Five Towns


The Five Towns is an informal grouping of villages and hamlets in Nassau County, United States on the South Shore of western Long Island adjoining the border with Queens County in New York City. Despite the name, none of these communities is a town. The Five Towns is usually said to comprise the villages of Lawrence and Cedarhurst, the hamlets of Woodmere and Inwood, and "The Hewletts", which consist of the villages of Hewlett Bay Park, Hewlett Harbor, and Hewlett Neck, and the hamlet of Hewlett, along with Woodsburgh. North Woodmere is technically not one of the named "Five Towns" but many residents consider it as such because the entire area is served by the Five Towns' two local high schools. The "towns" most commonly included as constituents of the "Five Towns" are all in the southwest corner of the Town of Hempstead.
The name "Five Towns" dates back to 1931, when individual Community Chest groups in the area banded together to form the "Five Towns Community Chest", consisting of Inwood, Lawrence, Cedarhurst, Woodmere, and Hewlett. The organization still exists as a local charity, but the "Five Towns" moniker caught on as a designation for the entire area. A 1933 article in The New York Times references a Girl Scouts of the USA encampment by the "Five Towns Council, embracing the villages of Inwood, Lawrence, Cedarhurst, Woodmere and Hewlett", listed in order by LIRR station.
One notable characteristic of the Five Towns is that despite the reputation of the South Shore of Nassau County being more urbanized than the North Shore, the Five Towns retains hamlets that resemble areas along Long Island's Gold Coast on the North Shore with enormous mansions and exclusive private communities along the water.

Communities

There is no official Five Towns designation.
Each of these "towns" has a consecutive stop on the Far Rockaway Branch of the Long Island Rail Road. All five communities are part of the Town of Hempstead. Woodmere is the largest and most populous community in the Five Towns.

Education

There are two school districts in the Five Towns, the Lawrence Public Schools and the Hewlett-Woodmere School District. Roughly speaking, the Lawrence school district contains all of Lawrence, Cedarhurst and Inwood, and parts of Woodmere, North Woodmere, and Woodsburgh, while the Hewlett-Woodmere district contains all of Hewlett and part of Woodmere and extends partly into the neighboring villages of Lynbrook and Valley Stream.
In addition there are many private schools in the Five Towns, some of these are: HAFTR, HALB, the Lawrence Woodmere Academy, Yeshiva of South Shore and many others.

Five Towns College

Although Lawrence was planned to be the location for Five Towns College, the original site was no longer available by the time the school received its charter in 1972. The college is currently located in Dix Hills, Suffolk County. Other than the proposed original site, the school never had a physical connection to the Five Towns.

Publications

As of February 2019, the Five Towns has a weekly local publication: The Nassau Herald

In popular culture

Notable current and former residents of the Five Towns include: