J. chinensis (Lou's suggestion) 'Spartan' might work. I was at Twin City Nursery in White Bear Lake last summer and they had a nice inventory of these at a reasonable price. Here is a link that might be useful: 'Spartan' Chinese Juniper

Semiarundinaria is quite vertical. There are many unconfined plantings of it in the area, that have not spread all over - this is true of other species used here also, the outcome varies with the situation. But any running bamboo can suddenly start coming up yards away from the mother clump, making the installation of barrier essential where such an occurrence would be a problem. All the full height Thuja occidentalis cultvars have approximately the same vigor. The 'Smaragd' will be so much more prevalent than the others because it is what people are looking for. The only problem with it is it is more prone to poor soil drainage than most others, resulting in frequent internet questions about part of a hedge of it going brown. I have also seen it browned in sections by mites during hot weather. But this latter development is probably not especially peculiar to 'Smaragd'. 'Oregon Blue' is merely an otherwise more or less typical Chamaecyparis lawsoniana with a saturated blue coloration. The vigor of some local specimens suggests these are programmed to grow into towering trees just like thousands of other examples of the species in local plantings. In the wild the species is interesting for growing just about everywhere within the comparatively small range it occupies, unlike many other wild tree species now confined to small ranges - and also being limited to specific site conditions within those ranges. So no, there is no particular soil moisture regime etc. that must be provided for it - numerous other cultivars of C. lawsoniana are still all over the place on local properties, despite the inroads of several different root pathogens in later times. The main thing is to place it in soil that drains well - and is not or does not become infested with one of the water molds that kills even specimens that have been in place for decades.

The Techny Arborvitae could be planted in a row as a screen or standalone as a specimen. Mine are planted kind of intermediate to this. I have them on one of my property borders amongst other plantings (I did plant 2 next to each other). Ive got emerald green arborvitae and green giants and this can be thought of as intermediate solution to screen(more than EG, less that GG, also dense foliage like EG). Foliage is dense, a darker green, and elegant if I must say so myself. Love the (3d) look of the foliage and I get two tones of color as well. The color is real nice. Though I havent, if I could do it again, I would plant one as a specimen tree in a second. Depending on how much space you have/what other selections you have in mind other selections may be more appropriate(in regards to planting it as a specimen tree, lets face it there are other more beautiful conifers, though this is beautiful as well). Just thought Id throw it out there since they dont get mentioned much on here and Im quite happy with mine.

In my opinion on LI zone 7 you should grow one of the showier Eurasian hollies like the Highclere: https://www.houzz.com/discussions/6053297/some-midwinter-pics or Koehne; or perhaps more readily obtainable and smaller, one of the various meserve hollies like 'Honey Maid' which seems to be marketed in the northeast: https://www.pridescorner.com/plant-name/Ilex-X-Honey-Maid-Holly You should be prepared to prune young hollies thoughtfully for a few years to make sure they take on the optimal form: https://www.houzz.com/discussions/4977109/we-agree-some-cutting-grown-trees-need-aggressive-waterspout-control Hollies are more expensive than conifers for screening, but are a better long term investment in my opinion because their size can truly be controlled in the long term, and you can even "start over" by cutting them to their trunks if that became necessary for some reason. Other than driving to McLean Nursery in Baltimore I don't really know where to tell you to buy more upscale BLE plant material like such hollies, other than Hicks nursery which once had a reputation as the best on LI for that sort of thing. Looks like this poster found some at HD: https://www.houzz.com/discussions/5145600/broadleaf-flowering-evergreens-for-casual-hedge (see last post; whole thread might be informative for you)