Rockville Centre, New York | |
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Village | |
Incorporated Village of Rockville Centre | |
The headquarters of the Diocese of Rockville Centre on Sunrise Highway and North Park Avenue
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Location in Nassau County and the state of New York. |
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Location within the state of New York | |
Coordinates: 40°39′48″N 73°38′13″W / 40.66333°N 73.63694°WCoordinates: 40°39′48″N 73°38′13″W / 40.66333°N 73.63694°W | |
Country | United States |
State | New York |
County | Nassau |
Incorporated | 1893 |
Government | |
• Mayor | Francis X. Murray |
Area | |
• Total | 3.4 sq mi (8.7 km2) |
• Land | 3.3 sq mi (8.5 km2) |
• Water | 0.1 sq mi (0.2 km2) |
Elevation | 30 ft (9 m) |
Population (2010) | |
• Total | 24,023 |
• Estimate (2016) | 24,571 |
• Density | 7,100/sq mi (2,800/km2) |
Time zone | Eastern (EST) (UTC-5) |
• Summer (DST) | EDT (UTC-4) |
ZIP codes | 11570 |
Area code(s) | 516 |
FIPS code | 36-63264 |
GNIS feature ID | 2391098 |
Website | www |
Rockville Centre is an incorporated village located in Nassau County, New York, in the United States. At the time of the 2010 census, the village had a total population of 24,023. It is in the southwestern section of the Town of Hempstead.
The Reckouakie tribe of native Americans lived in the area that would become Rockville Centre until the typical mix of germs and violent expropriation dislocated them with the arrival of Dutch and English settlers. The hamlet was named "Rockville Centre" in 1849, after local Methodist preacher and community leader Mordecai "Rock" Smith. It was incorporated as a village in 1893. Rockville Centre emerged in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century as a commuter community connected to New York by the Long Island Rail Road. In 1915, the New York Tribune went so far as to declare that Rockville Centre was a place in which "the average mortal could live happily."
Like many Long Island communities at the time, Rockville Centre's population included a considerable number of supporters of the Ku Klux Klan during the 1920s. When the white supremacist organization placed a wreath at the town's memorial to its war dead in 1923, the American Legion removed it in protest, but the city police received so many calls of complaint in response that they were forced to replace the wreath. In the late 1960s, the village of Rockville Centre received a stinging rebuke for its failure to maintain public housing units primarily inhabited by African-Americans. A report from Nassau County's Human Rights Commission stated Rockville Centre was "at best indifferent to, if not actually in favor of, Negro removal." Martin Luther King Jr. visited Rockville Centre in 1968, where he addressed a large audience at South Side Junior High School on 26 March 1968.
The Rockville Centre Post Office was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.
At the time of the census of 2010, there were 24,111 people residing in the village, 9,201 households and 6,468 families. The population density is 7,496.5 people per square mile (2,892.0/km2). There are 9,419 housing units at an average density of 2,874.0 per square mile (1,108.7/km2); as of 2010[update],. The racial makeup of the village is 78.3% White, 8.6% Black or African American, 9.7% Hispanic or Latino, 0.1% American Indian and Alaska Native, 2.0% Asian alone, 0.0% Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander, 0.1% Some Other Race, and 1.2% Two or More Races.