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

History

The land that became the Village of Westbury lies in the Town of North Hempstead, which separated from the Town of Hempstead on April 6, 1784, when "the New York State Legislature granted North Hempstead's request to become a separate town."^[10] According to the Village's own history page, Captain J. Seaman purchased 12,000 acres from the local tribe in 1657, and in 1658 Richard Stites and his family built the area's first homestead.^[2] English Quaker Edmond Titus and his son Samuel soon joined the Stites family, followed by Henry Willis, who in 1675 "named the area 'Westbury', after his hometown in England."^[2] The Village's Heritage Trail separately dates a "Westbury Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends" to 1671, while the history page dates the first Society of Friends meeting house to 1700; the two Village-run pages do not reconcile the discrepancy, which may reflect a distinction between the meeting's founding and its building.^[2][5]

In 1775, the Village's history page states, Westbury's Quakers "freed all 154 African-Americans that they had enslaved," and many of the freed men and women settled on nearby land.^[2] With Quaker assistance, their descendants built the New Light Baptist Church in 1834; the building still stands at Union Avenue and Cross Street and is now the Westbury African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, one of the sites on the Village's own Heritage Trail.^[2][5] By 1840 the Long Island Rail Road had built through Westbury, the same year the Village's history page credits with the construction of the area's first public school.^[2] Post Avenue, later the village's commercial spine, received electricity in 1902, and a local water company was founded in 1914.^[2]

Village incorporation followed a local dispute: after a rumor spread that only the northern part of the community planned to incorporate on its own, "residents collected enough petitions for third class incorporation in 1932."^[3] The new Incorporated Village of Westbury took in the section then called Grantsville, south of Union Avenue, but did not include the hamlet of New Cassel, whose residents feared the move would raise their taxes.^[3] The New York Heritage digital collection, maintained by the Westbury Memorial Public Library, independently describes Westbury as "established in 1932," although that same page incorrectly places the village in the Town of Hempstead rather than North Hempstead.^[31] The Northern State Parkway was built through the area in 1938, and Roosevelt Raceway opened in 1940.^[4] The Village's own history page records that 1,400 residents, 20 percent of the community, served in World War II, calling it "the highest percentage of any comparable community in the United States."^[4] Village-reported population went from 4,525 in 1940 to 14,757 by 1960, as Caribbean and Latin American families joined the community in the decades that followed.^[4]

How the roads got here

Jericho Turnpike runs along Westbury's north side; the Village's own history page calls it a former "trail used by the Massapequa Indians" that by the 20th century had become "a state highway complex."^[2] New York State's own touring-route description places Westbury on a numbered connector to that highway, describing NY 25B as running "on Hillside Avenue to East Williston, Westbury (NY 25)."^[23] The Northern State Parkway, a state parkway under the jurisdiction of the Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation and maintained and signed by NYSDOT, was built through the area in 1938 and is recorded as a local milestone on the Village's own history page.^[4][23]

A grandstand for the Vanderbilt Cup automobile races, the pioneering Long Island races of 1904 to 1910 that helped inspire the later Long Island Motor Parkway, once stood in Westbury; the site is one of the original stops on the Village's own Heritage Trail.^[5]

On the night of Tuesday, February 26, 2019, a car crossed the Long Island Rail Road tracks at the School Street grade crossing in Westbury "while the gates were down" and was struck by both an eastbound and a westbound train; all three occupants died.^[18][19] Nassau County Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder disclosed the circumstances at a briefing two nights later, and the railroad's president said the gates and warning lights had been working.^[18][19] The Metropolitan Transportation Authority responded by eliminating the crossing entirely: on November 13, 2020, Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul and MTA Construction & Development officials opened a new two-lane underpass carrying School Street beneath the tracks, part of the LIRR Expansion (Third Track) Project, which by then had removed five of eight grade crossings slated for elimination on the line.^[20] Long Island Press's report on the opening described the February 2019 wreck as "a tragic collision...in which the three occupants of an automobile lost their lives."^[20]

Law and legal history

The Village of Westbury's own prior-written-notice law, now Chapter 215 of the Village Code, was originally adopted December 15, 1955, and amended in its entirety on August 2, 2012, by Local Law No. 9-2012.^[9] It provides that "No civil action shall be maintained against the Village for damage to property or injury to person or death sustained in consequence of any street," highway, bridge, culvert, sidewalk or crosswalk being out of repair, unsafe, dangerous or obstructed, unless written notice of the condition was filed with the Village Clerk at least 48 hours before the incident and the Village then failed to act within a reasonable time.^[9] The Village Clerk must keep an indexed record of every such notice, preserved in the municipal archives for at least five years.^[9]

