When the 20th annual New Hyde Park Street Fair take places on Sept 19., the event will have the North Shore-LIJ Health System as a primary sponsor for the first time.
“We’ve been so pleased working with North Shore LIJ, our primary sponsor,” Village of New Hyde Park Mayor Mayor Robert Lofaro said at a recent Village Board of Trustees meeting. “They’ve helped us with flyers and banners and posters. They’ve just been great to work with. I’m really excited and I can’t wait to see the health and wellness pavilion they have set up at the street fair. It’s going to add another dimension to the street fair that’s going to bring it to the next level.”
The fair, which is expected to draw up to 30,000 people, will take place along Jericho Turnpike from Covert Avenue to New Hyde Park Road from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The fair is presented by the Village of New Hyde Park and Craft-A-Fair, a Queens-based company that oversees outside vendors. Organizers said road closures for the fair on that day will begin at 5 am.
The fair includes a carnival and petting zoo for children as well as booths operated by village merchants, restaurants and outside vendors.
Janet Bevers, an assistant to the Village of New Hyde Park Board of Trustees, who is coordinating the street fair for the village said she expects around 350 merchants to participate.
As part of its sponsorship, North Shore-LIJ will have a 300-foot Health and Wellness Pavilion that will be located on Lakeville Road.
In honor of the fair’s 20th anniversary, organizers will stage a fair-wide scavenger hunt.
Jeanette Frisina, vice President of the New Hyde Park Chamber of Commerce, said there will be cash and prizes to be awarded to the scavenger hunt winners. Frisina said the list of stops will be published on the chamber and village website one week before the festival.
“We’re looking forward to a busy fair, we’ve got lots of good vendors and businesses putting out special tables for the event,” Frisina said. “We are looking to celebrate New Hyde Park as a vibrant business community and share whatever we have to offer to the public.”
The village will also have a formal announcement and ceremony to commemorate the naming of New Hyde Park as a Purple Heart community, Lofaro said.
Village of New Hyde Park trustees voted in July to designate the town as a Purple Heart Community, joining several other towns on Long Island as well as Nassau County that have recognized veterans who were injured or killed protecting this country.
The board was persuaded to take action by members of the Long Island chapter of the Military Order of the Purple Heart, who have been lobbying for a physical memorial in Memorial Park
“We think that’s probably the best place to do it,” Lofaro said. “We have nearly 30,000 people that come to the Village of New Hyde Park on Sept. 19 for the street fair.”
Bevers said having North Shore-LIJ as a sponsor is exciting for organizers.
“We fully expect this to be as great as the other fairs but since this is the 20th anniversary were really excited,” Bevers said. “It’s one of our biggest community events in the Village of New Hyde Park.”
