On many days when a news assignment calls for me to travel from the Tribune’s office in Mineola to Levittown, I take the pleasure of using Park Boulevard to pass through Eisenhower Park from Merrick Avenue to Hempstead Turnpike.
Although I have never scientifically proven that the “pass through” saves time rather than traveling down Merrick Avenue to the proper intersection at Hempstead Turnpike, I just simply enjoy it more.
I enjoy it, like I have just entered another place and time for just the couple of minutes that it takes me to complete the transit. I actually exhale and say, “Ah, this is nice,” despite being passed hastily by other drivers doing 45 and sometimes close to 60 miles per hour. Don’t get me wrong; I am no perfect driver, but driving through Eisenhower Park is a brief couple of minutes of calm that I seize every chance I get.
I wonder if these swift drivers know that there is a concert or outdoor movie happening nearly every single night in the park, that they can rent a sailboat on the lake, or take up a game of regular or miniature golf. There is a fitness trail, a swimming pool, ball fields, kite-flying fields, picnic areas and playgrounds.
If some of these drivers slowed down to the posted speed limit, actually only 35 miles per hour, they might take notice that they are in the center of Nassau County’s largest public green space. I’ve even heard it is larger than Central Park.
—CH
