Long Beach,
New York. A little city (not town, city), in
Nassau County,
Long Island. Basically a lump of houses, though the city status does insure it its own playground, pool, ice skating rink, industrial zone, city hall, garbage dump, and water treatment plant. The current city planner is
Bruce Nyman, who is elected by all the friends
he has appointed to the committee that elects him. Long Beach is Democratically controlled (atypical for Nassau), and (I am told by a longer term resident than I am) very corrupt.
Long Beach has one 2-lane street, Park. When this ceases to be a major street, West Beech starts to be one. Park/West Beech has got some stores, but is deserted at night. And the library has not too many books, though it does have a lot of music and movies (one friend took out the unrated-cause-it-would've-been-nc17
Happiness).
Neither is it very close to New York City, about an hour and $4.50 each way by
Long Island Rail Road. This place is, at least in the desolate winter, QUIET. (One mildly delusional woman once complained to me about all the noise, but then agian I am convinced that she is mildly delusional.)
Only one plus to living here (unless you count a boring lump of houses as a plus): the
BEACH. Of all the beaches around
New York City, this has about the highest waves. It isn't too polluted like
Bar Beach, it isn't absurdly crowded like
Jones Beach- probably because at least one person dies here each summer in the immense waves and the life guards are correspondingly strict about letting people swim out far into the ocean. If you're an
ocean worshipper, living here is very be worth it.
Some history (a friend of mine goes to Long Beach
public school and takes "Long Beach
archeology): Long Beach was founded about 90 years ago, at which point it was partially submerged in water. Some areas of the city, most notably, "the canals", are built above water.
The official Long Beach website is at http://www.longislandnet.com/longbeach/main.htm.