– the seat of the
Episcopal Diocese of Long Island 19th century In 1869, 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 new community's central attraction was the
Garden City Hotel. It was replaced by a new hotel in 1895, designed by the acclaimed firm of
McKim, Mead & White. The 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 that he undertook at the same time. This railroad, in conjunction with the Flushing & North Side Railroad, ran from Long Island City through Garden City to Farmingdale (with a spur to the location of the Stewart's brickworks in Bethpage), and then to Babylon. It opened in 1873, with a branch to Hempstead. Stewart's wife, Cornelia, founded the Cathedral Schools of St. Paul (for boys) and St. Mary (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) as the county seat of 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 Alexander Turney Stewart's heirs) 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, at the time Long Island's commercial center. In time, thanks to the railroad and automobiles, Garden City's population increased. In its early years, the press called Garden City "Stewart's Folly" due to the lack of residents that Stewart had envisioned would populate his project.
20th century In 1910,
Doubleday, Page, and Co., one of the world's most important publishers, moved its operations to the east side of Franklin Avenue and had its own train station called Country Life Press added nearby. Doubleday purchased much of the land on the west side 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. The area west of Garden City, named Garden City Estates, was established in 1907. It merged with Garden City, with both incorporated as the Village of Garden City in 1919. Subsequently, the now-named Cherry Valley Club (originally Salisbury Club) and Garden City Country Club opened. For a short time in the late 1920s a fourth course existed, the Old Westbury Golf Club (initially the Intercollegiate Golf Club), east of
Clinton Road (CR 1). Aviation played a big role in the Village's history. The Nassau Boulevard Aerodrome, west of the Estates section, hosted the Second International Aviation Meet in 1911, which featured the first official airmail service. Other airfields included the Washington Avenue Field and the Hempstead Aerodrome, which became Roosevelt Field before being replaced by the Roosevelt Field Mall in the 1950s. In the 1920s, the community continued to grow, with houses built in Garden City Estates as well as the eastern section of Garden City. 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. 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. Postwar construction filled out Garden City's borders 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 part of
Adelphi University. The village's
new public high school was constructed in 1956, supplementing the original Cherry Valley school, which opened in 1925. The flat expanse of the land adjacent to Garden City allowed its use for military activities. For the Civil War, Camp Winfield Scott existed, for the Spanish-American War of 1898, Camp Black was established, and for World War I in 1917, Camp Albert Mills occupied land in the southeast part of the village. In the 1970s, the old Garden City Hotel declared bankruptcy and closed. It was demolished in 1973. A new Garden City Hotel was constructed on the site. In 1978, fifty of the original structures 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,
St. Paul's School closed. In 1993, it 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.
21st century In 2001, Garden City lost 23 residents during the
September 11 attacks. Every year on the anniversary of the attack, the Garden City Fire Department holds a remembrance ceremony. A bell tolls after the reading of each of the 23 residents' names, which are etched in the memorial monument stone on the Village Green. ==Geography==