Elmont, NY

Belmont Park has marked Elmont’s transition from farm country to suburb since the racetrack opened in 1905. The area had been known as Foster’s Meadow from the mid-1600s, and the Elmont name appeared in the 1880s. Racing brought employment as New York City’s suburban expansion moved eastward. That historic campus is changing again. The New York Racing Association opened rebuilt main and Tapeta tracks for training in 2026 while grandstand and infield construction continued. Live racing was scheduled to resume on September 18, 2026, with the Belmont Stakes slated to return to Long Island in 2027. The operating training tracks are one stage in an active project whose principal spectator facilities remain under construction.

A separate part of the property already functions as a sports and entertainment district. UBS Arena opened in November 2021 as the New York Islanders’ home, and adjacent retail space has since been completed. The Elmont-UBS Arena station became the Long Island Rail Road’s first new station in almost fifty years, giving the campus its own Hempstead Branch stop. As of March 2026, a hotel and community space remained future work. The arena, retail, and rail station can already receive crowds while major pieces of the racetrack redevelopment continue next door.

Town facilities and local institutions provide much of the shared civic setting in this unincorporated census-designated place. Students and volunteers started the Elmont Memorial Library in 1939. Its present Hempstead Turnpike building opened in 2006 with a 430-seat theater and a history wall using the old Foster’s Meadow name. Free performances continued in the theater in 2026, placing a substantial cultural venue on Elmont’s main commercial road. Town-managed Elmont Road Park adds ballfields, courts, exercise equipment, a playground, and a splash pad; a summer concert was scheduled there in July 2026. The library theater on Hempstead Turnpike and the multipurpose park on Elmont Road give everyday community activity two established addresses beyond the changing Belmont campus.