Bellport, New York
Encyclopedia
Bellport is a village in Suffolk County
Suffolk County, New York
Suffolk County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York on the eastern portion of Long Island. As of the 2010 census, the population was 1,493,350. It was named for the county of Suffolk in England, from which its earliest settlers came...

, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. The population was 2,363 at the 2000 census. The village is named after the Bell family, early settlers of the area. The public education system in Bellport makes up the South Country Central School District
South Country Central School District
The South Country Central School District is a district of approximately located in southern Brookhaven Town, Suffolk County, New York, United States. It is composed of the Village of Bellport, the Hamlets of Brookhaven, North Bellport, and East Patchogue, and parts of Yaphank, and Medford.-...

 consisting of six schools, three elementary Schools (Kindergarten
Kindergarten
A kindergarten is a preschool educational institution for children. The term was created by Friedrich Fröbel for the play and activity institute that he created in 1837 in Bad Blankenburg as a social experience for children for their transition from home to school...

- Grade 3), Frank P. Long Intermediate School (Grades 4-5), Bellport Middle School (Grades 6-8) and Bellport High School
Bellport High School
Bellport High School is the public high school for the South Country Central School District, which is located in Suffolk County, Long Island in the United States. It serves students in grades 9-12 in Bellport, East Patchogue, Brookhaven Hamlet and parts of Medford and North Bellport. The current...

. Bellport is in the town of Brookhaven
Brookhaven, New York
The Town of Brookhaven is one of the ten towns into which Suffolk County, New York, United States, has been divided. Part of the New York metropolitan area, it is located in central Suffolk County and is the only town in the county that stretches from the North Shore to the South Shore of Long...

 and is on the South Shore
South Shore (Long Island)
The South Shore of Long Island, in the U.S. state of New York, is the area along Long Island's Atlantic Ocean shoreline. Though some consider the South Shore to include parts of Queens, particularly the beach communities in the Rockaways such as Belle Harbor, the term is generally used to refer to...

 of Long Island
Long Island
Long Island is an island located in the southeast part of the U.S. state of New York, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City , and two of which are mainly suburban...

.

Government

The village is governed by 4 trustees and a mayor. Each trustee is elected to a 2-year term, with 2 trustees up for election every year. The mayor is elected to a 2-year term as well. The current trustees are: Scott Horsley, James Vaughan, Alison Neumann, and Dorothy Terwilliger. The mayor of the village is David Pate.

Bellport is responsible for many local services such as snow removal, road maintenance, and garbage removal. These services are paid for by taxes on property within the boundaries of the village. However, taxes are collected by the Brookhaven Receiver of Taxes. Education is the responsibility of the South Country Central School District
South Country Central School District
The South Country Central School District is a district of approximately located in southern Brookhaven Town, Suffolk County, New York, United States. It is composed of the Village of Bellport, the Hamlets of Brookhaven, North Bellport, and East Patchogue, and parts of Yaphank, and Medford.-...

, ambulance service is provided by the South Country Ambulance Company, fire service is provided by the Bellport Fire District, and police service is provided by the Suffolk County Police Department and Bellport Code Enforement.

Local business

There are many small businesses such as antique shops, artist galleries, restaurants, and a service center. These family run businesses get community support through the Bellport Chamber of Commerce. Bellport is also home to the Gateway Playhouse
Gateway Playhouse
Gateway Playhouse is a summer theatre located on the eastern edge of Bellport, Long Island. The street address is 215 South Country Road. It's the oldest of three professional theatres on the island and nationally recognized as one of the top ten summer theatres in the nation. Gateway Playhouse...

, a professional summer theater in operation since 1950.

History

Bellport was founded by Captains Thomas and John Bell during the early-19th Century, as a seaport. The village was incorporated in 1910. On July 4, 1980, the Bellport Academy
Bellport Academy
Bellport Academy is a historic school building located at Bellport in Suffolk County, New York. It was built in 1833 as the village's first school and remodeled in 1919. It is located within the Bellport Village Historic District....

  and Bellport Village Historic District
Bellport Village Historic District
Bellport Village Historic District, formerly known as the Bell Street Historic District, is a national historic district located at Bellport in Suffolk County, New York. Located within the district is the separately listed Bellport Academy...

 were listed onto the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...

.

