More than just a whistle-stop, Bellmore is best known for its annual fair, but this beautiful waterfront community is fun all year long. Early summer brings the annual Strawberry Festival. In July, the Long Island International Film Festival draws celebrities from all over. And after the famous fair come the Halloween Parade, horsedrawn carriage tour of holiday-decorated homes and lots of other community events.
Bellmore’s Newbridge Road Park has a competition-worthy ice rink and pool, as well as athletic fields and courts. Children's sports leagues keep the local school sports fields busy all over town. Its Mill Pond is a great place to walk, bird watch and even fish. The Faith Laursen Meroke Preserve on the Belllmore-Merrick border is a peaceful respite.
Bellmore night life is hopping, with many entertainers getting their first break at the Brokerage Comedy Club, and then coming back after they become stars. And how many small towns these days have two movie theaters and so many happening restaurants?
It's fun to explore the quaint Bedford Avenue shopping district, and check out the informal car show at the station. Bellmore has lots of history for those who enjoy learning about the past, and frequent programs at the local libraries.
Did you know, for example, that Bellmore owes its name to the South Shore Rail Road during the mid-1800s, which named it even when the scattered residences in the area were actually known as Newbridge and Smithville South – to the immediate north, now known as North Bellmore.
The United Methodist Church settled into the community in 1839 on South Oyster Bay Turnpike (now Merrick Road) to bring a sense of higher purpose to the community. ACE Hardware now stands there.
In the 1920s Weinman’s Hardware settled on Bedford Avenue along with other stores, moving Mr. Weinman to develop the Bellmore Board of Trade to address business needs, and was its first president.
The hardware store and others became well-established businesses, serving farmers coming south on Bellmore Road and Bellmore Avenue from as far north as Hicksville and Levittown for their supplies. Customers also came from the marine areas to the south for supplies as well.
Bellmore became the foremost shopping center between Freeport and Amityville with the railroad a convenient means with which to come into town to shop.
While the Bellmore Canal to the south – among the marshlands – also helped bring goods such as oil to up to Bellmore, and people living in houses along the canals clammed and fished, after World War Bellmore began a growth spurt in and around the train tracks.
During the Prohibition well-to-do families along the canals in Bellmore were known to have built tunnels leading to their houses to...forego the Prohibition’s prohibitions.
That growth flourished again after World War II when more people looked to Long Island as a way to find the American dream, and the marshlands south of Boundary Avenue – south of Merrick Road – were developed into tract housing, with building lasting into the ‘60s and ‘70s.
It’s a wonderful life, right here, right now.