Bohemia Historical Society
The Story Behind Our Street Names
How local families, cigar factories, and sandy trails shaped the map of our hamlet
When we type an address into our GPS, we rarely think about the words we are typing. “Locust,” “Smithtown,” “Karshick” — they slide past as nothing more than directions to dinner, the dry cleaner, or the soccer field. But in Bohemia, those words carry weight.
Our street names are more than navigational tools. They are historical markers — the “fossils” of the community, preserving the names of the people who cleared the land, the industries that built the economy, and the geography that defined our borders. Long after the farms were sold and the cigar factories closed their doors, the names on the corner signs remain, quietly carrying the past forward.
If you stripped away the pavement and the power lines, the map of Bohemia would look very different: a patchwork of Czech-owned farms stitched together by sandy lanes, with cigar shops and small factories tucked along the busier roads. But the names? Many of them have stayed the same for over a century. So take a walk with us. Here is the story behind the signs you pass every day.
The “Founding Family” Streets
In the late 1800s, Bohemia wasn’t a grid of suburban blocks; it was a patchwork of large farms owned by Czech immigrants who had come east from New York City in search of land, fresh air, and a community where their language and customs could survive. As those large plots were eventually subdivided for children or sold to developers, the roads carved through them were often named after the patriarchs who originally owned the soil. Driving down these streets today is essentially a roll call of our founding families and local figures — a quiet, paved memorial to the people who built the place.
Karshick Street
Tucked away off Walnut Avenue, this short, unassuming street preserves the name of the Karshick family, who owned the land between Locust and Walnut Avenues. Mr. Karshick was so prominent in the community that the Town of Islip issued a proclamation in the 1950s naming him the honorary mayor of Bohemia — an unofficial title that nonetheless reflected just how much weight his voice carried in local affairs.
Benedict Street
The Benedicts were builders of Bohemia — quite literally. Winnie Benedict’s lumber yard on Ocean Avenue supplied the materials for many of the homes we still live in today. Walk down almost any older block in the hamlet and you are likely standing inside a house framed with Benedict lumber.
Pearl Street
Named in honor of John Pearl, the principal of Bohemia’s original elementary school. By all accounts he was a beloved community figure, known not only for running the school but for showing up at nearly everyone’s local wedding. In a hamlet this size, that kind of presence is its own legacy.
Wall Street
Don’t let the name fool you — there is no stock exchange at the end of it. This road was constructed and named by the Svoboda family, who originally owned the surrounding land and laid out the street as their farm was divided up for housing.
Hubal Street
Named after Mr. Hubal, an insurance salesman with an eye for opportunity. He purchased land between Ocean and Locust Avenues and built local houses on it, becoming one of the small-scale developers who quietly shaped the look of mid-century Bohemia.
Shirley Street
Named after Walter Shirley, who owned hundreds of acres in this area. Following a dispute with the Town of Islip, he famously sold the land for just one dollar an acre — a story that locals still trade with a mixture of admiration and disbelief.
Andover Drive
This road sits on land partially owned by the Thumas family before it was eventually sold to a developer. The Thumas name doesn’t appear on the sign, but the street itself exists because of how their property was eventually parceled out.
Johnson Avenue
In 1943, the town named this avenue in honor of a young local man named Johnson who was killed early in the fighting of World War II. It is one of the most quietly moving signs in the hamlet — a teenager’s name fixed to a street he never had the chance to drive down.
The Arteries of Industry
Before the Sunrise Highway or the Veterans Memorial Highway existed, life in Bohemia revolved around two main lifelines. These were the roads where the farmers brought their goods, where the cigar workers walked to the factory, and where the kids walked to school. They were the arteries that kept the hamlet alive.
Ocean Avenue
Historically, this road connected the inland farmers to the resources of the coast. The name likely traces back to the indigenous Ronkonkoma people’s “Vova Trail,” which zigzagged from Lake Ronkonkoma down to the Great South Bay — a body of water the native population considered the ocean. In the 1950s, residents on Ocean Avenue successfully petitioned the town to keep it a residential street, stopping it from becoming a massive four-lane highway. That single petition is the reason Ocean Avenue today still feels like a neighborhood road rather than a thruway.
