GARDEN CITY, NY

Garden City is a village in Nassau County, on Long Island, in New York, United States. It is the Greater Garden City area's anchor community. The population was 23,272 at the 2020 census.

The Incorporated Village of Garden City is primarily located within the Town of Hempstead, with the exception being a small area at the northern tip of the village located within the Town of North Hempstead.

History

Early years

In 1869, the Irish-born millionaire Alexander Turney Stewart bought a portion of the lightly populated Hempstead Plains. In a letter, Stewart described his intentions for Garden City:

The central attraction of the new community was the Garden City Hotel, designed by the acclaimed firm of McKim, Mead & White. Although the original structure, as well as that which replaced it at the end of the 19th century, were torn down following a fire, a rebuilt hotel still stands on the original grounds, as do many nearby Victorian homes. Access to Garden City was provided by the Central Railroad of Long Island, another Stewart project which he undertook at the same time; the railroad's Hempstead Branch opened in 1873.

Stewart's wife, Cornelia, founded the St. Paul's School for boys, St. Mary's School for girls, a Bishop's Residence and the Gothic Cathedral of the Incarnation, which is today the center of the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island, as well as the final resting place of Alexander Turney Stewart and Cornelia Stewart. This elaborate memorial was completed in 1885. Mrs. Stewart died the following year. In 2008, the Cathedral of the Incarnation underwent a multimillion-dollar renovation and rehabilitation project, which was completed in 2012.

Voters selected Mineola (in the town of North Hempstead) to be the county seat for the new county of Nassau in November 1898 (before Mineola incorporated as a village in 1906 and set its boundaries), winning out over Hicksville and Hempstead. The Garden City Company (founded in 1893 by the heirs of Alexander Turney Stewart) donated of land for the county buildings just south of the Mineola train station and the present-day Incorporated Village of Mineola, in the Town of Hempstead. The land and the buildings have a Mineola postal address but are within the present-day village of Garden City, which did not incorporate, or set its boundaries, until 1919. The early village did well due to its proximity to Hempstead, which was at that time the commercial center of Long Island. In time, thanks to the railroad and to automobiles, as well, Garden City’s population increased.

In its early years, the press referred to Garden City as "Stewart's Folly."

20th century

In 1910, Doubleday, Page, and Co., one of the world's most important publishers, moved its operations, which included its own train station, to Garden City. The Doubleday company purchased much of the land on the west site of Franklin Avenue, and built estate homes for many of its executives on Fourth Street. In 1916, company co-founder and Garden City resident Walter Hines Page was named Ambassador to Great Britain.

In 1915, the village of Garden City merged with the village of Garden City Estates to its west. It became an incorporated village in 1919. Garden City’s growth promoted the development of many nearby towns, including Stewart Manor, Garden City Park, Garden City South and East Garden City.

In the 1920s, the community continued to grow, with houses built in Garden City Estates as well as the eastern section of Garden City. This development included the Mott Section, developed by the heirs to the Mott's apple juice fortune, which was spurred by easy access to the now-defunct Long Island Motor Parkway, as well as the establishment of the Doubleday publishing group’s corporate headquarters. Doubleday's headquarters, known as Country Life Press, remained in Garden City until Bertelsmann took over the firm in the mid-1980s. The plant closed in 1988 and has been converted to offices for Bookspan, a media firm partly owned by Doubleday.

Housing construction slowed after the 1929 stock market crash. But in the 1930s, hundreds of houses were built to accommodate a population boom, though Garden City used a strict zoning code to preserve Stewart’s vision. Alone in central Nassau, the village retained a sense of orderly development, true to its rigorously planned roots.

After World War II, following a trend of urban residents moving to the suburbs, Garden City continued to grow. Post-war construction filled out the present borders of Garden City with many split-level and ranch-style homes, with construction occurring in the town's far eastern, northern and western sections. The Waldorf School of Garden City was founded in 1947 (one of the first Waldorf schools in the United States), originally as a part of Adelphi University. The village's public high school was also constructed during this time.

In the 1960s, The World discotheque in Garden City featured multi-media supplied by USCO.

In the 1970s, the old Garden City Hotel declared bankruptcy and subsequently closed, and was ultimately demolished in 1973. A new Garden City Hotel was constructed on the site of the old Garden City Hotel. In 1978, fifty of the original structures collectively known as the A. T. Stewart Era Buildings were designated a national historic district and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

In 1989, the St. Paul's School also closed and in 1993 was purchased by the Village of Garden City, eventually designating St. Paul's and its property as "park land." St. Mary's School, the sister school of St. Paul's, was demolished in 2002. Since then, six large single-family houses have been built on the property.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the village's downtown areas (New Hyde Park Road, Seventh Street and Franklin Avenue) benefited from an urban renewal campaign and new construction. Bloomingdale's has moved from Franklin Avenue to the Roosevelt Field shopping mall. Lord & Taylor had a large freestanding location that opened in 1956 on Franklin Avenue. Several luxury restaurants have also opened in recent years along this avenue.

