Old Westbury, New York
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Old Westbury is a village in Nassau County, New York on the North Shore of Long Island. As of the United States 2000 Census, the village population was 4,228.
The Village of Old Westbury overlaps the Town of Oyster Bay and the Town of North Hempstead.
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[edit] Geography
Old Westbury is located at (40.782038, -73.597236).GR1
According to the United States Census Bureau, the village has a total area of 22.2 km² (8.6 mi²), all land.
[edit] Demographics
Ranked #11 for most expensive zip codes In the United States As of the censusGR2 of 2000, there were 4,228 people, 1,063 households, and 967 families residing in the village. The population density was 190.7/km² (493.9/mi²). There were 1,109 housing units at an average density of 50.0/km² (129.5/mi²). The racial makeup of the village was 68.19% White, 14.24% African American, 0.02% Native American, 11.52% Asian, 3.67% from other races, and 2.37% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 7.14% of the population.
There were 1,063 households out of which 43.2% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 82.2% were married couples living together, 5.9% had a female householder with no husband present, and 9.0% were non-families. 5.6% of all households were made up of individuals and 2.9% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 3.33 and the average family size was 3.37.
In the village the population was spread out with 22.7% under the age of 18, 20.2% from 18 to 24, 19.9% from 25 to 44, 25.7% from 45 to 64, and 11.6% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 35 years. For every 100 females there were 86.7 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 84.6 males.
The median income for a household in the village was $155,749, and the median income for a family was $168,453. Males had a median income of $100,000 versus $47,000 for females. The per capita income for the village was $70,089. About 1.1% of families and 3.5% of the population were below the poverty line, including 1.5% of those under age 18 and 3.3% of those age 65 or over.
[edit] Notable People/Entertainment
Westbury was named by Henry Willis, one of the first English settlers after a town in his home county of Wiltshire, England. Westbury had been a Quaker community of isolated farms until the railroad came in 1836; after the Civil War, the New York elite discovered that the rich, well wooded flat countryside of the Hempstead Plains was a place to raise horses, and to hunt foxes and play polo at the Meadow Brook Club. They bought entire farms and built grand houses, somewhat separated from the Gold Coast mansions along Long Island's North Shore. Herman B. Duryea built an estate in Old Westbury known as "Knole". Completed in 1903, it was designed by Carrere and Hastings. In 1910 he sold the property to Henry Phipps who bought it as a wedding gift for his daughter Helen's marriage to Bradley Martin. Old Westbury House, was the residence of Henry Phipps' son, John Shaffer Phipps. Today, the property is open as Old Westbury Gardens. Robert Low Bacon built Old Acres in the style of an Italian villa. Other landowners were Thomas Hitchcock and his family, Harry Payne Whitney and his wife the former Gertrude Vanderbilt, founder of New York's Whitney Museum, at Apple Green (formerly a Mott house), Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney, whose estate is now subdivided into the Old Westbury Country Club and New York Institute of Technology, Alfred I. du Pont, whose estate, Templeton also now serves part of the NYIT campus, the Post family and many other elite families. The architect Thomas Hastings built a modest house for himself, Bagatelle, in 1908. A. Conger Goodyear, then president of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City had a house built in 1938 by famed architect Edward Durell Stone, who also desined the building for Conger's museum. The house was recently designated a historical site to protect the structure from being demolished to subdivide the expensive land surrounding it. The estate of Robert Winthrop, an investment bank and member of the Dudley-Winthrop family, for whom Winthrop-University Hospital was named, has been similarly preserved. Part of Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney's estate and her sculpture studio has been restored by one of her descendents, Pamela LeBoutillier, who currently resides there with her husband, Thomas.
When Robert Moses was planning the Northern State Parkway, the powers of Old Westbury forced him to re-site it five miles to the south. Once the parkway was completed, many residents found it to not be the eyesore they had been anticipating and regretted making their commutes more inconvenient than necessary. The residents, however, did not have to wait very long: The state was able to buy land from Charles E. Wilson, a former president of General Motors who needed to sell off his Old Westbury estate to pull himself out of financial crisis and relocate to the nation's capital to serve in President Eisenhower's cabinet. The land, which runs along an edge of the village, was used for Moses' next project, the Long Island Expressway .
The town continues to attract famous names through the present. Howard Stern lived here with his family prior to the 1999 divorce. Socialite C. Z. Guest raised her family in the du Pont estate, Templeton. Her daughter, Cornelia Guest was named the 1980s "deb of the decade" and authored the Debutante's Guide to Life. Cornelia Guest has licensed her name to the exclusive Slatkin and Company to make the Old Westbury travel candle, available at stores such as Bergdorf Goodman and Neiman Marcus and is a favorite of Reese Witherspoon. Eben Wright Pyne of the notable Pyne family and former senior VP of Citigroup, former director of Long Island Lighting (LILCO), long-time former director of W. R. Grace and Company (1960 - 1995) and former executive of U.S. Life Insurance and City Investing Company and Home Insurance Company. Bess Myerson's scandalous affair with Andy (Carlos) Capasso took place in the manorhouse on Tredwell Drive. Former New York Jets and current Kansas City Chiefs headcoach, Herman Edwards also has a house here. Countless famous names of the retail world also reside here, heirs to the founders and current CEOs alike, including those making their fortunes from Waldbaum's supermarket chain, Fortunoff department store, Sam Ash music shops, Sony Aiwa and John Shalam of chairman of Audiovox. William Entenmann, founder of Entenmann's bakery goods, lived her until his death into the 1990s. Still home to many members of the Phipps family and other notable figures such as William Grace Holloway (former chairman of W. R. Grace & Company), "old money" has not lost its place in Old Westbury.
When Hollywood needs to depict the Long Island Gold Coast, they often pay the town a visit. Many films have scenes shot in Old Westbury, including Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest (1959, starring Cary Grant), Love Story (1970), The Age of Innocence (1993, starring Daniel Day-Lewis and Winona Ryder), Wolf (1994,starring Jack Nicholson and Michelle Pfeiffer), Cruel Intentions (1999, starring Reese Witherspoon, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Ryan Phillippe), Woody Allen's The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001), Hitch (2005, starring Will Smith and Eva Mendes), Captain Valedor (2006), Bernard and Doris (in post-production, starring Susan Sarandon), Forever I (in production, starring Dennis Hopper). The television show Growing Up Gotti was filmed in Victoria Gotti's home here.
[edit] External links
- Maps and aerial photos
- Street map from Google Maps, or Yahoo! Maps, or Windows Live Local
- Satellite image from Google Maps, Windows Live Local, WikiMapia
- Topographic map from TopoZone
- Aerial image or topographic map from TerraServer-USA
- Newsday: Westbury Children's Library
- Newsday: Even They Couldn't Stop the LIE
- NYT: LIVING IN/Old Westbury, L.I.; Preserving Open Space, Evoking an Opulent Past
- NYT: A House That's a Bargain for $16 Million?
- The High End: Indoor Pools, and Racquetball Courts
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