Hempstead Plains - Current Trends

Current Trends

With the mid-century period came suburbanization and commercial development of the Plains region. The west section of Roosevelt Field (once known as Curtiss Field before its 1929 merger with Roosevelt) ceased operations in 1951 and has been occupied since 1956 by the Roosevelt Field Mall, one of the world's largest indoor shopping centers.

To the east, the former Roosevelt Raceway section is occupied by Roosevelt Raceway Center, which includes several stand-alone stores and the current Raceway Theatre. The section north of the raceway, development on which dates back to the 1960s, is occupied by The Source Mall (anchored by the flagship of the Fortunoff department stores) and the Costco center.

Mitchel Field, which includes the Hempstead Plains site formerly known as Camp Mills, housed an Air Force base until 1961 and is currently used for multiple sites, including the Cradle of Aviation Museum, Nassau Community College, Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum and some of the housing and recreational facilities for Hofstra University.

The last remaining few acres of untouched Hempstead Plains ground are thought to exist near Nassau Community College and in back of The Wheatley School, the high school of the East Williston School District, in Old Westbury. The area is known as the Wheatley Woods for the trees that hide the acres of plains. There are also plains in Eisenhower Park. The plains stretched east to the Suffolk County border. Several acres also remain in Plainview. The existing area was slated to be an extension of the Bethpage State Parkway which was not built, and the land was never developed.