Smithtown Avenue
This was the “Main Street” of early Bohemia, acting as an industrial corridor. In 1900, if you traveled down Smithtown Avenue, you would pass cigar factories buzzing with activity and shops catering to the workers who poured out of them at the end of the shift. It was also the location of the original Bohemian Elementary School. According to local historical accounts, Smithtown Avenue may have originally been a segment of Terry Road, which connected Sayville to Smithtown — travelers heading north on this route would eventually arrive in Smithtown, which likely gave the avenue its current name.
Union Street
Named after the Union Machine Shop, a small motorized repair shop that sat on the corner of Union Street and Smithtown Avenue in the 1940s. The building was a working garage — oily, greasy, and useful — until the town eventually had it torn down. The street kept the name long after the shop disappeared, which is exactly how a street name does its work.
Nemeth Street
This street sits on property once owned by Mrs. Nemeth, who operated a luxury pocketbook factory there and employed many local Bohemia women. In an era when factory work for women often meant long hours in difficult conditions, Mrs. Nemeth’s shop offered steady, skilled work close to home — and her name lives on at the corner.
Church Street
Named, simply and accurately, for its proximity to two local houses of worship: St. John Nepomucene Catholic Church and St. Luke’s Episcopal Church. The two congregations sit close enough that a single street could honor both.
The “Destination” Roads
Some roads in Bohemia weren’t named for who lived on them, but for where they took you. They were essentially signposts laid flat against the ground: follow this road, and you’ll end up here. The name was the directions.
Lakeland Avenue
Today it’s a busy four-lane road, but originally it was the direct route north to The Lake — Lake Ronkonkoma. In 1926 and 1927, the town’s highway department hired local Bohemia football players, from a team known as the Bohemian Steamroller, as summer help to pour the avenue’s cement. Picture it: a crew of young men in their work clothes, mixing concrete under the summer sun, laying down a road that their grandchildren would one day drive to work on. Decades later, a petition by Ocean Avenue residents (the same one that kept Ocean Avenue residential) resulted in Lakeland becoming the area’s main four-lane thoroughfare instead.
The Nature Grid and the Quirky Origins
Not every street in Bohemia is named for a person or a place. Some streets simply describe what was there — the trees, the wildlife, the landscape that the first residents found when they arrived. And a few have origins so specific and strange that they could only have happened in a small town.
Locust Avenue
This street earned its name after an enormous swarm of locusts descended on the area, said to be on a sixteen-year cycle. The deafening buzzing lasted for three days and three nights — a sound so overwhelming and so unforgettable that when it came time to name the road, no other word would do. Walk Locust Avenue today and it is hard to imagine the noise; the trees are quiet, the cicadas keep to themselves, and the street goes about its business under a name born from a moment of natural drama.
Walnut Avenue
Interestingly, Walnut Avenue may be a case of mistaken identity. The street was originally lined with chestnut trees, but early residents identified them as walnuts, and the name stuck. By the time anyone realized the error — or, more likely, by the time anyone cared enough to correct it — the sign had been up for too long to bother.
7th & 8th Street
These numerically named streets have one of the most charmingly local origin stories in the hamlet. When the Bohemia Hunt Club disbanded around 1957, they had either 78 or 87 members remaining — a number that was memorialized in these two street names. Whether it was 78 or 87, no one is entirely sure anymore, but the streets are right there at the corner, quietly keeping the count.
Walking the Map
Once you know the stories, a drive through Bohemia stops being just a drive. You pass a sign and you think: that was a farmer, that was a teacher, that was a young man who never came home. That was a road built by football players. That was a street named for a sound that lasted three days.
This is the quiet gift of a small town with a long memory: every corner is a little piece of history, and every history is a person. If you have ever wondered why your own street is called what it’s called, or if you have stories about names we haven’t included here, the Bohemia Historical Society would love to hear from you. The signs aren’t finished telling their stories.