Economy of Long Island
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Long Island's commuter towns are well known for supplying skilled labor to more urban places, but its four counties have their own factories, offices, schools and other workplaces, employing more workers than commute to distant jobs.
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[edit] Affluence
The counties of Nassau and Suffolk have long been renowned for affluence. Long Island has a very high standard of living. Such affluence is especially pervasive among the hamlets and villages on the North Shore of Long Island and among opulent pockets of the South Shore. Long Island is home to some of the most expensive homes in the country. In fact in 2005, the most expensive residence in the country is Three Ponds in Bridgehampton.[1] The nations largest private residence is also on Long Island, in the Hampton hamlet of Sagaponack. Dwarfing Oheka and Hearst Castles, the home well over 100,000sq. feet is owned by hedge fund manager Ira Rennert. Known as Fair Field, the only house larger is the Vanderbilt's Biltmore in Asheville, North Carolina which is no longer used exclusively as private residence. Long Island is home to the luxury communities of the Hamptons, Cold Spring Harbor and Lloyd Harbor in Suffolk County, and Cove Neck, Oyster Bay Cove, Laurel Hollow, Sands Point, Roslyn, Brookville, Old Brookville, Upper Brookville, Muttontown, Syosset, Woodbury, Jericho, Massapequa, Garden City, Hewlett Harbor, and Manhasset in Nassau County. Long Island is also home to the former second largest private residence in the country, the Otto Kahn estate, known as OHEKA. Otto Kahn was a famous Long Islander who built it in the style of a French Chateau.
[edit] Aviation industry
Long Island industry has long benefited from its proximity to New York City. During the 1930s, the island developed an aviation industry, and until about 1990 was considered one of the aviation centers of the United States, with companies such as Grumman Aircraft having their headquarters and factories in the Bethpage area. Grumman was long a major supplier of warplanes for the U.S. Navy and the Marine Corps, as seen in the movie Top Gun and numerous WW-II naval and Marine Corps aviation movies. Prominent WW-II Grumman aircraft included the F4F Wildcat and F6F Hellcat fighters, and the TBF Avenger bomber, flown by hundreds of U.S. and Allied pilots, including former President George H.W. Bush.
In their early decades, aerospace related companies were concentrated on Long Island, especially in eastern Nassau County in the Bethpage area. Over the years, the industry also diversified to other locations. The Sperry Gyroscope company did very well during WW-II as military demand skyrocketed; it specialized in high technology devices such as gyrocompasses, analog computer-controlled bombsights, airborne radar systems, and automated take-off and landing systems. These became jumping-off points into the multibillion-dollar annually avionics business. During the Cold War decade of the 1950s, part of Sperry Gyroscope was moved to Phoenix, Arizona, and soon thereafter became part of the Sperry Flight Systems Company. This was to try to preserve parts of this vital defense company in the event of nuclear warfare. Both on Long Island and in Arizona, Sperry continued to excel at aviation electronics — avionics, and it also provided avionics systems for such NASA programs as the Space Shuttle.
The Cradle of Aviation Museum illustrates and celebrates Long Island aviation.
[edit] Science and engineering
Long Island has played a prominent role in scientific research and in engineering. It was the home of the Grumman Aircraft factories where all the Apollo program Lunar Module spacecraft were built; and it still is the home of the Brookhaven National Laboratories in nuclear physics and Department of Energy research. All of this makes Long Island one of the leading high-technology areas in the world.
Late in the 20th century companies such as Sperry Rand and Computer Associates, headquartered in Islandia, made Long Island a center for the computer industry. Gentiva Health Services, a national provider of home health and pharmacy services, also is headquartered in Long Island.
Long Island was home to the first Trans-Atlantic radio broadcast, from Rocky Point, New York to Paris, France.
[edit] Tourism
Tourism thrives primarily in the summer and on the East End because of the natural beauty, parks and beaches in Long Island. The North fork on the east end of Suffolk County is known for fishing villages, quaint towns, ferries to Connecticut and other neighbors, and for wineries. The South fork has similar tourist attractions including golf, equestrian, boating, surfing, and fine dining in the Hamptons and Montauk. Patchogue is also host to the Patchogue Theatre for the Performing Arts, which is also the official home theater of the Atlantic Wind Symphony.
Villages are significant additional tourist attraction for the Island. Some tourism is local Long Islanders simply visiting nearby friendly villages. Examples of well developed villages that attract surrounding communities are Huntington Village, Northport Village, Islip Hamlet, Port Jefferson Village, Sayville, & Cold Spring Harbor in Suffolk County. Roslyn Village, Great Neck, The City of Long Beach, The City of Glen Cove, Massapequa Park and Rockville Centre, Garden City are popular Nassau County Villages. The Long Island Convention's and Visitors Bureau provides information about tourism on Long Island.
[edit] Other industries
The eastern end of the island is still partly agricultural, now including many vineyards and pumpkin farms as well as traditional truck farming. Fishing also continues to be an important industry, especially at Northport and Montauk.
Since World War II, Long Island has become increasingly suburban and, in some areas, fully urbanized. Levittown was only the first of many new suburbs, and businesses followed residential development eastward.
Long Island is home to the East Coast's largest industrial park, the Hauppauge Industrial Park. The park has over 1,300 companies, and employs over 55,000 Long Islanders. Companies in the park and abroad are represented by the Hauppauge Industrial Association.
A growing entertainment industry presence can also be found on the Island. Most recently producer Mitchell Kriegman established Wainscott Studios in Water Mill where the PBS children's show, “It's a Big Big World”, is shot.
[edit] References
- ^ The Most Expensive Homes in America — Special Edition — Yahoo! Finance. Retrieved on December 5, 2005.
