Hempstead, NY — Crash Data, Roads, History & Law

History

The Town of Hempstead's founding deed was negotiated on December 13, 1643, when the English emissaries Robert Fordham and John Carman met with representatives the Town's own archives name as the Reuckowacky, the Merockes, Matinecock and Massapequas; the deed set no boundaries for the tract and made no mention of compensation to the tribes.^[1] Dutch Director-General William Kieft did not issue the patent granting the settlers rights and title until November 1644, and the underlying 1643 deed itself was not formally confirmed until July 4, 1657.^[1][2] The Town of Hempstead's own history states that the name "seems to derive from Hemel-Hempstead, in Great Britain, which means town spot."^[3]

Following the English takeover of the Dutch colony, Hempstead hosted the convention that adopted the Duke's Laws, the first code of law and local government for the English colony of New York. The Town of Hempstead's history dates this "Duke's Law Convention" to Hempstead in February 1665, naming Hempstead's delegates as John Hicks and Robert Jackson among representatives of thirteen other Long Island and Westchester towns.^[4][5] The Incorporated Village of Hempstead's own archived history page instead states that "In 1664, the new settlement adopted the Duke's Laws" — the two official sources disagree by one year, and neither cites the underlying colonial record directly.^[4][13]

In 1683 the colony was divided into twelve counties and Hempstead became part of Queens County.^[6] A political split between residents favoring the British cause and those favoring the Revolution led the town to divide in 1784 into the separate towns of South Hempstead and North Hempstead; the Town's records show town officers for South Hempstead being chosen at an April 15, 1784 town meeting.^[7] During the 1800s, per the Town's history, "South Hempstead, which became known as Hempstead, continued to grow steadily," becoming the most populous town in Queens County by the mid-1850s.^[8]

The built-up hamlet at the town's center incorporated as a self-governing village in 1853; the Incorporated Village of Hempstead's own archived history page states "In 1853 it became the first self-governing incorporated village," a superlative claim that could not be checked here against a statewide roster of New York village incorporations.^[12] St. George's Episcopal Church, already established in the settlement, received a silver communion service from England's Queen Anne in 1703, according to the same village history page.^[14] Prominent families including the Vanderbilts and the Belmonts built homes in the village, and during the Spanish-American War the village hosted Camp Black, a state militia training facility and point of embarkation for troops, per the same source.^[15][16]

The Long Island Rail Road's directors, chartered in 1834, decided to extend the line to Hempstead in 1836, well before it reached many other future Nassau County communities.^[9] After the towns of Hempstead, North Hempstead and Oyster Bay were excluded from the 1898 consolidation of Greater New York, Chapter 588 of the Laws of 1898, signed April 27, 1898, created Nassau County from "the Towns of Oyster Bay, North Hempstead, and that part of Hempstead not already incorporated into New York City."^[10] Hofstra University traces its founding to the village: after Kate Mason Hofstra died in 1933 leaving a will with bequests that included St. George's Church of Hempstead, her estate's trustee Howard Brower discussed creating an institution of higher education in the fall of 1934 with Truesdel Peck Calkins, then the superintendent of public schools in the Village of Hempstead — a conversation Hofstra's own history credits with leading to the university's creation.^[17][18]

How the roads got here

New York State's official touring-route description carries NY Route 24 out of Queens on Hollis Court Boulevard, 212th Street, Jamaica Avenue and Hempstead Avenue to the Nassau County line and then "east on Hempstead Turnpike to East Meadow, Levittown, Farmingdale," a corridor that runs along the built-up area immediately north and east of the Village of Hempstead's downtown.^[24] A separate, shorter state touring route, NY 102, is officially described as "NY 102 (William Street) Hempstead, on Front Street, East Meadow (NY 24) – Nassau County," meaning New York State classifies Front Street through the Village of Hempstead's downtown, running from William Street to the East Meadow line, as a state touring route connecting back to NY 24.^[25]

