Documenting Valley Stream through pictures

Although its been 30 years since Amy Bentley has called Valley Stream her home, it’s a place that she thinks about often. Recently, she was inspired to create a photo montage video capturing the community’s beauty, history and daily life, which can be found on You Tube.

Bentley grew up in the Green Acres section of South Valley Stream, which is known today as Mill Brook. Her parents moved to the neighborhood from Brooklyn in 1952 and were the original owners of their house on Cloverfield Road, part of a new housing development.

“It’s a beautiful house. It’s different now, of course,” said Bentley, who drove by it during a recent trip to Valley Stream.

Bentley, the second oldest of five, was born in 1953. She attended Forest Road Elementary School and South High School, which she could see from her house. “If I was in the north side of the school,” she said, “I could watch my mother in the kitchen or the sunroom.”

In 1975, the village published a book to commemorate its 50th anniversary. Although she lived outside of the village’s borders, she went to the Dime Savings Bank to buy a copy. She read it so many times, it fell apart.

Years later, Bentley got into genealogy. Once she went as far as she could with her own family’s history, she started researching local history. Living in Connecticut proved to be no obstacle in doing her homework on Valley Stream. Although it limited her resources a little bit, the Internet and social media made the task pretty simple.

Bentley’s video went through several revisions. Her first version had many more family photos than her final product. The montage is set to the song “Time” by Acoustic Junction. “I wouldn’t have made the video without the song,” she said. “The song, to me, was written for this.”