Huntington

Huntington, NY, often referred to as Huntington Village to distinguish it from other area municipalities, is actually not an incorporated village but a hamlet in the Town of Huntington. It does have a quaint, walkable downtown area with over 300 businesses. The village is the epicenter of the community, drawing both residents and visitors who come to enjoy the shops, bars and restaurants. Huntington has a vibrant nightlife as well.

The Long Island Rail Road offers direct service to and from the city. The commute takes about an hour and ten minutes. Parking options include metered spots and lots for resident with Town of Huntington permits. Huntington Area Rapid Transit has routes to the village and Walt Whitman Mall, in nearby South Huntington.

The area is a great place for recreation and cultural arts. Heckscher Park, not to be confused with Heckscher State Park on the South Shore, landed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985. The park is home to the Heckscher Museum of Art, which includes 2,000 works in its collection, and the Chapin Rainbow Theater. Each summer, the Huntington Summer Arts Festival comes to Heckscher Park. Organized by the Huntington Arts Council, the festival lasts eight weeks and includes concerts and performances. The Town of Huntington also oversees Crab Meadow Golf Club, a public course for residents and non-residents, and Gold Star Battalion Beach. The beach, located on Huntington Bay, allows swimming and picnicking.

The Huntington School District educates over four thousand students. Schools include four K-3 primary schools, two 4-6 intermediate schools, one middle school and one high school. Approximately one-fifth of the student population lives in poverty; there are also a large number of English Language Learners (ELLs). Recently the New York State Education Department placed Huntington on its list of districts needing improvement in the area of English Language Arts at all grade levels. On the state exams administered to students in third through eighth grade, between six and ten percent of students did not meet standards. The high school offers sixteen Advanced Placement courses. Forty clubs and a variety of athletic teams are available.

A wide range of prices characterizes Huntington’s housing stock. Homes closer to the downtown area tend to be pricier. The inventory includes colonials, cottages, splits and ranches. Prices begin in the mid-$200,000 range. House-hunters looking at homes priced between $400,000 and $700,000 will find the most options, with prices topping out just above $1 million. Those seeking condos or co-ops will find a very small supply of available homes, priced between $250,000 and $600,000.

Huntington is a busy, highly developed town in Suffolk County, Long Island. Once it was known for agriculture and shipping, then for tourism and as the summer destination of New Yorkers. From the 1950s to the 1980s, wild tracts of land and farmland disappeared as the population soared, and today Huntington has over 203,000 residents. For some reason, a very large number of famous people either were born here or lived here at one point in their lives.

Huntington is right next to the Nassau-Suffolk County border. If you look on a map, its boundary lines form a sort of flower-splatter pattern, thanks in part to its five harbors and various bays. This is a place for beach lovers, as the town has nine beaches and three marinas. Within the 93-square mile town are the incorporated villages of Asharoken, Huntington Bay, Lloyd Harbor, and Northport, and there are 15 unincorporated hamlets as well.

This has to be the most organized town I’ve ever encountered, with 42 departments listed on their website – Adult Day Care Division, Huntington Small Business Resource and Recovery Center, Maritime Services, Transportation and Traffic Services, the list goes on. Need help? They’re prepared to give it to you. There are five different Human Services divisions – for Handicapped, Minorities, Senior Citizens, Veterans, and Women. There’s a Board of Ethics and Financial Disclosure, and a Public Art Advisory Committee. There’s a Conservation Board instead of the usual Conservation Council, which means the group can actually accomplish something.

The Town keeps up its parks, offers entertainment like Movies on the Lawn (a modern-day drive-in movie night), sponsors parades, Animal Adoption Days, and town festivals featuring events like Sand Castle Building and Meatball Eating. There is the annual Tulip Festival, with all kinds of vendors and performances, not to mention 20,000 tulips.

The Huntington Union Free School District contains 4,100 students housed in Flower Hill, Jefferson, Southdown, and Washington Primary Schools (K-3), Jack Abrams and Woodhull Intermediate Schools (4-6), J. Taylor Finley Middle School (7-8), and Huntington High School (9-12).

Since Huntington contains so many villages and hamlets, there are seven other school districts as well: Cold Spring Harbor, Commack, Elwood, Half Hollow Hills, Harborfields, Northport, and South Huntington. This year Whitman High School in South Huntington was rated the best out of schools in this area by US News, coming in 102nd out of 1,165 other New York schools (789th nationally.)

Here you’ll find the Heckscher Museum of Art, with a collection of over 2500 pieces of American and European artists, as well as a growing accumulation of photographs. You’ll definitely want to tour Eagle’s Nest, the Vanderbilt’s 24-room summer estate. Their planetarium is currently under renovation, but when it re-opens will be one of the best-equipped in the country. Living tours, with actors playing the roles of staff and guests, show you what summer life was like among the rich and famous in the 1930’s.

There are two private clubs here, the Huntington Crescent Club and the Huntington Country Club (actually in Cold Spring Harbor, a hamlet of Huntington).

Huntington is full of night life, and one of the destination points for the smaller and ultra-quiet villages of Nassau County. Here 25A becomes Main Street and it’s filled with bars and restaurants, as is New York Avenue. You can find trendy wine bars, sports bars, pubs, cigar bars, karaoke bars, and bars with dancing. You definitely won’t be bored here.

The largest employer in Huntington is Estee Lauder, followed by Newsday, Huntington Hospital, Northport Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Henry Schein, and Western Suffolk BOCES. Huntington Hospital, by the way, was ranked 7th in New York State by US News & World Report.

It’s an easy commute to New York City on the Long Island Rail Road, which has four stops in Huntington.

If you’re looking for a large, bustling suburban town with great beaches, services, and all the amenities, Huntington may be for you.