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- "Geographical Amityville" vs. "Social Amityville"
"Geographical Amityville" vs. "Social Amityville"
What is Amityville? Amityville is the name of a village, a school and library district, a fire district, fire department and a post office.
What is North Amityville? North Amityville is the name of a hamlet, a fire district and a fire department.
What is the difference between Amityville and North Amityville? There is not much difference to many people. The differences that do exist are related to services (e.g. Who maintains the roads?). Not just in Amityville, but across Long Island, overlapping districts can cause confusion.
| Your Task | Village of Amityville | Hamlet of North Amityville | |
|---|---|---|---|
Register children for school. | Amityville School District | Amityville School District (western part) | Copiague School District (eastern part) |
Apply for a building permit, or seek road repair. | Village of Amityville | Town of Babylon | |
Need garbage pick-up. | Village of Amityville | Town of Babylon | |
Visit the post office. | Amityville Post Office | Amityville Post Office | |
Visit the public library. | Amityville Public Library | Amityville Public Library (western part) | Copiague Memorial Public Library (eastern part) |
Get a summer pass for Overlook Beach or North Amityville Pool. | Town of Babylon | Town of Babylon | |
Vote in local elections. | Village of Amityville and Town of Babylon | Town of Babylon | |
Call 911 for an ambulance. | Amityville Fire Department | Depending on the address of the emergency, responding agencies may include the fire departments from North Amityville, Amityville, East Farmingdale and North Lindenhurst. | |
Both communities – Hamlet of North Amityville and Village of Amityville– are within the district served by the Amityville Post Office. Although some of their other municipal services are different, they are united by their postal code, 11701. Typically, all of these areas are simply referred to as “Amityville.”
Geographically, “Amityville” is the Village of Amityville. Socially, “Amityville” usually refers to the larger area that uses the mailing address “Amityville, NY 11701.”
The “geographic” vs. “social” naming is common across Long Island. In fact, our Long Island has its own name difference. Geographically, Long Island is the fish-shaped island that runs from Brooklyn on the west and Montauk on the east. However, when someone says that they are “from Long Island,” they are typically stating that they are from Nassau or Suffolk County. If someone lives in Brooklyn or Queens, which are part of New York City, they are likely to give their hometown as Brooklyn, Queens or the neighborhood in which they live, but not “Long Island.”
It is typical to find articles describing the Town of Babylon as 30-35 miles east of New York City. However, that is not really accurate. We are 30-35 miles from Manhattan, but we are only about 16-20 miles from the border of Queens County, which is also the border of the City of New York. (Consider, also – a straight line drawn from Amityville to Manhattan is about 30 miles – “flying distance”. However, if you drive from Amityville to Manhattan, it is about 35-40 miles.)