Did you Know

Until it became an incorporated village in 1910, Cedarhurst was called Ocean Point. Its shopping district, still

a local business hub,

was known as the Rodeo Drive of the Five Towns in the 1950s and ’60s.

Five Towns

Hewlett native Dr. Deborah Asnis, an infectious disease specialist, discovered and reported the first human cases of west nile virus in 1999.

Woodmere is home to

Jason steinmetz, the first orthodox Jew drafted by Major League Baseball

and his father, Elliot, coach of the Yeshiva University men’s basketball team. Cedarhurst and Lawrence are incorporated villages. Hewlett, Inwood and Woodmere are hamlets. All the communities are in the Town of Hempstead.

Congregation Beth Sholom, the first orthodox synagogue in nassau County, was founded in Lawrence in 1950.

The Hebrew Academy of the Five Towns and Rockaway was formed when Hillel merged with the Hebrew institute of Long island in 1978.

Inwood was home to J.

Russell sprague, the first county executive

of Nassau County. Henry Bacon, the architect of the Lincoln Memorial,

designed woodmere High

school. Now gone, the school was built in 1926.

The Five Town Young Men’s-Young Women Hebrew Association was incorporated in 1980. The organization eventually became the JCC of the Greater Five Towns, and is now The Marion & Aaron Gural JCC.

Founded in 1877, the Rockaway Hunt Club (now the Rockaway Hunting Club) in Lawrence is listed as the nation’s oldest country club.

The Five Towns Community Chest (now Community Chest south shore) was established in 1931. It’s the first time Five Towns was used to encompass Cedarhurst, Hewlett, Inwood, Lawrence and Woodmere.

woodmere Academy merged with Lawrence Country Day school to form Lawrence Woodmere Academy in 1990.