{ "name": "Brentwood, New York", "url": "https://longislandtraffic.com/towns/suffolk/brentwood/", "updated": "2026-09-17", "publisher": "Long Island Traffic (https://longislandtraffic.com)", "methodology": "https://longislandtraffic.com/towns/methodology/", "reuse": "Quote with credit and a link to the page URL above. Underlying federal and state datasets are public records.", "geography": { "slug": "brentwood", "county": "suffolk", "censusName": "Brentwood CDP", "geoType": "census-designated place", "legalStatus": "hamlet (unincorporated)", "geoid": "3608026", "gnisId": "2389235", "pop2020": 62387, "housingUnits2020": 14127, "landSqMi": 10.95, "waterSqMi": 0, "densityPerSqMi": 5697, "internalPoint": [ 40.78392, -73.25223 ], "parentTown": "Islip town", "parentTownGeoid": "3610338000", "townShares": [ { "name": "Islip town", "share": 1 } ] }, "fatalCrashes2010to2024": { "period": "2010–2024", "crashes": 84, "deaths": 90, "pedestrianDeaths": 35, "bicyclistDeaths": 5, "motorcyclistDeaths": 10, "crashesWithDriverBac08": 11, "multiFatalityCrashes": 6, "onLimitedAccessHighways": { "crashes": 7, "deaths": 7 }, "deathsPer100kResidentsPerYear": 9.6, "byYear": [ { "year": 2010, "crashes": 6, "deaths": 8 }, { "year": 2011, "crashes": 2, "deaths": 2 }, { "year": 2012, "crashes": 8, "deaths": 8 }, { "year": 2013, "crashes": 7, "deaths": 9 }, { "year": 2014, "crashes": 5, "deaths": 5 }, { "year": 2015, "crashes": 10, "deaths": 10 }, { "year": 2016, "crashes": 5, "deaths": 5 }, { "year": 2017, "crashes": 7, "deaths": 7 }, { "year": 2018, "crashes": 4, "deaths": 5 }, { "year": 2019, "crashes": 4, "deaths": 4 }, { "year": 2020, "crashes": 5, "deaths": 5 }, { "year": 2021, "crashes": 4, "deaths": 5 }, { "year": 2022, "crashes": 3, "deaths": 3 }, { "year": 2023, "crashes": 8, "deaths": 8 }, { "year": 2024, "crashes": 6, "deaths": 6 } ], "byTimeOfDay": { "known": 84, "morning6to10": 7, "midday10to16": 10, "evening16to20": 19, "night20to6": 48 }, "darkShare": 0.655, "topRoads": [ { "name": "Suffolk Ave (CR 100)", "slug": null, "crashes": 13, "deaths": 13 }, { "name": "Long Island Expressway service road (Express Drive)", "slug": null, "crashes": 8, "deaths": 8 }, { "name": "Washington Ave", "slug": null, "crashes": 7, "deaths": 7 }, { "name": "Crooked Hill Rd (CR 13)", "slug": null, "crashes": 6, "deaths": 7 }, { "name": "Route 111", "slug": null, "crashes": 6, "deaths": 6 }, { "name": "Wicks Rd (CR 13)", "slug": null, "crashes": 6, "deaths": 6 }, { "name": "Long Island Expressway (I-495)", "slug": "lie", "crashes": 5, "deaths": 5 }, { "name": "2nd Ave", "slug": null, "crashes": 3, "deaths": 4 } ], "roadOwnership": { "period": "2015–2024", "crashes": 56, "owners": [ { "owner": "Town or Township Highway Agency", "crashes": 28 }, { "owner": "County Highway Agency", "crashes": 17 }, { "owner": "State Highway Agency", "crashes": 10 }, { "owner": "City or Municipal Highway Agency", "crashes": 1 } ] } }, "allReportedCrashes": { "years": [ "2021", "2022", "2023", "2024" ], "scope": "parent-town", "municipalityCode": "ISLIP", "label": "Town of Islip", "total": 35004, "fatal": 128, "injury": 10222, "propertyDamageOnly": 24654, "byYear": { "2021": 8654, "2022": 8292, "2023": 8881, "2024": 9177 }, "pedestrian": 422, "bicyclist": 335, "deer": 91, "otherAnimal": 177 }, "commute": { "unavailable": "The Census Bureau did not publish 2020–2024 ACS 5-year estimates for this place." }, "benchmarks": { "county": { "workers16plus": 766432, "commutersNotWorkingFromHome": 674118, "meanTravelMinutes": { "value": 31.1, "moe": 0.4, "lowReliability": false }, "pct60MinPlus": { "value": 14.1, "moe": 0.4, "lowReliability": false }, "pct90MinPlus": { "value": 6.5, "moe": 0.3, "lowReliability": false }, "pctUnder15Min": { "value": 22.8, "moe": 0.6, "lowReliability": false }, "pctDroveAlone": { "value": 72.1, "moe": 0.4, "lowReliability": false }, "pctCarpooled": { "value": 7.5, "moe": 0.3, "lowReliability": false }, "pctPublicTransit": { "value": 4.8, "moe": 0.2, "lowReliability": false }, "pctCommuterRail": { "value": 3.2, "moe": 0.2, "lowReliability": false }, "pctBus": { "value": 0.6, "moe": 0.1, "lowReliability": false }, "pctWalked": { "value": 1.4, "moe": 0.1, "lowReliability": false }, "pctBicycle": { "value": 0.2, "moe": 0, "lowReliability": false }, "pctWorkedFromHome": { "value": 12, "moe": 0.3, "lowReliability": false }, "pctLeaveBefore6am": { "value": 12, "moe": 0.4, "lowReliability": false }, "pctLeaveBefore7am": { "value": 30.2, "moe": 0.6, "lowReliability": false }, "households": 512565, "pctNoVehicle": { "value": 5.1, "moe": 0.2, "lowReliability": false }, "pctThreePlusVehicles": { "value": 28.8, "moe": 0.5, "lowReliability": false }, "medianHouseholdIncome": { "value": 130686, "moe": 1707 }, "medianAge": { "value": 41.7, "moe": 0.2 } }, "state": { "workers16plus": 9306567, "commutersNotWorkingFromHome": 7916632, "meanTravelMinutes": { "value": 32.6, "moe": 0.1, "lowReliability": false }, "pct60MinPlus": { "value": 16.8, "moe": 0.1, "lowReliability": false }, "pct90MinPlus": { "value": 5.3, "moe": 0.1, "lowReliability": false }, "pctUnder15Min": { "value": 20.5, "moe": 0.2, "lowReliability": false }, "pctDroveAlone": { "value": 48.8, "moe": 0.1, "lowReliability": false }, "pctCarpooled": { "value": 6.3, "moe": 0.1, "lowReliability": false }, "pctPublicTransit": { "value": 21.6, "moe": 0.1, "lowReliability": false }, "pctCommuterRail": { "value": 1.8, "moe": 0, "lowReliability": false }, "pctBus": { "value": 5.1, "moe": 0.1, "lowReliability": false }, "pctWalked": { "value": 5.6, "moe": 0.1, "lowReliability": false }, "pctBicycle": { "value": 0.8, "moe": 0, "lowReliability": false }, "pctWorkedFromHome": { "value": 14.9, "moe": 0.1, "lowReliability": false }, "pctLeaveBefore6am": { "value": 10.6, "moe": 0.1, "lowReliability": false }, "pctLeaveBefore7am": { "value": 26.3, "moe": 0.2, "lowReliability": false }, "households": 7722646, "pctNoVehicle": { "value": 29.2, "moe": 0.1, "lowReliability": false }, "pctThreePlusVehicles": { "value": 11.8, "moe": 0.1, "lowReliability": false }, "medianHouseholdIncome": { "value": 85974, "moe": 402 }, "medianAge": { "value": 39.8, "moe": 0.1 } }, "nation": { "workers16plus": 159114094, "commutersNotWorkingFromHome": 135071605, "meanTravelMinutes": { "value": 26.4, "moe": 0, "lowReliability": false }, "pct60MinPlus": { "value": 8.6, "moe": 0, "lowReliability": false }, "pct90MinPlus": { "value": 2.7, "moe": 0, "lowReliability": false }, "pctUnder15Min": { "value": 26, "moe": 0, "lowReliability": false }, "pctDroveAlone": { "value": 68.8, "moe": 0.1, "lowReliability": false }, "pctCarpooled": { "value": 8.5, "moe": 0, "lowReliability": false }, "pctPublicTransit": { "value": 3.2, "moe": 0, "lowReliability": false }, "pctCommuterRail": { "value": 0.3, "moe": 0, "lowReliability": false }, "pctBus": { "value": 1.5, "moe": 0, "lowReliability": false }, "pctWalked": { "value": 2.4, "moe": 0, "lowReliability": false }, "pctBicycle": { "value": 0.4, "moe": 0, "lowReliability": false }, "pctWorkedFromHome": { "value": 15.1, "moe": 0, "lowReliability": false }, "pctLeaveBefore6am": { "value": 14.4, "moe": 0, "lowReliability": false }, "pctLeaveBefore7am": { "value": 32.5, "moe": 0, "lowReliability": false }, "households": 129227496, "pctNoVehicle": { "value": 8.4, "moe": 0, "lowReliability": false }, "pctThreePlusVehicles": { "value": 21.9, "moe": 0, "lowReliability": false }, "medianHouseholdIncome": { "value": 80734, "moe": 166 }, "medianAge": { "value": 38.9, "moe": 0.1 } } }, "research": { "researchedAt": "2026-09-17", "identity": { "officialName": "Brentwood", "placeType": "hamlet and census-designated place", "parentTown": "Town of Islip", "alsoIn": [], "formerNames": [ { "name": "Thompson's Station", "note": "the Long Island Rail Road whistle-stop, at what is now Fifth Avenue and Suffolk Avenue, where the community's founders detrained in late 1850", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "name": "Modern Times", "note": "name of the utopian community founded on the site