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When multi-millionaire Alexander Turney Stewart began planning Garden
City on 7,000 acres of land he purchased approximately 20 miles from
New York City, he made its focal point a grand hotel that would attract
a famous and wealthy clientele from around the world. With its opening
in 1874, The Garden City Hotel was immediately pronounced a great success.
In 1901, a new Garden City Hotel was erected, complete with a cupola
fashioned after the one that sits atop Philadelphia's Independence Hall.
Prominent guests - including the Vanderbilts, Astors, and Belmonts - stayed
there as they visited Long Island for polo matches, horse races, or a new
sport, auto racing. During this period, it also became the norm for society's
elite to attend the large, fashionable parties held in the hotel's ballroom.
From 1910-1930, the hotel remained at the forefront of Long Island activity.
Perhaps the most notable event associated with The Garden City Hotel occurred
on May 20, 1927, when Charles Lindbergh spent the night before his historic
flight dining with friends and family as a guest of the hotel.
However, with the Great Depression, the Gatsby-era excesses of the Garden
City Hotel faded, as they did for the entire nation. It wasn't until after
World War II that the community around the hotel began to grow and flourish
as a residential suburban village. All the while, the hotel continued to
serve as a landmark lodging, attracting vacationers, business executives,
and world leaders, including a 1959 visit by Presidential-hopeful John F.
Kennedy and his wife, Jacqueline, and the recent stays of New York State
Senator Hillary Clinton and former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
From its post-Civil War beginnings to the Roaring Twenties, the dawn of
suburbia to the new millennium, The Garden City Hotel has provided the
highest quality services and accommodations. In the early 1980s, current
owner Myron Nelkin built the existing Garden City Hotel. Since then, this
world-class, luxury hotel has been guided by the Nelkin family, who continue
to uphold the tradition of elegance and service established over the past
125 years.
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