Fun Facts You Didn’t Know About Long Island –
I have lived on Long Island my entire life and I have to say I really love my ,not so little and not so tropical, island. So many people who live around Manhattanville travel to Long Island every summer; whether they go to Jones Beach, the Hamptons, or anywhere in-between, there is so much they don’t know about my home. So here are a few fun facts about Long Island!
-
The LIRR may be the most annoying railroads since there are constantly delays or cancellations, but it is also the oldest railroad system in the USA still operating under the same name. Nearly 283,000 people ride it every weekday. Maybe that’s why it is always delayed?
-
Oheka Castle in Huntington is every want-to-be princess’s dream-wedding venue ever since Kevin Jonas got married there in 2009. While it may be a princess’s dream it isn’t everyone’s dream. Arsonists have tried to burn it down several time, but it was built with fireproof concrete. Even the “wood” in the library is concrete.
-
The family that moved into the Amityville Horror House, a year after Ronald DeFeo murdered his family had to move out 28 days later because of supernatural things that were happening, changed the number on the mailbox and has not reported anything supernatural happening since.
-
According to legend F. Scott Fitzgerald modeled West Egg and East Egg in The Great Gatsby after Long Island towns. West Egg is modeled after his hometown of Great Neck and East Egg is modeled after Sands Point.
-
A lot of famous people were born on/got their start on Long Island like Steve Madden and Michael Kors.
-
There are over 700 pizzerias on Long Island. Let’s not even start to count bagel stores.
-
The Belmont stakes is coming up on June 8th – 10th. If you are planning on going you’ll find this interesting. In 1905, when Belmont Park opened, the races ran clockwise following the old English tradition. It wasn’t until the 1921 Belmont Stakes that the races were run counterclockwise like the other USA races. The Belmont Stake is also known as “The Test of the Champion” because it is the longest of the Triple Crown legs with a track of 1.5 miles.
-
East Hampton was voted Most Beautiful Village in the United States in 1968 by National Geographic.
-
Long Island can have some pretty weird laws like in Garden City and Southampton. In Garden City, you can’t wash your car in public view, even on your driveway, which is private property. In 2002 a law was passed in Southampton that said you couldn’t hang clothes on clotheslines in yards. It was repealed soon after.