in late 1850; used until the September 7, 1864 renaming to Brentwood", "src": [ 1 ] } ], "nameOrigin": { "text": "The village's leaders chose the name of Brentwood, Essex, a London suburb, at a meeting on September 7, 1864, during the Civil War. According to Roger Wunderlich, founding editor of the Long Island Historical Journal, the choice honored longtime resident Henry Edger and his wife, Milliscent Hobson, who had married in that English town before emigrating -- the Long Island Press reports that Wunderlich wrote the naming recognized \"their ten years of civic service to the village\" rather than sentimental attachment to the English town itself.", "src": [ 1 ] }, "founded": { "text": "Late 1850, when Josiah Warren and Stephen Pearl Andrews purchased a 90-acre tract in the Pine Barrens section of the Town of Islip and founded the community of Modern Times", "src": [ 1 ] }, "incorporated": null, "gnisId": null, "wikidataId": null }, "quickFacts": [ { "label": "Police", "value": "Suffolk County Police Department, Third Precinct, 1630 5th Ave, Bay Shore, NY 11706", "src": [ 3, 4 ] }, { "label": "Prior written notice law", "value": "Code of the Town of Islip, Ch. 47A \"Streets and Sidewalks,\" Art. I, § 47A-3 \"Liability of Town\" (added October 3, 1978)", "src": [ 5 ] }, { "label": "Institution", "value": "Pilgrim Psychiatric Center (New York State Office of Mental Health), 998 Crooked Hill Road, West Brentwood, NY 11717-1087; (631) 761-3500", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "label": "Main roads and owners", "value": "Long Island Expressway / I-495 (state); Sagtikos State Parkway, NY 908K (state, Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation); local streets (Town of Islip)", "src": [ 8 ] } ], "timeline": [ { "date": "1850", "label": "Modern Times founded", "text": "Late in 1850, Josiah Warren and Stephen Pearl Andrews bought a 90-acre tract of Pine Barrens land, arriving by Long Island Rail Road at Thompson's Station, and founded the utopian community of Modern Times.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "date": "1857", "label": "Octagonal schoolhouse built; colony peaks", "text": "The community's octagonal schoolhouse was built in 1857, the year visiting clergyman Moncure Daniel Conway found the colony at its height, shortly before a financial panic struck later that year.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "date": "1864-09-07", "label": "Renamed Brentwood", "text": "The village's leaders met and voted to rename Modern Times as Brentwood, after the English town of Brentwood, Essex.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "date": "1906", "label": "Schoolhouse's original use ends", "text": "The 1857 octagonal schoolhouse served as the community's school, first for Modern Times and then for Brentwood, until 1906.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "date": "1929", "label": "Pilgrim State Hospital created", "text": "Pilgrim State Hospital was created by the New York State Legislature.", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "date": "1931-10-01", "label": "Pilgrim State Hospital opens", "text": "Pilgrim State Hospital opened on 825 acres in Brentwood with 100 patients; the New York State Office of Mental Health states it \"was the largest facility of its kind in the world when it was built.\"", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "date": "1954", "label": "Pilgrim's peak population", "text": "Pilgrim's patient census reached its peak of 13,875 in 1954.", "src": [ 6 ] } ], "sections": [ { "id": "history", "heading": "History", "paragraphs": [ "Late in 1850, Josiah Warren, a 53-year-old \"philosophical anarchist,\" and Stephen Pearl Andrews, a 37-year-old polymath and real-estate attorney, took the Long Island Rail Road to Thompson's Station -- a whistle stop the Long Island Press locates at what are now Fifth Avenue and Suffolk Avenue -- to inspect Pine Barrens land in the Town of Islip owned by a Dr. Edward Fenn Peck of Smithtown.