Is 'Gatsby' The Great Neck Life?

At the bottom of Baker Hill Road, house number 18, the couple living there installed a green porch light.

The owners were a married couple, one of whom was a poet and teacher who wished to pay homage to F. Scott Fitzgerald, author of The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald used a green light as a symbol of the American Dream, and hope that only goes unanswered.

Of course, the novel is set in a . Fitzgerald's account of excess, and the divisive co-existance of 'old money' and 'new money' may have been an accurate depiction at the time.

But is it fair now? A 3D film version of the novel is , and will almost certainly renew interest—if only local interest—in the character of the town it's set in. Of course bootleg liquor is a thing of the past, and we're now living through the Great Recession, rather than a roaring market.

But can an apt comparison still be drawn between the people of West Egg, and Great Neck and Kings Point today?