Ho Hum Beach

Ho Hum Beach is located on Fire Island, and it is 2.2 miles across the Great South Bay
Great South Bay
Great South Bay is a lagoon situated between Long Island and Fire Island, in the State of New York. It is approximately long. It's protected from the Atlantic Ocean by Fire Island, a barrier island, as well as the eastern end of Jones Beach Island and Captree Island.Robert Moses Causeway adjoins...

 from the Bellport Village Marina. Village residents and their guests are welcome to visit the quaint beach. Surfers, sunbathers, and fishermen especially enjoy the privateness of Ho Hum Beach. Ho Hum Beach offers a safe and secure bathing area, under the surveillance of an ever vigilant lifeguard team. There is a screened in snack shack and showers on the bay side of the beach. The Whalehouse Point ferry leaves from the Bellport Village Marina, and it runs from late May until early September. Round trip tickets for the ferry can be purchased by village residents. Guests of village residents may ride the ferry for an increased fare price. Village residents are also welcome to ride their own boats over. Boat slips are available at a reasonable cost.

Former residents of note

  • Giovanni Capitello
    Giovanni Capitello
    Giovanni Familiare Capitello is an American filmmaker / actor.-Background:Capitello is of Sicilian-German/American descent. Giovanni Capitello grew up in East Patchogue and had attended Bellport Senior High School and graduated 1997...

     (born 1979), filmmaker/actor, attended Bellport High School.
  • Frank Castellano
    Frank Castellano
    Francis "Frank" Xavier Castellano is an officer of the United States Navy, holding the rank of Commander and assigned to the Joint Forces Staff College...

    , captain of USS 'Bainbridge
    USS Bainbridge (DDG-96)
    USS Bainbridge is an Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer in the United States Navy. She is the fifth ship to carry that name, and the 46th destroyer of a planned 62-ship class...

    , attended Bellport High School.
  • William Glackens
    William Glackens
    William James Glackens was an American realist painter.Glackens studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and later moved to New York City, where he co-founded what came to be called the Ashcan School art movement...

     (1870–1938), artist.
  • William Higinbotham
    William Higinbotham
    William A. Higginbotham , an American physicist, is credited with creating one of the first computer games, Tennis for Two. Like Pong, it is a portrait of a game of tennis or ping-pong, but featured very different game mechanics that have no resemblance to the later game...

     (1910–1994), physicist at nearby Brookhaven National Laboratory. He developed one of the earliest video games, Tennis for Two
    Tennis for Two
    Tennis for Two was a game developed in 1958 on an analog computer, which simulates a game of tennis or ping pong on an oscilloscope. Created by American physicist William Higinbotham, it is important in the history of video games as one of the first electronic games to use a graphical...

    .
  • Mike McAlary
    Mike McAlary
    Mike McAlary was a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and columnist who worked at the New York Daily News for 12 years, beginning with the police beat....

     (1957–1998), journalist, Pulitzer Prize winner.
  • Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
    Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
    Jacqueline Lee Bouvier "Jackie" Kennedy Onassis was the wife of the 35th President of the United States, John F. Kennedy, and served as First Lady of the United States during his presidency from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. Five years later she married Greek shipping magnate Aristotle...

     (1929–1994), presidential spouse.
  • Oliver Robertson, inventor of ball bearings.
  • Randy Smith
    Randy Smith (basketball)
    Randolph "Randy" Smith was an American professional basketball player who set the NBA record for consecutive games played. From 1972-1982, Smith played in every regular season game, en route to a then-record of 906 straight games...

     (1948–2009), former NBA player
  • Elmer Ambrose Sperry
    Elmer Ambrose Sperry
    Elmer Ambrose Sperry was a prolific inventor and entrepreneur, most famous as co-inventor, with Herman Anschütz-Kaempfe of the gyrocompass.Sperry was born at Cincinnatus, New York, United States of America...

     (1860–1930), inventor of gyroscope and founder of Sperry Rail Service, the first internal rail flaw detection company.
  • E. B. White
    E. B. White
    Elwyn Brooks White , usually known as E. B. White, was an American writer. A long-time contributor to The New Yorker magazine, he also wrote many famous books for both adults and children, such as the popular Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little, and co-authored a widely used writing guide, The...

     (1899–1985), author.
  • P. G. Wodehouse
    P. G. Wodehouse
    Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, KBE was an English humorist, whose body of work includes novels, short stories, plays, poems, song lyrics, and numerous pieces of journalism. He enjoyed enormous popular success during a career that lasted more than seventy years and his many writings continue to be...

     (1881–1975), English comic writer (former resident).
  • Arthur Pinajian (1914–1999), artist/abstract expressionist. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/14/nyregion/14artist.html?_r=1, http://www.PinajianArt.com

Current residents of note

  • Isabella Rossellini
    Isabella Rossellini
    Isabella Fiorella Elettra Giovanna Rossellini is an Italian actress, filmmaker, author, philanthropist, and model. Rossellini is noted for her 14-year tenure as a Lancôme model, and for her roles in films such as Blue Velvet and Death Becomes Her.-Background and early life:Rossellini is a...

