Garden City Icon: Alexander Turney Stewart

As a proud resident of Garden City, New York, I thought I would write about Alexander Turney Stewart who founded the city in the late 19th century. Stewart had the idea of a planned suburban community when this didn’t exist. It was a revolutionary idea that you could live in what was thought of as the countryside but have all the modern conveniences near you.

Back then unless you lived in a big city you would have to take care of everything yourself. Stewart made his fortune in department stores so this is something he thought about a lot. He knew that not everyone could live in New York City so you would have to take the amenities out to them so people could live in what we now call the suburbs.

In 1869, he bought close to 7,000 acres of prime real estate in Long Island for at the time was $400,000. The land was barren with nothing there but after the architects and engineers came in, everything was laid out and a suburb was created. Now there were streets, drainage systems, parks and schools.

Not only that, he built the Garden City Hotel, the mall of its day and also the Central Railroad of Long Island in order to provide transportation to and from New York City. Sadly he died in 1876 before seeing the project come to life but his widow, Cornelia Stewart, continued it and made sure his vision was fulfilled. Garden City became a wonderful community and the blueprint for suburban development not just across America but all over the world. We have Stewart’s bold visionary thinking to thank for Garden City.