By Elizabeth Alfano

Take a walk along Hempstead Turnpike. Do you dare?

Most students won’t venture down that anything-but- yellow-brick-road, unless it involves stumbling home from Friday happy hour. After all, isn’t that part of the purpose of the Unispan? Isolate the ghetto. Shut out Hempstead as much as possible.

“There’s no reason I can’t walk to Stop & Shop. It’s only about a mile away. But am I going to walk a mile through Hempstead? No way,” says junior film studies and production major Kieran Dotti.

Hempstead may not be the roll your windows up as you drive though neighborhood, but it certainly lacks the college town atmosphere. That all could change with Nassau county executive Thomas Suozzi’s big plans to revitalize Nassau county: a new mass transit system, additional office buildings, an aquarium, and public zoo in Eisenhower Park. He also intends to lower Hempstead Turnpike to create space for apartments and offices. Combined with the proposal of New York Islanders owner Charles Wang to expand the Coliseum and build a 60-story hotel and office building to be called the Great lighthouse, Hempstead could undergo quite the transformation.

But the part that most concerns life at the University involves plans to create a college town in Hempstead village. Suozzi hopes to do so by building unspecified entertainment attractions as well as affordable housing for students and faculty from the University and nearby schools such as Adelphi, Molloy College and Nassau Community College. An emerald ribbon of bicycle paths and walkways would connect the educational institutions, as well as parks, workplaces, and shopping malls.

“Would I want to walk through a college-town? Sure,” Dotti said.

The idea of building up a college town in Hempstead excites many students at the University because it would give them more things to do when classes are not in session.

Christopher Navarro, a junior business computer information systems major, is more skeptical of the plan.

“It’s a great idea on paper and politicians can say all they want, but in reality, who’s going to lay out all the money?” Navarro said. “Besides, Long Island will never compare to New York City.”

Creating this “Hub” may not be as far-fetched as it seems. Before the days of the Unispans connecting North and South campus, mansions dotted Hempstead Turnpike. “People with money lived here,” Geri Solomon, archivist at the Long Island Studies Institute, said.

Once an important center of commerce, stores and lumberyards filled the Village of Hempstead. In the 1930’s, Hempstead was known as the “Hub” of Long Island.

It’s hard to believe mansions used to line the road of this now-called “ghetto”. But if a town of mansions could become the ghetto, who’s to say Suozzi and Wang can’t transform Hempstead into the next college town? It may take many years, but big change is never impossible.

The question is: will the new developments be enough to create a college environment?

Melissa Connolly, Assistant Vice President of University Relations admits it’s too soon to say how the revitalization plans will affect students. Yet she does say students like life they can walk to.

“Anything that will develop the area and make life more exciting for the students is exciting to us,” Connolly said.

However, Grant Saff, doctor of urban planning, doesn’t think Suozzi’s plan will have much of an impact on the University community at all.

“It’s very tough to create a college-like environment when we’re so dominated by New York City,” Saff said.

The University suffers for two reasons, according to Saff. The competing Hub of the city gives Long Island the perception of being dull. Secondly, the University’s location in such an expensive real-estate market prevents the formation of a real academic community.

“Unless they have another source of income, the majority of faculty can’t afford to live in Nassau County,” Saff said.

Even if Suozzi’s housing is affordable, Saff said it still won’t be enough to attract faculty with families.

“If you want families, you need good public schools,” Saff said.

If the idea is to develop a college town, Saff said the key is to create a vibrant community.

“Build a cinema on campus, and a Barnes and Nobles in walking distance, ” Saff said.

Saff said that’s the way to go, instead of spending hundreds of millions of dollars.

Judging from the past, Saff says expanding the Coliseum will never work to drive development. Stadiums are used too seldom to generate good use of taxpayers’ money. Likewise, maintaining and running a zoo and aquarium require a great deal of money. Such projects cost taxpayers more money than they bring in.

“A zoo? An aquarium? What are college kids going to do there?” Navarro said.

He hardly sees how these will contribute to the college environment.

“We want good bars or clubs,” Navarro says.

Rather than work on all these new developments, Navarro thinks Suozzi should renovate the existing area, such as the dilapidated buildings along Hempstead Turnpike.

In the 1970s, Long Island experienced a real-estate boom with the development of suburban neighborhoods. Solomon said the attitude was “Come to Long Island! The air is fresh, the road is good, and every man is his own landlord.”

Long Island was an attraction to the middle class person who didn’t want to live in the congestion of the city.

Saff doubts the revitalization effort will be enough to bring back this attitude. Academic elite will get employment in the city or go to graduate school somewhere else. If you’re young and single, why pay nearly the same price to live in Nassau when you can live in the greatest city in the world?

Yet affordable housing intrigues Adelphi junior Nina Maresca. With only a little over a year left before she completes her nursing degree, Maresca has begun thinking about living arrangements after graduation.

“My sorority sisters and I would love the opportunity to live together, especially if there were more of a college feel to the area,” Marseca said.

Affordable housing could lure some of the Delta Gammas to stick around after graduation.

Whatever development does take place, it’s sure to raise the visibility of the surrounding area. The “new” always sparks curiosity. In the very least, the revitalization plan has the potential to recreate the excitement of going outside.

Can the plans lead to the formation of a college town? Only time will tell.

Dotti even may have created her first film by the time the development takes place. Although the 20-year-old film major will be long gone before it all occurs, she’s glad future students will experience a more vibrant atmosphere. Dotti doubts Suozzi’s emerald ribbon path can transform Hempstead into the next Emerald City, but she said, “Anything would be an improvement in Hempstead.”

This is an architectural plan for a parking lot on Fulton street that is part of a plan to improve the Town of Hempstead and Nassau County. (Image courtesy of vownegroup.com)