Two Years After Ground First Broke, The UBS Arena Finally Comes To Long Island
Over two years after ground first broke in Elmont, Long Island, the location finally has its newest attraction. Right next to the famed Belmont Park, where the annual Belmont Stakes take place, the UBS Arena has been completed.
November 17, 2021
Over two years after ground first broke in Elmont, Long Island, the location finally has its newest attraction. Right next to the famed Belmont Park, where the annual Belmont Stakes take place, the UBS Arena has been completed. Sponsored by a Swiss bank, the new state-of-the-art building will primarily be the home of the New York Islanders.
For the Isles, this is the end of a very, very long road for a new place as they seem to finally have moved on from the infamous coliseum in Uniondale.
While hockey fans will be the main benefactors of UBS Arena, there is a place for all Long Islanders to enjoy the establishment. One major source of income will be concerts. The first of these will be on November 28, when musician and actor Harry Styles will come to town. Eric Church, Sebastian Maniscalco, Imagine Dragons, Journey, and John Mayer are some of the talent coming to Elmont by the start of March 2022.
Wrestling and basketball will also have their way on Long Island. WWE’s Monday Night Raw will come on November 29; AEW follows in December, and the Harlem Globetrotters will attempt to amaze fans in February. Of course, all of these events will be sandwiched between Islanders games as they look to go deep in the postseason for the third consecutive season.
The arrival of the UBS Arena also benefits everyone’s least favorite Long Island based company (though LIPA may be a close second), the LIRR. But the Long Island Rail Road is building a new station to transport fans all around Long Island to UBS. This provides residents an opportunity to avoid the expected heavy traffic on the Cross Island Parkway.
UBS Arena gives Long Island something that it has desperately needed for some time now: a new arena that will attract tourists.
The coliseum, while lovable, was quite dated. The Barclays Center is further away in Brooklyn, and was a dreadful venue for hockey. After The Lighthouse Project was shut down by the Town of Hempstead and Kate Murray a decade ago, the Islanders finally have a new location to call home.