    , Actress
  • Charlie Rose
    Charlie Rose
    Charles Peete "Charlie" Rose, Jr. is an American television talk show host and journalist. Since 1991 he has hosted Charlie Rose, an interview show distributed nationally by PBS since 1993...

  • William Weld
    William Weld
    William Floyd Weld is a former governor of the US state of Massachusetts. He served as that state's 68th governor from 1991 to 1997. From 1981 to 1988, he was a federal prosecutor in the United States Justice Department...

    , former Governor of Massachusetts and New York Gubernatorial Candidate
  • Tommy Baldwin Jr.
    Tommy Baldwin Jr.
    Tommy Baldwin Jr. is the team majority owner of Tommy Baldwin Racing in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. His father, the late Tom Baldwin, is a former champion NASCAR modified driver. Baldwin himself briefly pursued a racing career before becoming a mechanic...

  • Tiki Barber
    Tiki Barber
    Atiim Kiambu Hakeem-Ah "Tiki" Barber is an American football running back who is currently a free agent. He was drafted by the New York Giants in the second round of the 1997 NFL Draft. He played college football at Virginia....

     (summer house)
  • Samuel Irving Newhouse, Jr.
    Samuel Irving Newhouse, Jr.
    Samuel Irving Newhouse, Jr. , nicknamed Si Newhouse, is the chairman and CEO of Advance Publications, which, among other interests, owns Condé Nast, publisher of many marquee brands in the world of magazines such as Vogue, Vanity Fair, and The New Yorker. He is the son of Samuel Irving...

     (weekend houses)

Geography

The village of Bellport is located at 40°45′25"N 72°56′30"W (40.757034, -72.941603).

According to the United States Census Bureau
United States Census Bureau
The United States Census Bureau is the government agency that is responsible for the United States Census. It also gathers other national demographic and economic data...

, the village has a total area of 1.5 square miles (3.9 km²), of which, 1.5 square miles (3.9 km²) of it is land and 0.1 square mile (0.258998811 km²) of it (5.81%) is water.

The village of Bellport is located on the shore of Bellport Bay, an arm of the Great South Bay
Great South Bay
Great South Bay is a lagoon situated between Long Island and Fire Island, in the State of New York. It is approximately long. It's protected from the Atlantic Ocean by Fire Island, a barrier island, as well as the eastern end of Jones Beach Island and Captree Island.Robert Moses Causeway adjoins...

 and one mile south of North Bellport.

Sister city

Bellport is twinned
Town twinning
Twin towns and sister cities are two of many terms used to describe the cooperative agreements between towns, cities, and even counties in geographically and politically distinct areas to promote cultural and commercial ties.- Terminology :...

 with: Sainte-Maxime
Sainte-Maxime
Sainte-Maxime is a commune and city in the Var department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. I.e. on the French Riviera in southeastern France from Nice and from Marseille.-Village:...


Demographics

As of the census
Census
A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common...

of 2000, there were 2,363 people, 993 households, and 684 families residing in the village. The population density
Population density
Population density is a measurement of population per unit area or unit volume. It is frequently applied to living organisms, and particularly to humans...

 was 1,619.7 people per square mile (624.9/km²). There were 1,139 housing units at an average density of 780.7 per square mile (301.2/km²). The racial makeup of the village was 95.13% White, 1.27% African American, 0.38% Native American, 1.65% Asian, 0.08% Pacific Islander, 0.21% from other races
Race (United States Census)
Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, as defined by the Federal Office of Management and Budget and the United States Census Bureau, are self-identification data items in which residents choose the race or races with which they most closely identify, and indicate whether or not they are...

, and 1.27% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 1.78% of the population.

There were 993 households out of which 23.0% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 58.4% were married couples
Marriage
Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...

 living together, 7.8% had a female householder with no husband present, and 31.1% were non-families. 24.5% of all households were made up of individuals and 12.5% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.38 and the average family size was 2.86.

In the village the population was spread out with 18.7% under the age of 18, 4.6% from 18 to 24, 24.0% from 25 to 44, 32.2% from 45 to 64, and 20.4% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 46 years. For every 100 females there were 90.6 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 89.8 males.

The median income for a household in the village was $77,523, and the median income for a family was $80,850. Males had a median income of $51,189 versus $40,985 for females. The per capita income
Per capita income
Per capita income or income per person is a measure of mean income within an economic aggregate, such as a country or city. It is calculated by taking a measure of all sources of income in the aggregate and dividing it by the total population...

 for the village was $38,906. About 0.6% of families and 1.6% of the population were below the poverty line, including 0.9% of those under age 18 and 1.7% of those age 65 or over.

External links

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