main thoroughfare through both of those Town of Hempstead hamlets.

Entering Hewlett from Lynbrook on Broadway, a visitor quickly comes up to the 4th Precinct building that houses the Nassau County police officers that patrol the Five Towns and surrounding communities, including Atlantic Beach, Bay Park, Atlantic Beach Estates, East Rockaway, Island Park, Lido, North Long Beach and Point Lookout.

Immediately next to the precinct is Grant Park, a county recreational facility that offers an assortment of things to do, from playgrounds to baseball fields, basketball and tennis courts, an ice rink, and a lake. St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church is also on Broadway as the business district comes into focus. At the intersection of Broadway and West Broadway sits the Veterans Memorial Triangle, the site for Hewlett and Woodmere residents to salute military personnel on Memorial Day and Veterans Day. This space is also where the community menorah and Christmas tree are lit every year.

Lifelong Five Towns resident David Friedman, president of the Hewlett-Woodmere Business Association, can take anyone down memory lane of what Broadway included through the decades beginning in the 1960s.

Deliah Roberts/Herald photos Top photo: Grant Park includes ball fields, basketball and tennis courts and other amenities. Hewlett-Woodmere Little League player Leah Nubia made contact in the first game of the 2022 season.

“Across from the Veterans Memorial where TD Bank was and before that the Burger King," he says, "there was Shore’s, an old-fashioned drive-in like Arnold’s from ‘Happy Days.’”

Also along Broadway is the Hewlett-Woodmere Public Library, and the 186-year-old Trinity-St. John’s Church. Moving into Woodmere, the stretch of businesses continues, along with a veterans memorial where Broadway meets Conklin Avenue.

Snaking through Woodmere, Broadway takes you out of the business district and into a swath of homes and the Woodmere Club, whose land soon could also house residences.

The Broadway that spans Hewlett and Woodmere and then winds its way into Cedarhurst and Lawrence might not be the length of the city’s Broadway, but it certainly connects its communities to their neighbors. — Jeffrey Bessen

Tim Baker/Herald photos First photo: Historical Trinity-St. John’s Church remains a Broadway stalwart.

Second photo: Along a walkway in Woodmere, the Town of Hempstead honored lifelong Five Towns resident David Friedman in 2021 for his service as ambassador to Israel in the Trump Administration.

Third photo: The Woodmere Club may soon be transformed into a residential development.