City: Elmont, NY

Category: Shopping

Telephone: (516) 775-4420

Address: 700 Hempstead Tnpk.

Description: Located near the border between Nassau and Suffolk Counties, this repertory theater offers an ongoing schedule of shows and musicals throughout the year, plus has a children’s theater and an academy of musical theater. Fame, Annie, and Sweeney Todd were among the musicals presented in early 2010.

City: Elmont, NY

Category: Spectator Sports

Telephone: (516) 488-6000 (tickets)

Address: 2150 Hempstead Tnpk.

Description: This 430-acre racetrack in Elmont, close to the border of Queens and Nassau County, is where you can experience thoroughbred racing at its best. Each year there are two race meetings at Belmont Park, including the 64-day spring/summer meeting (held between Apr and July) and the Fall Championship meeting (held between mid-Sept and late Oct). The most celebrated race held here each year is the Belmont Stakes (www.belmontstakes.com) in early June—the final jewel of racing’s Triple Crown. Since 1919, when Sir Barton was the first to sweep the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness, and the Belmont Stakes, the “Test of the Champion” has crowned just 11 winners of racing’s most prestigious prize.Belmont Park is now part of the New York Racing Association. However, it started as a racetrack back in 1905, after a group headed by August Belmont II and former Secretary of the Navy William C. Whitney purchased land on Long Island to build what was then the most elaborate racetrack in America, modeled after the famous racetracks in Europe. On Belmont Park’s opening day, May 4, 1905, Long Island experienced its very first traffic jam as more than 40,000 people attended the event. Long Islanders have since grown accustomed to traffic. The New York Racing Association was created more than a half century ago, so that New York State could share in the revenues generated from this popular sport. In 2008 this association was granted the exclusive right to conduct racing at Belmont, Aqueduct, and Saratoga until 2033. Currently, thoroughbred racing contributes more than $2 billion annually to New York State’s economy. Since its inception in 1955, the New York Racing Association has paid more than $3 billion in direct revenue to the state of New York.