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The Five Towns also refers to Stoke-on-Trent in Arnold Bennet's novels.

The Five Towns is an informal grouping of villages and hamlets in Nassau County, New York, United States on the South Shore of western Long Island adjoining the border with Queens County in New York City. Despite the name, none of the communities are towns. The Five Towns is usually said to be comprised of the villages of Lawrence and Cedarhurst, the hamlets of Woodmere and Inwood, and "The Hewletts", which consist of the villages of Hewlett Bay Park, Hewlett Harbor and Hewlett Neck and the hamlet of Hewlett. The "towns" most commonly included as constituents of the "Five Towns" are all within the Town of Hempstead.

The name "Five Towns" dates back to 1931, when individual Community Chest groups in the area banded together to form the "Five Towns Community Chest", consisting of Inwood, Lawrence, Cedarhurst, Woodmere and Hewlett. The organization still exists (as of 2006) as a local charity, but the "Five Towns" moniker caught on as a designation for the entire area.^[1] A 1933 article in The New York Times references a Girl Scouts of the USA encampment by the "Five Towns Council, embracing the villages [sic] of Inwood, Lawrence, Cedarhurst, Woodmere and Hewlett", interestingly, listed in order by LIRR station.^[2]

Contents 1 Communities 2 Education 2.1 Five Towns College 3 Five Towns celebrities 4 References 5 External links

Each of these "towns" has a consecutive stop on the Far Rockaway Branch of the Long Island Rail Road. All five communities are part of the Town of Hempstead. Woodmere is the largest and most populous community in the Five Towns, while the commercial and cultural hub is usually considered to be Cedarhurst, with its fine shopping area (along Central Avenue) and nearby park.

There are more communities that are sometimes considered to be part of the Five Towns, including Atlantic Beach, Woodsburgh and North Woodmere, which are all officially part of the Lawrence Public Schools (except for a part of North Woodmere and all of Woodsburgh, which is part of the Hewlett-Woodmere School District), but their inclusion in the Five Towns is unclear since there is no official Five Towns designation. Woodsburgh is arguably part of Woodmere, Atlantic Beach is geographically part of the same barrier island as Long Beach and North Woodmere is an unincorporated section of Valley Stream.

Each of the Five Towns, with the exception of Inwood which is predominantly Christian, has a large Orthodox Jewish community, with many Jewish day schools, yeshivas, synagogues, kosher restaurants and Judaica stores serving the needs of the surrounding community. Roman Catholics also make up a large percentage of the Five Towns.

There are two school districts in the Five Towns, the Lawrence Public Schools (District 15) and the Hewlett-Woodmere School District (District 14). Roughly speaking, the Lawrence school district contains all of Lawrence, Cedarhurst and Inwood, and part of Woodmere while the Hewlett-Woodmere district contains all of Hewlett and part of Woodmere and extends partly into the neighboring villages of Lynbrook and Valley Stream (North Woodmere and Gibson, in particular).

Although Lawrence was planned to be the location for Five Towns College, the original site was no longer available by the time the school received its charter in 1972. The college is currently located in Dix Hills, Suffolk County. Other than the proposed original site, the school never had a physical connection to the Five Towns.^[3]

• Lyle Alzado NFL football player
• Josh Appell, NY Mets Pitcher (farm team)
• Lee Bienstock, Apprentice 5 runner up
• Bruce Blakeman, Politician, Member of the Board of Commissioners of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
• Ross Bleckner, artist
• Peter Breggin, Psychiatrist
• Ed Burns, actor / screenwriter / producer
• Jake Burton, Snowboarding Pioneer
• Howard Deutch - Director of several hit movies, married to actress Lea Thompson
• John DiResta, actor / comedian
• Debra Drimmer, VP of Talent, Comedy Central
• Gordon Edelstein, Artistic Director of the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut
• Jane Friedman, President and CEO, HarperCollins ; She was recently named on Vanity Fair's list of 200 Women Legends, Leaders and Trailblazers
• Jeffrey M. Friedman, Award Winning Scientist; Discoverer of Lepitin
• Lisa G., NYC radio DJ
• Barbara Gaines, Producer, The Late Show with David Letterman, Emmy Award Winner
• Rande Gerber, "Mr. Cindy Crawford" and nightclub owner
• Brent Glass, director of the Smithsonian National Museum of American History
• Louise Glück, Poet, Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1993, United States Poet Laureate 2003-04
• Carolyn Gusoff, WNBC News Anchor
• Red Holtzman, New York Knicks head coach
• David M. Israel, TV Producer/Writer
• Donna Karan, fashion designer
• Wendy Kaufman, Snapple Lady
• Tony Kornheiser, sportswriter / radio and television talk show host
• Stuart Kreisman Emmy Award winning Writer/Producer
• Matthew Laurance (Birth name: Matthew Dyckoff), actor, sideline analyst on the "Duke Radio Network"
• Mitchell Laurance (Birth name: Mitchell Dyckoff), actor
• Peggy Lipton, actress
• Steve Madden, Shoe Designer
• Gene Mayer, former Professional Tennis Player
• Harvey Milk, Civil Rights Activist
• Bruce Murray, host Murray in the Morning Radio Show
• Evan Roberts, WFAN Host.
• Seth Rudetsky, Composer, Musical Director, Talk Show Host
• Lisa Schwarzbaum, Movie critic
• Joe Sobel, Weatherman (AccuWeather)
• Jim Steinman, music producer, composer
• Rob Weiss, director/producer Amongst Friends, Entourage
• Stuart Weitzman, Shoe Designer
• Alan Zweibel, Writer/Producer

• Town-USA Five Towns of Cedarhurst New York Area