It Happened on Long Island: 1977
1977: Roosevelt Raceway Flea Market Opens
In 1977, the Roosevelt Raceway Flea Market opened at the racing facility on Old Country Road in Westbury. It was believed to be Long Island's largest flea market, with as many as 2,000 vendors selling clothing, sporting goods, furniture, house wares, tools, produce, and plants.
It was open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sundays and Wednesdays all year round, with vendors setting up outdoors in warm weather and indoors at other times.
As many as 30,000 people from as far away as New Jersey and Rockland County shopped there a day. The flea market, which generated annual sales of as much as $50 million, closed in 1995. Roosevelt Raceway, which had opened in 1939, closed in 1988.
New owners acquired the 172-acre site in 1994, building stores, restaurants, and a multiplex cinema. The grandstand, which covered 91 acres, was demolished in 2000. A view of the flea market is shown here in a 1986 photo.
- Cynthia Blair