Newsday (Suffolk Edition) from Melville, New York • 215

Newadsjr FbotoaK WUm BtabUe The American Guitar Museum is a unique New Hyde Park spot At Temple Emanuel a grandmother and her grandchildren enjoy the flowers and pond Savoring Village Life at the Edge Hometown pride in New Hyde Park A few blocks south from the turnpike is the New Hyde Park train station you lived not too far from the turnpike you could live without a the trustee says Despite a thumbs-up from Lisanti the village is not without controversy In June residents began protesting a 37 percent village tax increase which town officials say will raise about $800000 to pay for needed road repair and new equipment A few residents were so angered they started a petition calling for unincorporation of the village and others suggested the state comptroller take a look into village finances The village handles its own snow removal and code enforcement and maintains two parks It has a cultural commission that organizes free events But you get what you pay for argues Lisanti personally like to have control over some of the services I Most of the housing stock in the village as well as in the surrounding area is in the form of brick Capes with three or four bedrooms say local real estate agents Average lot sizes are about 50 feet by 100 feet with a few larger parcels says Rick Soisson an agent at Fanny Soisson Real Estate Prices range from about $170000 to as much as $400000 says Soisson who grew up in the community The average home costs about $220000 with an average of $4000 in property taxes Despite a demand for rentals about 95 percent are single-family-owned homes Legal rentals and two-family homes are virtually unheard of The few rentals available cost between $1400 and $1600 monthly for an average three- or four-bedroom Cape most people choose to -rathenthaft rent Soisson -says a sign of a stable ic-minded populace and stable real estate values It has virtually no rental properties families tend to stay put once they arrive In fact Lisanti will tell you some of the founding families still have relatives in town George Christ the village historian is the great-grandson of an early New Hyde Park settler from the 1800s But the village is becoming diverse attracting immigrants who are moving east from the city for the same reasons that brought Lisanti Some of her newest neighbors are Japanese and Indian Joe Rudaitis superintendent of the New Hyde Park-Garden City Park School District says seen a steady increase in students who speak English as a Becond language Youngsters living in the unincorporated area also attend schools in the Great Neck and Herricks school districts The village proper which straddles Jericho Turnpike as well as the border between the towns of Hempstead and North Hempstead saw a population boom in the 1920s Eager to exercise more local control leaders incorporated the village in 1927 The unincorporated New Hyde Park saw a development boom in the 1940s and 1950s This area including the village is about 800 acres stretching as far north as Lake Success and Manhasset Hills and overlapping in the west into Queens All of New Hyde Park has about 10000 households and hundreds of businesses and several commercial areas including Long Island Jewish Medical Center and the so-called on Lakeville Road and Union -Turnpike where the United Nations es- By Carol Hernandez STAFF WRITES IN THE 1940s Florence Lisanti and her father drove to work from Queens Village to New Hyde Park And each day she caught a heart-fluttering glimpse of New Hyde Park Road School a stately brick building loved the looks of the she says pointing at a framed black-and-white photograph inside New Hyde village halL was so impressed by the pillars I wanted my children to someday go to school In 1950 Lisanti and her husband bought a house two blocks from the school In time she got her wish All three ofher children went to the elemen- tary school Lisanti 70 became in 1992 the first woman ever elected as a village trustee Now in her second term she cheerfully continues to tout the benefits of village life Sitting blocks from the Queens border where Jamaica Avenue turns into Jericho Turnpike heading east the one-square-mile village long has been a favorite of families who wanted to live in the suburbs but remain close to city life Early farmers appreciated the short trek to transport produce and many current residents cherish the 15-mile half-hour train commute into Manhattan By all accounts the incorporated village and the unincorporated area to the north also known variously as New Hyde Park or North New Hyde Park comprise a tidy working-class community that prides itself cm having some of Long best school districts a civ POPULATION: 9989 MEDIAN AGE: 386 MEDIAN FAMILY INCOME: $67354 SCHOOL DISTRICT: New Hyde Parti-Garden City Park Sewanhaka Central High School District tablished its first offices about half a century ago used to go there for lunch and see all the dignitaries from all the foreign says Lisanti who worked in the same commercial park at the Sperry Gyroscope Co which employed thousands including her husband Gerald Lisanti and her father Mauri De Sena New Hyde is a thriving commercial strip that runs for about a mile along Jericho Turnpike where restaurants shops and the village hall are found not uncommon for Lisanti to walk a block from the village hall to grab a hamburger at Henry's Inn which was built in 1894 make the most delioaeus-hamburgers that God-ever she says NEWSDAY SUNDAY AUGUSTS 1997.