Wild Places to visit: Hempstead Plains
My family and I visited Hempstead Plains in Garden City last week and I was immediately struck with how beautifully wild it is. What a breath of fresh air! A volunteer/board member gave us some background on the area and told us that like most of Long Island, the plains are naturally a woodland but the native Americans who lived in the area long ago maintained the area as a prairie in order to graze their animals and plant crops. At that time the plains covered 40,000 acres from Nassau to Queens and several towns have names related to these plains; some examples are East meadow and Plainview. Much of the original Hempstead Plains was devoid of trees and flat, so it was developed and turned into buildings. The friends of the Hempstead plains have preserved 19 acres of land and they continue their efforts through extensive restoration work. They are always in need of help with removing invasive plants, mowing, seeding, and other tasks. Check out the Friends of Hempstead Plain website for more information about volunteering.
“As a nature preserve set in the shadows of office parks, a sports coliseum, a town incinerator and a 403-room hotel, the prairie stands as a reminder of Long Island’s dwindling open space.”
1988 NY Times article about the Hempstead Plains.
I must say it’s a little surreal to feel like you’re in the middle of nowhere and then look up and see buildings all around. That’s the beauty of this preserve. There are a few information panels showing the history of the Plains and the changing appearance through the season. There are mowed paths to walk on and in some portions it seems like you’ve reached a dead end because the grass is so thick. There are lots of different plants, the grasses that stood out to me were little blue stem and switchgrass, but there are many, many more. The flowering plants that predominated were goldenrods, thoroughworts, and sumacs, but again there are probably hundreds of plant species in there. My daughter really enjoyed running through the paths and seeing monarch butterflies flying around the goldenrod. There was some poison ivy near the path and in the actual path in places- a nice man warned us about that as we were moving through- but it wasn’t bad. We had on long pants and sneakers and didn’t have any issues with poison ivy or ticks (of course we sprayed ourselves with repellent in the parking lot!).
Another great feature of this preserve is the welcome center, which doubles as a museum. I met Doug Schmid, Program Director at Friends of Hempstead Plains, and he told me that the building is completely off grid. There are solar panels nearby and a green roof that has special pipework that collects the excess rain into a cistern which is then used in the bathroom. There are also composting toilets and the building itself is made from a shipping container. It’s an impressive little structure. People were allowed to go up on the roof and check it out. I really wanted to tour the roof but I choked halfway up the staircase (I am afraid of heights and curiosity did not win).
Since it was a festival, there was live music and a food truck, and several tables of information about the Hempstead plains and Nassau Community College where the plains are located. A 1988 NY Times article states that Nassau Community College owned the parcel on which the Plains are located and resisted offers to develop the land in hopes of preserving it. Thank God they did! Now almost 40 years later, we have this stunning, wild gem for our children to walk through and appreciate nature. Wild spaces are restorative and must be protected. Support the Friends of the Hempstead Plains by volunteering your time and donating to their preservation efforts. And be sure to pay a visit to this preserve to get some prairie bathing time in.