On December 7, 1993, the Long Island Rail Road's Merillon Avenue station, which is located within the village, was the location of the Long Island Rail Road massacre in which six people were murdered and 19 injured in a racially motivated mass shooting perpetrated by Colin Ferguson, a black Jamaican immigrant.

Geography

According to the United States Census Bureau, the village has a total area of 5.3 square miles (13.8 km²), all land. The village lost some territory between the 1990 census and the 2000 census.

Garden City is located approximately east of Midtown Manhattan in New York City.

Greater Garden City area

In addition to the Village of Garden City, the Garden City 11530 ZIP code includes another incorporated village, Stewart Manor, as well as an unincorporated area of the Town of Hempstead: Garden City South (another unincorporated hamlet in Hempstead, East Garden City was part of the Greater Garden City area until it was absorbed by the neighboring hamlet of Uniondale in the 2010s).

Demographics

As of 2010, approximately 40% of Garden City residents identified themselves of being of Irish descent.

As of the census of 2010, 21,811 people lived in Garden City. The population density was 4,059.5 inhabitants per square mile (1,567.0/km²). The town included 7,555 housing units at an average density of 1,415.2 per square mile (546.3/km²). The racial makeup of the village was 88.1% White, 1.2% African American, 0.1% Native American, 5.0% Asian, 0.00% Pacific Islander, 0.4% from other races, and 0.8% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 6.0% of the population.

Garden City included 7,386 households, out of which 36.1% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 69.8% were married couples living together, 7.5% had a female householder with no husband present, and 20.7% were non-families. 19.2% of all households were made up of individuals, and 12.0% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.83 and the average family size was 3.27.

In the village, the population was spread out, with 26.5% under the age of 18, 4.7% from 20 to 24, 7.2% from 25 to 34, 42.6% over 45, 21.6% over 60 and 1.9% who were over the age of 85. The median age was 41 years. For every 100 females, there were 90.5 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 84.1 males.

As of the census of 2020, the median income for a household in the village was $186,607. The per capita income for the village was $83,823.

Government

As of December 2021, the Mayor of Garden City is Cosmo Veneziale and the Village Trustees are Mary Carter Flanagan, Bruce Chester, John M. Delany, Terry Digan, Colleen E. Foley, Louis M. Minuto, Tom O'Brien, and Cosmo Veneziale. The Village Administrator is Ralph V. Suozzi, the former Mayor of the City of Glen Cove and the cousin of Congressman Thomas R. Suozzi.

The Mayor and Trustees are elected by their respective property owners associations which represent the four historical jurisdictions of the village. The village is governed in accordance with its Community Agreement.

Education

Public schools

Garden City is served by its own school district: the Garden City Union Free School District. As such, all students who reside within Garden City and attend public schools go to Garden City's schools.

Private schools

One independent school, the Waldorf School of Garden City (grades pre-K–12), and two Roman Catholic elementary schools (K–8), St. Joseph School and St. Anne School, are in Garden City. The former St. Paul's School and St. Mary's School are now defunct.

Higher education

In 1929, Adelphi College, which later became Adelphi University, moved from Brooklyn to its present campus in Garden City, becoming the first four-year college in Nassau or Suffolk counties.

Infrastructure

Transportation

Road

Clinton Road (Nassau County Route 1) traverses the village and is one of its major north-south thoroughfares. Old Country Road (Nassau County Route 25) forms much of Garden City's northern border. Other major roads within the village are Nassau Boulevard, New Hyde Park Road, Stewart Avenue, and Washington Avenue.

The Village of Garden City maintains approximately of roads.

= Road layout =

Much of Garden City's street network is laid out to resemble the traditional street grid. A major exception is the Mott Section, which features a series of parallel, semicircular streets and numerous north-south streets connecting the crescents.

Rail

There are four Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) train stations in the village. The stops are Stewart Manor, Nassau Boulevard, Garden City and Country Life Press on the LIRR's Hempstead Branch. There are additional stops on the LIRR Main Line just over the Garden City border at New Hyde Park, Merillon Avenue, and Mineola.

Bus

Several bus lines traverse the village provided by Nassau Inter-County Express (NICE).

Utilities

Natural gas

National Grid USA provides natural gas to homes and businesses that are hooked up to natural gas lines in Garden City.

Power

PSEG Long Island provides power to all homes and businesses within Garden City.

Sewage

Garden City is connected to sanitary sewers. The village maintains a sanitary sewer system which flows into Nassau County's system, which treats the sewage from the village's system through the Nassau County-owned sewage treatment plants.

Water

The Village of Garden City owns and maintains its own water system. Garden City's water system serves the entire village with water.

Notable landmarks

Legacy

Garden City inspired the names of several nearby municipalities (as stated above), and is the namesake of Garden Village, Kentucky.

Notable people

In popular culture

Films