The park offers picnic tables with pavilions, tennis courts, a playground, playing fields, recreation programs, hiking, biking, a bridle path, fishing, ice fishing, ice skating, cross-country skiing, snowmobiling, and a boat launch.

A decade later, Peninsula Boulevard was extended along the eastern side of the park partially reusing the parkway's old route.

[9] On June 28, 1997, the dismembered torso of an unidentified young African-American woman was found at Hempstead Lake State Park, in the town of Lakeview, New York.

The torso was found in a green plastic Rubbermaid container, which was dumped next to a road along the west side of the lake.

Investigators reported that the victim had a tattoo on her left breast of a heart-shaped peach with a bite out of it and two drips falling from its core.