Garden City: The First 150 Years

Positioned at the heart of Nassau County, Garden City sits like a crown jewel among the communities on Long Island. And it has a history to match. The brainchild of textile mogul Alexander Turney Stewart, who bought the last of the treeless Hempstead Plains to build his village, Garden City would emerge as the Eden of Long Island, a community for people with refined tastes but who believed in living a virtuous life. Thanks to his devoted wife, Cornelia Clinch Stewart, Stewart’s legacy was furthered with the creation of the iconic Cathedral of the Incarnation and the Cathedral Schools of St. Paul and St. Mary. The Garden City Company later ensured that Garden City would remain an ideal place to live and to raise a family. But there is more. Its genteel reputation aside, Garden City showed the entire country that it could also meet a higher purpose, playing a vital role in Long Island’s Golden Age of Aviation and during World War I with the formation of Camp Mills. With so much history to draw from, Garden City is a community nonpareil, a proud product of an extraordinary heritage.