[1] They bought a 90-acre tract and founded a colony they named Modern Times, built on Warren's theory of individual sovereignty and inspired in part by Robert Owen's New Harmony experiment and Charles Fourier's cooperative-community theories.[1]", "The settlement, which the Long Island Press reports housed \"at most 150 residents\" who called themselves \"sovereigns,\" ran on Warren's system of labor-note currency rather than money, hosted Suffolk County's first brass band, and became, through resident Henry Edger's correspondence with the French philosopher Auguste Comte, an American center of the philosophy known as positivism.[1] Visiting in the summer of 1857 -- the year the community's octagonal schoolhouse was built and the colony reached its height, shortly before that year's financial panic -- the traveling clergyman Moncure Daniel Conway wrote that at Modern Times \"marriage was abolished, and families arranged themselves according to the law of attraction,\" and that \"free love\" was \"placed in the same category with all other freedoms.\"[1]", "On September 7, 1864, during the Civil War, the community's leaders voted to rename the village Brentwood, after Brentwood, Essex, a London suburb. According to the Long Island Press's account of historian Roger Wunderlich's research, the name change did not reflect sentimental attachment to the English town so much as a wish to honor longtime resident Henry Edger and his wife, Milliscent Hobson, who had married there before emigrating, for \"their ten years of civic service to the village.\"[1] The former schoolhouse continued in educational use, first for Modern Times and then Brentwood, until 1906, and the Long Island Press reports it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.[1]", "Decades later, in 1931, the community became home to Pilgrim State Hospital, a state psychiatric institution the New York State Office of Mental Health describes as having been \"the largest facility of its kind in the world when it was built,\" opening on 825 acres with 100 patients and peaking at 13,875 patients in 1954.[6] The hospital, later renamed Pilgrim Psychiatric Center, absorbed the Town of Smithtown's Kings Park Psychiatric Center and the Central Islip Psychiatric Center when both were consolidated onto its campus in the fall of 1996 and merged into it under one name the following fall; it remains an active state facility at 998 Crooked Hill Road, West Brentwood.[6]" ] }, { "id": "roads", "heading": "How the roads got here", "paragraphs": [ "The Long Island Expressway forms Brentwood's northern edge; New York State's own bridge-inventory documentation records that \"Washington Avenue: crosses I 495 in the Town of Islip, hamlet of Brentwood,\" confirming the LIE's route through the hamlet as a state highway (I-495).[8] The Sagtikos State Parkway, carried in the state's official touring-route inventory under the reference designation NY 908K, is administered by the state's Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation rather than the Department of Transportation, reflecting its origin and continued classification as a parkway.[8]" ] }, { "id": "law", "heading": "Law and legal history", "paragraphs": [ "Modern Times was, by design, a community without formal law enforcement or courts: the Long Island Press's account of the colony states plainly that \"[t]here was no jail, no police, no judge and no money,\" and quotes Conway's 1857 observation that residents \"parted without giving any trouble to the courts of common pleas\" because the community rejected the state's authority \"either to unite or separate\" couples.[1] That experiment ended with the 1864 renaming to Brentwood, and the hamlet has been governed since as an ordinary unincorporated part of the Town of Islip, subject to New York and Suffolk County law like its neighbors.