Biohazard and Pathogen Disinfection in Bohemia, NY

Bohemia is a hamlet and census-designated place in the Town of Islip, Suffolk County, on the South Shore of Long Island, about 50 miles from New York City.

The earliest known inhabitants of the area were the Secatogue tribe of the Algonquian peoples.

Bohemia was founded in 1855 by Slavic immigrants from a mountainous village near Kadan in the Kingdom of Bohemia, in what is now the Czech Republic, and the hamlet is named for that homeland region.

Many of the founders had taken part in the failed European revolutions of 1848 and came to the United States seeking a new life; the first homes they built, distinguished by their cross-gable roofs, still line the hamlet's avenues.

For its first 100 years Bohemia remained a tiny village of mostly Czech descent - at its centennial in 1955 the population was only about 3,000.

The 2020 census counted 9,852 people in Bohemia, living in 3,581 households, with a median age of 45 years.

Bohemia's Slavic immigrants brought expert cigar-making skills, and factories such as Albert Kovanda's plant at Lakeland and Smithtown Avenues and the M. Foster Cigar Factory on Ocean Avenue supported the village until mechanized production ended the hand-rolled trade in the 1930s.

The 3,473-acre Connetquot River State Park Preserve lies in Bohemia, with 50 miles of hiking, horseback riding and nature trails; the park gives the hamlet a distinctive equestrian culture, with stables behind many homes and riders on its tree-lined streets.

A portion of Long Island MacArthur Airport is located within Bohemia, and repeated proposals to rename the hamlet - to Sayville Heights, Lidice or MacArthur - never won enough public support.

Bohemia students attend Connetquot High School in the Connetquot Central School District, and the Branford Hall Career Institute has a campus on Johnson Avenue in the hamlet.