Law and legal history

In 2009 the Village of Hempstead's Board of Trustees enacted Local Law No. 1 of 2009 (as amended by Local Law No. 3 of 2009), codified as Chapter 106 of the Village Code, requiring registration and a "rental occupancy permit" for every rental dwelling unit in the village, including an on-site inspection by the Superintendent of the Building Department before a permit could issue.^[26] Landlords sued, and in ATM One, LLC v. Incorporated Village of Hempstead, 91 A.D.3d 585 (2d Dep't 2012), the Appellate Division, Second Department, reversed a judgment for the village and "awarded [plaintiffs] summary judgment declaring that chapter 106 of the Code of the Village of Hempstead is unconstitutional," following the Court of Appeals' 1981 holding in Sokolov v. Village of Freeport that a rental-permit law effectively requiring a warrantless inspection is facially unconstitutional.^[26]

New York's General Municipal Law § 50-e(4) bars a lawsuit over a defective street, highway, bridge, culvert, sidewalk or crosswalk unless the municipality first received written notice of the defect, and bars "other or further" local prior-written-notice requirements beyond those six categories.^[27] The Village of Hempstead's own code once went further: Village Code § 39-1(B) required written notice to the Village Clerk before a suit could proceed over a defective "parking field, swimming or wading pool or pool equipment, playground or playground equipment, recreation center, parks or park property."^[28] In White v. Incorporated Village of Hempstead, 13 Misc. 3d 471 (Sup. Ct., Nassau County 2006), a Nassau County justice held that this extension of the Village's prior-written-notice defense to playground equipment "was without the Village's supersession authority under Municipal Home Rule Law § 10 (1) (ii) (e) and is therefore invalid," following the New York Court of Appeals' reasoning in Walker v. Town of Hempstead, 84 N.Y.2d 360 (1994), which had already held that the neighboring Town of Hempstead's identical extension of prior-written-notice to parking fields, beach areas and playgrounds under Town Code § 6-2 "is in fact inconsistent with General Municipal Law § 50-e (4)."^[27][29] The Village case arose after an infant plaintiff was injured on a playground chain ladder that a Village maintenance crew had anchored to the ground with a combination lock; because the Village's notice defense was invalid, the court denied the Village summary judgment and let the underlying negligence claim proceed on ordinary actual-or-constructive-notice principles.^[27]

Government, courts and policing

The Incorporated Village of Hempstead is a village government distinct from the surrounding Town of Hempstead, which today counts 22 incorporated villages and 34 unincorporated areas within its borders.^[11] Although the Village of Hempstead was for much of the 19th and 20th centuries the town's dominant commercial center, the Nassau County seat is Mineola, not Hempstead: after Nassau County's creation in 1898, county residents "chose the location of the county seat within one mile of the railroad station Mineola," and the county's own history notes that its buildings are "actually located in adjacent Garden City."^[33]

The Village maintains its own police department rather than being patrolled by the Nassau County Police Department; the Incorporated Village of Hempstead Police Department is listed at 99 James A. Garner Way, Hempstead, NY 11550.^[20] The Nassau County Police Department's Fifth Precinct, headquartered at 1655 Dutch Broadway, Elmont, describes itself as "Serving the communities of Elmont, Franklin Square, West Hempstead, Valley Stream, North Valley Stream, Lakeview, South Floral Park, Garden City South" — a list that does not include the Village of Hempstead itself.^[22][23]

The Village operates its own Village Court at 99 James A. Vaughan.^[21] Larger criminal and civil matters from the village go to the Nassau County District Court at 99 Main Street, Hempstead, which the state court system describes as deciding civil suits up to $15,000, handling misdemeanors and lesser offenses, and arraigning defendants accused of felonies; the largest civil claims, including personal-injury actions, go to the Nassau County Supreme Court in Mineola.^[30][35]

Railroad and transit

The Long Island Rail Road's directors decided in 1836, two years after the railroad's 1834 charter, to extend the line to Hempstead, giving the village one of the system's earlier stations on Long Island.^[9] Front Street, through the village's downtown alongside the LIRR station, carries the state-classified NY Route 102 touring route.^[25]