Levittown, New York
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Levittown is a hamlet (and census-designated place) located in Nassau County, New York. As of the 2000 census, the community had a total population of 53,067.
Levittown gets its name from William Levitt, who built it as a planned suburban community between 1947 and 1951. Levittown was the first truly mass-produced suburb and is widely regarded as the archetype for postwar suburbs throughout the country.
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The building firm Levitt and Sons, headed by William Levitt, built four planned communities called "Levittown" (in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Puerto Rico), but Levittown, NY was the first and most famous. Originally called Island Trees, the suburb was built on the site of a former potato farm in Long Island. Rather than designing and building each house invidually, Levitt and Sons modeled their business on Willow Run, Henry Ford's wartime assembly-line aircraft factory. The houses, only available in a small number of models, were built by teams of workers who moved from lot to lot, performing the same task over and over as trucks drove through the area dropping off supplies. "We are not builders," explained William Levitt, "We are manufacturers" (American Magazine, April 1948, 104). In 1948 Levitt boasted that, at peak capacity, his firm could completed one house every sixteen minutes. Claims like this should be regarded with some skepticism, but Levitt and Sons did manage to complete 17,447 houses in the area between 1947 and 1951.
Levittown, as the first and one of the largest mass-produced suburbs, quickly became a symbol of postwar suburbia, for good and for bad. Although Levittown provided affordable houses in what many residents felt to be a congenial community, critics damned its homogeneity, blandness, and racial exclusivity (the initial lease prohibited rental to non-whites). This excerpt from a profile of Levittown, written by Henry M. Christman for The Christian Century (August 1957, 1015), sums up a number of prevalent criticisms: "Levittown—the very name conjures up a vision of endless rows of identical houses, monotonously mediocre in design, out of which at a certain moment every morning stream thousands of factory workers clad in the denim uniform of industrialism, all to return at a set time in the evening. Behind this panorama, unrolling with the precision of an automatic operation, is the efficiency of the assembly line. Levittown is assembly-line living, the ultimate in the dehumanizing process of the Industrial Revolution." Today, "Levittown" is used as a term of derogation to describe overly-sanitized suburbs consisting largely of tract housing. Oddly enough, although Levittown is remembered largely for its homogeneity and conformism, the houses of Levittown have by now been so thoroughly expanded and modified by their owners that their original architectural form can be quite difficult to see.
Geography
Levittown is located at 40°43'28" North, 73°30'40" West (40.724468, -73.511191)Template:GR.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the community has a total area of 17.8 km² (6.9 mi²). 17.8 km² (6.9 mi²) of it is land and none of the area is covered with water.
Demographics
As of the censusTemplate:GR of 2000, there are 53,067 people, 17,207 households, and 14,109 families residing in the community. The population density is 2,978.1/km² (7,717.5/mi²). There are 17,410 housing units at an average density of 977.0/km² (2,531.9/mi²). The racial makeup of the area is 94.15% White, 0.50% African American, 0.07% Native American, 2.85% Asian, 0.02% Pacific Islander, 1.27% from other races, and 1.15% from two or more races. 6.79% of the population are Hispanic or Latino of any race.
There are 17,207 households out of which 37.8% have children under the age of 18 living with them, 66.9% are married couples living together, 11.1% have a female householder with no husband present, and 18.0% are non-families. 14.4% of all households are made up of individuals and 7.1% have someone living alone who is 65 years of age or older. The average household size is 3.08 and the average family size is 3.40.
In the community the population is spread out with 25.7% under the age of 18, 7.0% from 18 to 24, 31.4% from 25 to 44, 23.0% from 45 to 64, and 12.9% who are 65 years of age or older. The median age is 37 years. For every 100 females there are 94.6 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there are 91.4 males.
The median income for a household in the community is $69,923, and the median income for a family is $73,851. Males have a median income of $50,603 versus $35,962 for females. The per capita income for the CDP is $25,917. 2.9% of the population and 2.2% of families are below the poverty line. Out of the total population, 3.6% of those under the age of 18 and 1.9% of those 65 and older are living below the poverty line.
Levittown is the childhood home of Maureen Tucker, the drummer for the Velvet Underground, Bill Griffith the cartoonist who draws Zippy the Pinhead, and Eddie Money, the Rock Superstar. Television Political Commentator Bill O'Reilly grew up in nearby Westbury, New York, and Billy Joel grew up in a section of Levittown that has since been annexed by the community of Hicksville, New York.
Education
Levittown is served by two public school districts, the Island Trees School District, which serves the Eastern third of the hamlet, as well as portions of adjacent Seaford and Bethpage. The School District dates from 1902 and is served by:
- Island Trees High School
- Richard Segerdahl Middle School at the Memorial Building
- Michael F Stokes Elementary School, the adjacent
- J Fred Sparke Elementary School, and
- Early Childhood Center at the Geneva Gallow School
The Island Trees School District came to notoriety in the Supreme Court verdict on Pico V Island Trees regarding book bannings.
The other two thirds of the hamlet, as well as large portions of adjacent Wantagh and Seaford is served by the Levittown School District, which dates back to the 1800's, originally called the Jerusalem School District of the Town of Hempstead. It is served by:
- Two High Schools
- Levittown Division Avenue High School
- General Douglas MacArthur High School
- Two Middle Schools
- Wisdom Lane Middle School
- Jonas Salk Middle School
- Six Elementary Schools
- Abbey Lane Elementary School
- East Broadway Elementary School
- Gardiners Avenue Elementary School
- Lee Road Elementary
- Northside Elementary
- Summit Lane Elementary
- Alternative Schools
- Levittown Memorial Education Center
A small portion of Levittown, East of the Wantagh Parkway, is served by the East Meadow School District's northern section, with Schools in Westbury, New York.
Private Schools
- Maria Montessori Elementary at Laurel Lane School
- Saint Bernard's Parish School-This school will close effective at the end of the 2005 school year
- South Shore Christian School
- Nassau BOCES Elementary at Seaman's Neck School
Higher Learning
- New York Chiropractor's College
References
External links
- Little Boxes, Little Boxes: The Levittown Story (http://www.freeenterpriseland.com/BOOK/LITTLEBOXES.html) from FreeEnterpriseLand.com