Hewlett’s Joseph Sweeney enjoys his Five Towns life

He has lived in two Five Towns communities his entire life and gardened since he was a young boy, so it is not a surprise that Joseph Edmond Sweeney Jr. is an involved member of the Five Towns Senior Center in Hewlett, where he lives.

Sweeney, 69, spent the first nine months of his life in Cedarhurst near his grandparent’s home. He was born on March 16, 1942. His family moved to a house on Oak Place off of Hamilton Avenue in Hewlett on New Year’s Eve of that year. Three years later his parents bought a house at 393 Hamilton Avenue. Sweeney lived in this house until he and his brother, Michael, sold it in 2005.

As his parents were married at St. Joachim R.C. Church in Cedarhurst, Sweeney was baptized, made his communion and was confirmed at the church, but he is also a parishioner at St. Joseph’s R.C. Church in Hewlett.

“I remember when there was nothing in Peninsula Boulevard from Mill Road all the way to Woodmere Boulevard except woods,” Sweeney said. “The four gas stations and the Food Town shopping center were all surrounded by woods because the Long Island Rail Road tracks were on the ground.”

At 5, he started his schooling at St. Joachim’s and was the youngest of his “large” class of 60 students. He graduated in 1955 and with his good friend Marty Finnerty transitioned in to Holy Cross High School. Sweeney remembers the commute from the Five Towns to the school in Bayside, Queens as a “hassle.”

That hassle resulted in him transferring to Hewlett High School as a sophomore and he enjoyed a convenient eight-minute walk to school until his graduation in 1959. Based on his father’s advice, Sweeney joined the Navy and served from 1960 to ’64. Through his naval service he journeyed to Rome and Naples in Italy, Barcelona in Spain and Izmir in Turkey. He was aboard the USS Decter for nine months during the first years of the Vietnam War. “I am lucky to have had such amazing experiences,” Sweeney said.

After being discharged from the Navy, he went to work for Abraham and Strauss department store in Hempstead for two years. Then he worked in the vault in New York City where all the original birth and death certificates are made. Sweeney saw his, his brother’s and father’s birth certificates. “I found it exciting to be able to hold in my hands my family’s original certificates along with that of my mother’s good friend, Mary Neylon Keane,” he said.

In the 1980s, Sweeney went to work for the American Red Cross in Manhattan at the beginning of the AIDS crisis, and was part of the organization’s first AID home health care agency. He worked there until 1997 and was recognized for his efforts. “I even got an award from the city of New York pertaining to my job with the AIDS crises. And naturally I felt proud for dealing with such an important circumstance,” Sweeney said.

Along with living in the Five Towns, another constant in his life has been gardening Applying skills he learned beginning at 6-years-old, Sweeney designed the garden at the entrance of the Five Towns Senior Center.

A devoted volunteer at the Senior Center, he works at the reception desk, answers the phones and sets up many daily events. Sweeney also enjoys spending time at the Hewlett-Woodmere Public Library and has been a member since he was a child.

Being a Five Towns lifer gives Sweeney a perspective of how much change has taken place. However, no matter how much has changed in his home communities, no matter how far he has traveled and no matter how many jobs he held, the source of his happiness is where he came from.

“I love the fact that I have lived in Cedarhurst and Hewlett my entire life. The reason I’m so happy is because my family has always had connections with the Five Towns — for four generations,” Sweeney said with a smile.