[1]", "Because Brentwood is an unincorporated hamlet of the Town of Islip, it is also subject to the Town's own local laws, including its zoning code. In Town of Islip v. Caviglia, a case that arose from the Town's regulation of adult businesses townwide, the New York Court of Appeals upheld (5-2, with two dissents) a Town of Islip zoning ordinance confining \"adult\" bookstores, theaters and similar uses to Industrial I districts and phasing out nonconforming uses through amortization, holding \"that a municipality may, under the circumstances presented, restrict adult business uses to certain areas of the community without violating the State Constitution.\"[10] The Town's ordinance traced to a 1970s planning study of the effects of adult businesses in the Town's several hamlet downtowns, including Brentwood's.[10]", "Suits alleging a road or sidewalk defect in Brentwood are governed by the Town of Islip's prior-written-notice law. Chapter 47A of the Code of the Town of Islip, adopted by the Town Board on June 8, 1972, provides in § 47A-3, \"Liability of Town\" (added October 3, 1978), that no civil action for injury caused by a defective, unsafe or obstructed highway, street, sidewalk, or similar Town-owned property may be maintained against the Town of Islip \"unless written notice of such... condition... was actually given to the Town Clerk or Commissioner of Public Works\" and the Town failed to act on it within a reasonable time.[5]" ] }, { "id": "government", "heading": "Government, courts and policing", "paragraphs": [ "The Suffolk County Police Department's Third Precinct, headquartered at 1630 5th Ave, Bay Shore, NY 11706, serves \"Bay Shore, Baywood, Brentwood, Brightwaters, Islip, Central Islip, East Islip, West Islip, and Islip Terrace,\" according to the precinct's own description of its coverage area.[3][4]", "As an unincorporated hamlet, Brentwood is subject to the Town of Islip's own local laws -- including the Town's prior-written-notice ordinance (Code of the Town of Islip § 47A-3) and its zoning code, upheld townwide in Town of Islip v. Caviglia -- rather than a village-level code of its own.[5][10]" ] } ], "legalCases": [ { "name": "Town of Islip v. Caviglia", "citation": "73 N.Y.2d 544, 542 N.Y.S.2d 139, 540 N.E.2d 215 (1989)", "court": "New York Court of Appeals", "year": 1989, "connection": "Townwide zoning ordinance regulating adult businesses, challenged by the operators of an adult bookstore in the Town of Islip (which includes the hamlet of Brentwood).", "holding": "Affirmed (as modified below) that the Town's ordinance restricting adult uses to Industrial I zones, developed after a study of adult businesses in the Town's hamlet downtowns and phased in through amortization of nonconforming uses, was a valid time-place-manner regulation that did not violate the State or Federal constitutions.", "src": [ 10 ] } ], "landmarks": [ { "name": "Modern Times / Brentwood octagonal schoolhouse (built 1857)", "designation": null, "src": [ 1 ] } ], "notableFacts": [ { "text": "Brentwood began in late 1850 as Modern Times, a utopian colony founded by Josiah Warren and Stephen Pearl Andrews on a 90-acre tract, with no jail, no police, no judge and no money.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "text": "Modern Times was renamed Brentwood on September 7, 1864, honoring resident Henry Edger and his wife for a decade of civic service rather than for sentimental attachment to their English hometown of the same name.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "text": "Suffolk County's first brass band was formed at the Modern Times colony, now Brentwood.", "src": [ 1 ] }, { "text": "Pilgrim State Hospital, which opened in Brentwood on October 1, 1931 with 100 patients on 825 acres, grew to a peak population of 13,875 patients in 1954 and was, in its own agency's words, \"the largest facility of its kind in the world when it was built.