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Billy Joel (pianist, singer, songwriter): Grew up in the neighboring town of Hicksville but lived in a Levitt house. Both of which were used as inspiration for some of his biggest songs. Two of these hit songs are "Captain Jack" and "Allentown." Captain Jack "captured the 1960's scene of alienated teenagers hanging out at the village green drinking."18 Allentown was to originally be called Levittown because he wanted to write a song specifically about his home. However, he couldn't come up with much to say and that is why the song became Allentown. 18 |
| Ellie Greenwhich (singer, songwriter): Ellie moved to Levittown from Brooklyn in 1951 with her family and graduated from Levittown Memorial High School in 1962. She is one of the legendary ``Brill Building'' pop composers18 and has since been inducted into the songwriters hall of fame20. Some of her songs include: "Be My Baby, Leader of the Pack, Chapel of Love, And Then He Kissed Me, Da Doo Ron Ron" to name a few18. |
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"In her song 'Little Boxes,' folk singer Malvina Reynolds described the little box houses of Levittown and its residents as 'all just the same.' She described how everyone living in the houses all lived the same monotonous life and how everything always ended up the same, just like the houses. Her observations are right, wrong or both depending on your perspective." 19 |
| Allan Sherman (singing comedian) pokes fun at Levittown in his album "My Son, the Folk Singer" with a parody of Harry Belfonte's "Jamaica Farewell." His lyrics go: "I'm upside down. My head is turning around. 'Cause I've got to sell the house, in Levittown."18 |
| Levittowner and graduate of Island Trees High School, Eddie Money broke into the music scene with 1977's `Baby Hold on to Me.'18 |
| "Former high school teacher Gene Horowitz' bodice-ripping 1980 novel, ``The Ladies of Levittown,'' featured a titillating account of America's most famous suburb, scandalizing many residents, who recognized their own lives depicted in the pages. The saga - taking place between 1947 and 1978 - pushes back the drapes, offering insight into the passions and disappointments of middle-class women as they struggle to reconcile their relationships with husbands, lovers and children."18 |
| "In 1983, dancer-choreographer D.J. McDonald symbolized the suburban experience in his 50-minute multimedia dance-play ``Levittown and the American Dream.'' The revue ran briefly in Greenwich Village and at Brown University." The play contained a poem about living in Levittown: "One night, one summer, and you are there, a spin in the yard, lie down, the grass in your hair, the sky turns under your feet, a day at the beach, that is love in the sand, by the sea sunset takes me away, radiant heat, There you are, in Levittown." 18 |
| "In 1962 novelist Anne Estock wrote "Christmas in August - The Story of a Prostitute," a potboiler that portrayed a troubled young woman who falls in with a man selling books that have been banned by the Levittown School Board. The woman winds up working as a call girl in Manhattan."18 |
| "W.D. Wetherell's offbeat and unsettling 1985 short story ``The Man Who Loved Levittown'' is built around the yowlings of the prototypical post-World War II angry white man, who rails against the crowded roads, high taxes, rising costs, polluted waterways and subsequent waves of suburbia that changed Long Island. His wife dead, his dog run over, and feeling abandoned by Bill Levitt as well as his buddies who sell out and move to Florida, the protagonist moves to destroy the life he so lovingly created."18 |
| "A Levittown upbringing fueled cartoonist Bill Griffith's bizarre and disturbing imagination, which manifests itself in his ``Zippy the Pinhead'' cartoon series. A subversive parody of the darker side of suburbia, Griffith's comic strip offers a rebellious view of the nuclear family. He commemorated his hometown's 50th anniversary by visiting it in the strip."18 |
| "Film student John O'Hagan's campy sendup of Levittown in his 1997 documentary, ``Wonderland,'' drew bitter reaction from locals who felt the people interviewed were made to look bizarre and foolish. Critics said O'Hagan, a Marylander who never set foot in Levittown before filming, depicted Levittowners as a strange yet endearing lot, given to flag-burning ceremonies, exorcisms, bowling, block parties and downing Scotch with parakeets. ``I was always fascinated with suburban culture. I'm also a real fanatic about Americana, and Levittown struck me as being a fascinating American phenomenon,'' O'Hagan said."18 |
| The Lockhorns of Levittown" -- later simply "The Lockhorns" -- sprang from the pen of cartoonist Bill Hoest on newspaper funny pages in 1968. A graduate of Cooper Union in Manhattan, Hoest moved to Long Island, where he created the suburban couple Leroy, tippling girl watcher, and Lorretta, wisecracking roast burner. The strip lived on when John Reiner and Hoest's widow, Bunny, took over after Hoest's death in 1988.18 |