By John Ellis Kordes
Village Historian

Q: I know Garden City was known, at one time, for its shopping district but clearly retail has left Garden City. Could you tell me why?

Garden City’s business district has, indeed, gone through many changes over the decades. It might be interesting to look back at the origins of the business district to see how it evolved.

Garden City was designed as a beautiful place to live but not necessarily a place to work. It would be a half-century after A.T. Stewart founded Garden City in 1869 before it began to develop the business district we take for granted today. The main reason was a place just south of Garden City, called Hempstead. It predated Garden City by over two hundred years; by the mid-19 th Century, Hempstead was the hub of commerce on Long Island. It is one of America’s oldest places, and well into the 20 th Century it represented a thriving business district where early Garden City residents fulfilled their shopping needs.

By the 1920’s, Garden City had developed into a beautiful incorporated rural village. Still, there was no well-defined business district. Garden City’s very first commercial buildings, dating back to the 1870’s, stood on Hilton Avenue (as they do today).This more or less was the extent of the business district back then. Seventh Street and Franklin Avenue looked very different than they do today. They were a mix of houses, empty lots and a few buildings.

Ironically, the birth of Garden City’s business district occurred in the 1930’s, during the worst economic depression in the country’s history. Despite or perhaps because of the economic times, a major New York City department store decided to open a branch in the suburbs. Best & Co. became the first major Fifth Avenue store to venture into the suburbs, when they opened in Garden City in 1930.

Following Best & Co. was Loeser’s, who in 1937 built which later became the A & S building. Another enhancement of the very young business district was the innovation of off-street, landscaped parking lots and the development of a strong Chamber of Commerce. Working with the village, landlords agreed to a proposal to create landscaped parking lots behind all the stores along Franklin Ave. and Seventh Street. When opened in 1938, they became an instant success. They were a model for villages across the nation.

During World War II and especially during the 1950’s, Garden City and its business district grew at a steady and planned pace. Uniquely, Garden City’s residential and business districts were carefully intertwined, so it is hard to see where one begins and one ends. The decades following the war brought Peck & Peck, Lord & Taylor, Saks Fifth Avenue, Franklin Simon, Oppenheim & Collins, Martin’s, W.J. Sloane and Bloomingdale’s as well as banks, a medical center, and many small specialty shops to Franklin Avenue including my father, in 1949, when he opened Arista Furs. Throughout this period, Franklin Avenue was known as the “Fifth Avenue of Long Island”.

During the late 1970’s it was clear that things were slowly changing. By the 1980’s landlord problems were emerging as empty stores began to appear. Specifically, the Garden City Company which at one time ran Garden City (1893-1919) and then existed as a commercial real estate company. It was sold several times until the early 1970’s when it was sold for the last time. These last owners, over a 25 year period, had an often troubled relationship with their properties resulting in many empty stores and office spaces. By the end of the 20 th century, they ended up in the courts suing each other and eventually the Garden City Company was dissolved. This coincided with the Village’s beautification of Franklin Avenue in 1999. These circumstances allowed for new landlords and businesses to come into our Village.

Most of the new businesses are food related as retail is now found in malls outside our Village. Specifically, Roosevelt Field Mall (not part of our village or tax base) whose late 1980’s renovation resulted in a huge upscale mall in direct competition with our retail business district.