Garden City, N.Y.: Affluent, With a Welcome Mat Out

The New York Times ^ | May 11, 2016 | MARCELLE SUSSMAN FISCHLER

[miss marmelstein]

I took a tour of Great Neck last year with a pal who lived there for years before relocating to NJ. She wanted to show me the Great Gatsby home where Scott & Zelda lived. We had lunch at a very good Jewish deli. The town was lively as hell. Beautiful town! My family lived on Long Island years ago in Valley Stream (not exactly Garden City OR Great Neck!)

[miss marmelstein]

What they do in NJ is give their federal money to other towns who then take in the homeless. It is one of the reasons Asbury Park and Ocean Grove, NJ fell to pieces.

[miss marmelstein]

This is the real estate section of the New York Times - the only decent section of the paper that rarely gets into politics. No mention of muzzies in the entire article as far as I could tell. The only immigrant mentioned was a family from Alabama.

There are superb areas of New York state still.

[pepsi_junkie]

I spent the last few years working in the town next to Garden City. Nice place for sure. The area around it is mostly smaller well maintained homes on fairly small lots, then you stumble into Garden City and its large beautiful homes with big yards. Interesting history in the area. 100 years ago I suppose it was pretty much a wide open plain still. Wide open spaces led to Glenn Curtis doing pioneering aviation work back at the turn of the 20th century and it was a hotbed for aviation in general with several airfields. There's a cool museum there now called the "Cradle of Aviation" museum. There's also a marker downtown where all the nice homes are that says that MacArthur trained his famed Rainbow Division on that location prior to WW1.

Working in Long Island but not being from there, the one thing I heard a lot: if you're not from Long Island you just don't get Long Island. Not exactly sure what epiphany happens if you are raised there versus just living there but must be something because I heard it a bunch.

[Mears]

We had friends in Garden City and I visited them MANY times over the years,from 1960 to the mid nineties.

It seemed very kid friendly.

.

[nopardons]

Now you're contradicting what you first wrote.

Oh WOW...you actually "drove through" a part of Garden City, a few times, which makes YOU an "expert"! ROTFLMSO!

That whole area of Long Island was and no doubt still is, a place I had friends, went shopping, ate in restaurants, and even knew someone, whom after college, had a chi-chi yarn business in Garden City.

My parent's summer home was in Glen Cove, on what had once been J.P. Morgan's private island estate. I did far more than just "drive through" many of the towns on the North Shore...FOR MANY YEARS. I knew lots of people, well, from all over. ;^)

[nopardons]

MS-13 has invaded parts of the South Shore; NOT yet the North Shore, where Garden City, Great Neck, etc. are located!

[nopardons]

That was a huge bastion of GOP voters, but has changed somewhat, in the past few decades. OTOH, do NOT assume anything about a place you now nothing about and which you probably never have been to!

[nopardons]

I have a VERY funny "family story", re the Nanny who took care of my grandmother and her younger sister, about Valley Stream; but, I doubt that it translates well, in the written word. :-)

I've seen the house where Scott & Zelda lived, but a very long time ago. :-)

[TallahasseeConservative]

Really? I worked in Troop L for a year and half. I chased drug dealers through Hempstead and I’ve spent plenty of time in Garden City, so your assumption is incorrect. I also worked in Westchester and I can tell you from experience that the wealthier the area tends to be, the more Lib they are.

[nopardons]

SPOT ON...as usual! :-)

[nopardons]

For most of its existence ( talking about more than 100 years ), the wealthiest parts of the North Shore of Long Island was solidly GOP voting.

That slowly began to change, somewhat, from the 1980s onward. But there still are solid GOP voting towns there.

And just because you worked there, doesn't mean that you know the voting records, nor, I bet, anything at all about the HUGE and still going strong, GOP Women's Clubs.

[TallahasseeConservative]

Hillary won Nassau County with 51% of the vote. Kathy Rice won your Congressional District with almost 60% of the vote. So the days of the GOP bastion are apparently long gone. I’m not trying to be disrespectful, but I am trying to be real.

[nopardons]

You're talking about an entire county of Long Island, which would be akin to talking about the county I live in ( no longer in N.Y. State ), which would be a mistake. Many towns, here ( and yes, wealthy ones, though not "ALL" wealthy ones ) are solidly GOP, yet the county tends to go "Blue", in elections.

Just trying to educate you some; being very "REAL" and factual. :-)

[TallahasseeConservative]

I grew up in Orange County, and see the same thing happening there. It’s maddening.

[nopardons]

Yes, it is! :-(

The problem is the influx of younger, stupid people to different places. The "old guard" moves or dies. Still and all, large pockets of Conservatives still exist...they just don't show up on election maps, because they all just get lumped in with places, in the same areas, which 1) have grown faster 2) have colleges in the area and now allow students to vote there and NOT, as once was the case, by absentee ballot, from where they REALLY are from 3) voter fraud.

[TallahasseeConservative]

I try to explain to folks, that outside the five boroughs, the upstate urban areas and the college towns, NY is really a pretty Conservative state. Trump did win 46 out of 62 counties.

[1Old Pro]

the upstate urban areas and the college towns, NY is really a pretty Conservative state.

Not Albany (all the gov't workers), Ithaca, and some other cites where liberalism is chic

[nopardons]

STATEN ISLAND...the most right leaning borough; 'nough said. :-)

Sadly, many people, even here, neither know, nor understand that and so, go off half cocked, spewing all kinds of strange tripe & meaningless memes.