Plans for new Hempstead Avenue move forward

Plans for revitalizing West Hempstead’s Hempstead Avenue are moving ahead.
While residents wait for the demolition of the crime-ridden Courtesy Hotel, the West Hempstead Community Support Association has been working to advance the Hempstead Avenue Revitalization Project.

The project, begun in March 2007, aims to give the avenue a much-needed facelift, adding trees and installing street signs, banners and other aesthetic improvements. Association officials are finalizing plans to order banners and benches for locations near the library, the post office and elsewhere.

The avenue is the largest section of West Hempstead’s business district, and is the site of many of the hamlet’s landmarks, including Hall’s Pond Park. The project will run from Nassau Boulevard to Woodfield Road.

“Hempstead Avenue is a major representation of our community, and we’re really working to make it look the best it can be,” said Rosalie Norton, president of the association. “We have already worked with a local artist, Kristine Diaz, to design banners, and one of them will be placed right by West Hempstead Library.

Along with a $25,000 grant the hamlet received from state Sen. Dean Skelos last July, Norton noted that donations from residents have helped the association move the project forward. The association, an arm of the West Hempstead Civic Association that was created in 2007 so that membership fees and donations could be tax deductible, is also working to attract more government funding for the project.

Members recently met with U.S. Rep. Carolyn McCarthy to ask for federal money for streetscaping along the entire length of Hempstead Avenue. For the past several months, community leaders have also met with representatives from the Town of Hempstead’s Planning and Economic Development Department to discuss other ways to refurbish the avenue and the blocks surrounding it.