If you’re looking for all the good stuff — quality food, fun and high-achieving schools — East Meadow has it all. That’s how businessman Jim Skinner, past president of the East Meadow Chamber of Commerce, sees it. “Eisenhower Park, in particular, has three golf courses and an Olympic-size swimming pool that’s among the largest in the Northern Hemisphere,” Skinner said. “It was built in 1998 for the Goodwill Games.”
Named in the 1700s for pastures east of a waterway that were deemed ideal for grazing cattle and sheep, East Meadow today stretches between two highways, the Meadowbrook and Wantagh State parkways. The community is home to some 12,800 families, both young and aging, with at least three age-restricted developments (and two more under construction), several popular parks, and nine schools.
The Beechwood Organization is developing two new communities of villa residences in East Meadow, one with 48 units and the other with 104 units, with first occupancy for both developments anticipated for summer 2021.
According to 2019 data, East Meadow had a 93.7% high school graduation rate, a 78.1% graduation rate for students with disabilities and a 92.3% graduation rate for economically disadvantaged students, with 68.3% students earning advanced Regents diplomas and 24% earning Regents diplomas.
To boost local retail businesses, the chamber is planning a “reopening” car parade in August with business owners’ cars festooned with banners advertising their wares. A drive-in movie and business “villages” are planned after the parade, according to Skinner who calls East Meadow a “red, white and blue” community of hardworking people.
Home styles in the area include Capes, ranches, Colonials and split-levels, says Nancy Jarvis of Daniel Gale Sotheby’s International Realty. “Homebuyers like the schools, the proximity to parkways and the convenience of shopping,” she said. “And the taxes are reasonable.”