\"", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "text": "In 1996-97, both Kings Park Psychiatric Center and Central Islip Psychiatric Center were consolidated onto the Pilgrim campus in Brentwood and merged into Pilgrim Psychiatric Center.", "src": [ 6 ] }, { "text": "The New York Court of Appeals' 1989 decision in Town of Islip v. Caviglia upheld the Town's zoning ordinance confining adult businesses to industrial districts against a First Amendment challenge.", "src": [ 10 ] } ], "sources": [ { "id": 1, "title": "Where Brentwood Is Today Once Stood Long Island's Own Utopia", "publisher": "Long Island Press", "url": "https://www.longislandpress.com/2014/09/07/where-brentwood-is-today-once-stood-long-islands-own-utopia/", "year": "2014", "type": "newspaper" }, { "id": 3, "title": "Third Precinct", "publisher": "Suffolk County Police Department", "url": "https://suffolkpd.org/Precincts-and-Specialized-Units/Precincts/Third-Precinct", "year": "2026", "type": "government" }, { "id": 4, "title": "Contact Us (Precinct Commanding Officer addresses)", "publisher": "Suffolk County Police Department", "url": "https://suffolkpd.org/Contact-Us", "year": "2026", "type": "government" }, { "id": 5, "title": "Chapter 47A, Streets and Sidewalks", "publisher": "Town of Islip / General Code (eCode360)", "url": "https://ecode360.com/6509602", "year": "2026", "type": "government" }, { "id": 6, "title": "Pilgrim Psychiatric Center: History", "publisher": "New York State Office of Mental Health", "url": "https://omh.ny.gov/omhweb/facilities/pgpc/", "year": "2026", "type": "government" }, { "id": 8, "title": "Official Description of Highway Touring Routes, Bicycle Touring Routes, Scenic Byways, & Commemorative/Memorial Designations in New York State", "publisher": "New York State Department of Transportation, Office of Traffic Safety & Mobility", "url": "https://www.dot.ny.gov/divisions/operating/oom/transportation-systems/repository/2017%20tour-bk.pdf", "year": "2017", "type": "government" }, { "id": 10, "title": "Town of Islip v. Caviglia, 73 N.Y.2d 544 (1989)", "publisher": "Caselaw Access Project (Harvard Law School Library), New York Reports, 2d Series, vol. 73", "url": "https://static.case.law/ny-2d/73/html/0544-01.html", "year": "1989", "type": "court" }, { "id": 11, "title": "New York State Trauma Centers", "publisher": "New York State Department of Health", "url": "https://www.health.ny.gov/professionals/ems/state_trauma/trauma2.htm", "year": "n.d.", "type": "government" }, { "id": 12, "title": "South Shore University Hospital (home page)", "publisher": "Northwell Health", "url": "https://ssuh.northwell.edu/", "year": "2026", "type": "institution" } ] }, "dataSources": { "census2020": { "name": "U.S. Census Bureau, TIGERweb — 2020 Census tabulation geography (POP100, HU100, AREALAND)", "url": "https://tigerweb.geo.census.gov/arcgis/rest/services/TIGERweb/tigerWMS_Census2020/MapServer", "retrieved": "2026-09-17" }, "acs": { "name": "U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2020–2024 5-Year Estimates, tables B08303, B08013, B08301, B08302, B08201, B19013, B01002", "url": "https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs/summary_file/2024/table-based-SF/", "period": "2020–2024", "retrieved": "2026-09-17", "note": "Survey estimates with 90% margins of error. lowReliability = coefficient of variation above 30%." }, "fars": { "name": "National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), 2010–2024 national files", "url": "https://www.nhtsa.gov/file-downloads?p=nhtsa/downloads/FARS/", "retrieved": "2026-09-17", "preliminaryYears": [ 2024 ], "note": "Crashes on public trafficways in which a person died within 30 days. No personal identifiers. Placed by reported coordinates into 2020 Census boundaries." }, "nys": { "name": "New York State Department of Motor Vehicles, Motor Vehicle Crashes — Case Information: Four Year Window", "url": "https://data.ny.gov/Transportation/Motor-Vehicle-Crashes-Case-Information-Four-Year-W/e8ky-4vqe", "period": "2021–2024", "retrieved": "2026-09-17", "note": "Police-reported crashes coded to a town, city or village by the reporting agency. Hamlets are not coded; hamlet pages show the parent town." } } }