Floral Park

Planting Seeds for Its Growth

Beginnings: Before Europeans arrived, the area that is now Floral Park marked the western edge of the great Hempstead Plains. Indeed, it was initially known as Plainfield. Until the Civil War, the area consisted of widely scattered farms. The community began to develop in the early 1800s, thanks to the Long Island Rail Road and Jericho Turnpike, both of which came through what had then become known as Hinsdale and served farmers. Hinsdale boasted of more than two dozen fine flower farms in the years after the Civil War.

Turning Points: In the mid-1870s, seed seller John Lewis Childs came to Hinsdale, a growing village centered on its flower farms. With an intent to promote both his own seed company and the village, Childs urged that Hinsdale change its name to Floral Park. Using that name as a return address, Childs set up a thriving mail-order seed business. His business was so successful that the Floral Park post office was built primarily to handle the enormous volume of his mailings. Childs was a civic leader as well, urging the incorporation of the village in 1908 and helping to plan the neat residential areas that remain today. Deed covenants restricted homes to no more than two stories and called for a selling price of at least $3,000, a substantial sum then. Well into the 1920s, Floral Park nurseries provided a blaze of color for riders on the Long Island Rail Road, but the real estate boom of that decade quickly converted the flower fields into residential neighborhoods. The tiny adjacent village of South Floral Park was known at the turn of the century as Jamaica Square, when it was one of the few racially integrated communities on Long Island. It incorporated as a village in 1925.

Where to Find More: ``The Story of Floral Park,'' published in 1958 by the village of Floral Park, available at Hicksville Public Library.