In Matter of Village of Westbury v. Department of Transportation, 75 N.Y.2d 62, decided December 19, 1989, the New York Court of Appeals sided with the Village in a challenge to the State's environmental review of the reconstruction of the Northern State Parkway–Meadowbrook State Parkway interchange, which the Court noted "is located in Nassau County, principally in petitioner Village of Westbury."^[13] The Department of Transportation had issued a negative declaration under the State Environmental Quality Review Act for the interchange alone; the Court held that a proposed widening of the Northern State Parkway east of the interchange was the kind of related later action the regulations contemplate, so the environmental effects of the two projects had to be considered together.^[13] It also held that the Village's challenge was timely because the limitations period did not begin to run until the Village was served with notice of the determination, and it affirmed the order annulling the negative declaration.^[13]

A separate fight over municipal home rule reached the courts after the Town of North Hempstead sued Westbury and the Village of Mineola to enforce a Sanitation Code "flow control" law requiring all solid waste generated in the town, including inside its incorporated villages, to be delivered to a town-designated facility.^[14] The Supreme Court, Nassau County, sided with the villages in 1991, declaring the town's law an unconstitutional infringement of home rule.^[14] The Appellate Division, Second Department, reversed on August 17, 1992, ordering that "the appellants' motions for summary judgment are granted, the cross motion of the Incorporated Village of Westbury is denied," and upholding the town's ordinance and its enabling state statute.^[15] On reargument in 1994, in light of the United States Supreme Court's intervening decision in C & A Carbone, Inc. v. Town of Clarkstown, 511 U.S. 383 (1994), the Second Department revisited its own order and held that "chapter 46, [section] 46-14 violates the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution and is, thus, invalid," while leaving the balance of its 1992 ruling in effect.^[16]

Government, courts and policing

The Incorporated Village of Westbury is governed by a Mayor and a Board of Trustees; the Village's own website opens with a message describing it as "the Official Website of the Incorporated Village of Westbury."^[1] The Village maintains its own Justice Court at 235 Lincoln Place, the same address as Village Hall, holding a monthly "Night Court" session with "Conferences, arraignments, & trials starting at 6:00 PM" and a separate monthly day session.^[7][8] The Village has no separate municipal police department; law enforcement is provided by the Nassau County Police Department's Third Precinct, headquartered at 214 Hillside Ave, Williston Park, whose own description of the communities it serves ends with "Uniondale, Westbury, and Williston Park."^[11][12]

More serious criminal matters and larger civil claims from Westbury go to Nassau County's own courts in Hempstead and Mineola. The Nassau County District Court, at 99 Main Street, Hempstead, decides "civil suits involving claims up to $15,000, handle[s] misdemeanors and lesser offenses, and arraign[s] defendants accused of felonies."^[27] The Nassau County Supreme Court, at 100 Supreme Court Drive, Mineola, hears the larger civil matters; "Outside New York City, Supreme Courts hear civil matters while the County Courts hear criminal matters."^[28]

Railroad and transit

By 1840 the Long Island Rail Road had built through Westbury, the same year the Village's history page credits with construction of the area's first public school.^[2] More than 180 years later, the Village is again a construction zone for the railroad: its own website lists an "LIRR Third Track Project" among current municipal business, part of the same regionwide LIRR Expansion Project that eliminated the School Street grade crossing in November 2020.^[1][20]

Westbury Music Fair

What is now marketed as Flagstar at Westbury Music Fair opened as a tent theater-in-the-round: business partners Lee Guber, Frank Ford and Shelly Gross "pitched a blue-and-beige-striped tent on the site of a sand pit and started selling tickets on June 18, 1956," for a production of The King and I.^[21] A decade later, with Ford no longer a partner, Guber and Gross replaced the tent with a permanent 3,000-seat hardtop building in 1966, a renovation sometimes cited elsewhere as the venue's founding date instead of 1956.^[21] The building has carried several sponsor names since; Newsday reported in 2010 that "The NYCB Theatre at Westbury, which recently replaced the straightforward Theatre at Westbury, offers just such a chance" for new nicknames.^[22] A Long Island Press headline dated September 17, 2026 shows the venue still operating as "Flagstar at Westbury Music Fair."^[21]

This concert venue is distinct from a similarly named business, The Space at Westbury, which markets itself as a private events and catering venue and describes itself as "Originally opening in 1927 as the Westbury Movie Theater, this iconic venue has captivated audiences for nearly a century."^[32] The two venues, despite the overlapping name, have separate histories, addresses and capacities.