150th Anniversary of the Village of Garden City Special Issue
Vol. 95 No. 42
Litmor Publishing Corp.
Friday, July 12, 2019
“Finely built dwellings of modern design, model in every respect, interior as well as exterior, garden plots and lawns, with shrubbery and growing shade trees and broad drives, assured of an abundance of shade in time to come, and lined with flagged walks, catch the eye in every direction and strengthen the claims of the delightful locality to the name of Garden City, which its founder, the late A.T. Stewart, so appropriately bestowed upon it. Under his management, the once treeless plains has been made to blossom and bear the distinction of being the Eden of Long Island and future generations will see to it that its title remains unimpaired.” - excerpt from a Brooklyn newspaper, five weeks after the death of A.T. Stewart May 17, 1876
Aerial view from the top of St. Paul’s School in 1896, twenty years after A.T. Stewart’s death.
A Vision of a Garden City BY JOHN ELLIS KORDES What exactly was happening 150 years ago in 1869? The man who gave us Garden City, Alexander Turney Stewart, was one of the wealthiest and best known individuals in the country at the time. Having been born in Lisburn near Belfast in 1803 in what is today Northern Ireland, he was of Scottish descent. He comes to America as a young man and marries his wife Cornelia in 1823 and they have no children that survive childbirth. He goes into the dry goods business, “A.T. Stewart & Co.” and is extremely successful. By the time of the Civil War, Stewart is one of the wealthiest men in America along with Vanderbilt and Astor. Okay, but where does Garden City fit into all this? Well, it doesn’t not yet anyway. In the 1860’s, the American Civil War rips the nation apart and Stewart becomes a big supporter of the north and President Abraham Lincoln’s efforts to save the Union. After the Civil War ends and after the Johnson administration, the famous Union General Ulysses S. Grant is elected President in 1868. He nominates Stewart to be the Secretary of the Treasury but the appointment is hung up in the Senate in the spring of 1869 due to Stewart’s vast wealth and real estate holdings. The appointment fails. Instead of spending the next four years in Washington, D.C. Stewart returns home to his 5th Avenue mansion in New York City in the late spring of 1869. It is at this pivotal moment in history that Stewart is told of the sale of almost 10,000 acres of the treeless Hempstead Plains on Long Island. It was his architect John Kellum, who lived in Hempstead, that informed Stewart of this sale. What happens next sets into motion 150 years of incredible history on these treeless Hempstead Plains. On July 17, 1869, the men of Hempstead vote in the Pettit Hotel
and his appointment in Washington failed and with no children, Stewart, in 1869, set out to create his legacy... his Garden City.
in Hempstead to accept Stewart’s offer of $55 an acre for the entire Hempstead Plains stretching from Floral Park to Bethpage. The area is two-thirds the size of Manhattan. What was Stewart thinking? After a lifetime of achievement and unparalleled commercial success why would he purchase what was described as “a barren wasteland?” The Hempstead Plains was a glacial outwash from the last ice age, largely untouched for thousands of years. Thin grass grew in a sandy soil unfit for farming without any trees. Even George Washington, in a 1790 visit to Hempstead looking north at the barren plains, called them “the eastern most of the American prairies.” The newspapers of the day began to speculate on Stewart’s motives. All kinds of theories were published and then reprinted in a vain attempt to get inside Stewart’s head. This was not housing for his employees or affordable housing for the working class of Brooklyn, nor was it to be tenements. The press theorized in many directions but only Stewart knew what he was doing. This was clearly not a money making venture as he would lay out millions of dollars. Here was an intelligent man who did things his way his entire life and was never constrained by convention. He created the concept of the department store, set up a purchasing organization across Europe and he bought up hotels around New York City and Saratoga and was nicknamed “The Merchant Prince of Broadway.” He was now in his late 60’s and beyond the average life expectancy of the day. So what was he doing? He would build his own city, complete with its own railroad that would grow and mature long after he was gone, instilling in it his values and ideals which he might have done with a child. Knowing his will stipulated that his commercial empire was to be liquidated upon his death
A.T. Stewart in 1860
Some in the press criticized the purchase and many called it “Stewart’s Folly.” They could not see what he saw. He had a vision for these lands and it is a rare trait when individuals come along that can envision things that don’t exist. However, there is never a shortage of those who say “it can’t be done”,” it will never work” or “you’re a fool.” Yes, those people are always around. Many of the “experts” of the day pronounced the Garden City project as doomed. Very few people lived there and Stewart owned everything in the beginning.
In less than seven years after purchasing the Hempstead Plains, A.T. Stewart died on April 10, 1876 in his mansion in New York City. However, Garden City continued as his wife Cornelia announced the building of the Cathedral of the Incarnation and the schools of St. Paul’s and St. Mary’s in her husband’s memory and Garden City became the Seat of the Episcopal Church on Long Island. After her death in 1886, her heirs formed the Garden City Company in 1893 to continue the development of Garden City and to manage and sell off lands to the east. In 1919, the Village incorporates basically around the school district lines and the residents take over governing themselves. Stewart could not have imagined all the incredible history that would occur here like early aviation, the Motor Parkway, Doubleday, Adelphi University and so much more. However, he did envision something that could be wonderful on the barren Hempstead Plains and he had the wisdom and the means to begin to make it happen. History has a way, over time, to prove who was right and who was wrong. Stewart was right and 150 years on Garden City is living proof of that.
A.T. Stewart responds in this letter to the speculation about his motives in purchasing the Hempstead Plains.
Historical information and photography by John Ellis Kordes.
The Garden City News greatly appreciates the efforts of John Ellis Kordes in helping to create this special issue.