Friends of Hempstead Plains Dedicated to Protecting Nassau’s Open Land
Protecting open space within the Nassau County region known as the Hempstead Plains has been the mission of Friends of Hempstead Plains for more than two decades.
The organization tends to the 19-acre Friends of Hempstead Plains preserve, located on the Nassau Community College (NCC) campus, and helps take care of the county’s nearby Francis T. Purcell Preserve. The two pieces of land make up most of the only undeveloped areas left of the Hempstead Plains, a historic 40,000-acre part of central Nassau.
“We wanted to encourage schools and environmental groups to come and learn about the prairie,” says Betsy Gulotta, one of the founding members of Friends of Hempstead Plains. “We have a lot of Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts coming here.”
Gulotta has been working at NCC since 1969, a time when Hempstead Plains was “pretty wide open,” she says.
“There was no coliseum, no Marriott Hotel, no Charles Lindbergh Boulevard – it was all prairie then,” she recalls. “And we were able to take our classes on field trips just by walking out the door.”
In the mid-’80s, New York State found endangered plant species at the campus and fenced the area in. But by the late ‘90s, the state had neglected the area. That’s when Gulotta and some fellow NCC faculty started Friends of Hempstead Plains to protect the rare plant species and educate about the Plains.
The organization is now composed of educators, historians, environmentalists, and advocates. In spring 2022, Paul van Wie, Ph.D, acting president of the group and a history professor at Molloy University, published a book about the Plains called The Natural and Human History of Hempstead Plains.
“It’s a very historic place,” he says. “It’s the cradle of American aviation, the laboratory for suburbanization, and significant in just about every American war, from the American Revolution to Vietnam.”
Mitchel Air Force base, also known as Mitchel Field, was also located in the Plains. The land was sold to the county in 1961 and is now the site of Museum Row and NCC.
Friends of Hempstead Plains is holding a fundraising gala on April 28. For details and more information about the organization, visit friendsofhp.org.
