A few days ago, I interviewed a South Deerfield, Massachusetts resident for a magazine article on which I am working. In the course of our conversation, the gentleman happened to mention his youth growing up in our area and how, in a recent visit after years off Long Island, he was startled to see how things had changed. The interview turned into a walk down memory lane but I still managed to get the information for the article (an item on business and tourism in central New England).

Hempstead Turnpike loomed prominent in our conversation and it was with much Levittown civic pride that I spoke of the Memorial Arch, Gazebo, and general spruce-up that's been ongoing since 2001. The changes are startling and wonderful to say the least. But as Richard Altomonte's recent film, History Along the Turnpike: Levittown reminds us, Hempstead Turnpike has a long and fascinating history. The section of Hempstead Turnpike that runs through Levittown alone has been a place of striking transformation as the area moved from the wind-swept meadows of the Hempstead Plains to the agricultural community of Island Trees to suburbia in the form of Levittown. Until 1948, for example, unobstructed fields and pasturage were broken only by an ancient grove of pine trees called the Island of Trees which resided where Friendly's sits today. Most of the landmarks of the olden days were gone by the time Levitt & Sons erected their model homes and sales office over where P.C. Richards was located until it recently moved across the street. The one-roomed Island Trees Schoolhouse burned down in 1953 after serving the children of local potato farmers for 50 years. Toys R Us is there today. And Nassau Airport, a center of civilian aviation in the years between the world wars, is now the property of St. Bernard's Church and some of the surrounding properties.

If these places have gone the way of Woolworth's, May's, Jahn's Ice Cream, and JC Penney's, other places have survived to this day. The Rowehl and Robricht farm houses, both built in the 1920s, are now the Dalton Funeral Home and St. Bernard's rectory. The homes built in 1935 along Wolcott and Sherwood Roads by Harold Gould are still there, albeit obscured from view by a row of stores and a gas station.

Hempstead Turnpike's changes have been many and while nobody can say what the future will bring, we do know about the past. Indeed, anyone wanting to see vintage photographs of these landmarks should visit the Levittown Historical Society's museum at the Levittown Memorial Education Center on Wednesdays 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. or Fridays 7:30 to 9 p.m.