"The first brick in the Stewart Colleges at Garden City will be laid at 7 o'clock this morning. That brick will form part of the great Boys' School, toward the erection of which the cement work underlying the massive foundations was finished on Saturday. The building thus begun will be part of a system of colleges devised by the late A.T. Stewart years ago and afterward carefully arranged in detail and matured by himself, his widow and his successor in business. It appears...that the purchase of the immense estate of Garden City, and the making of the vast and costly improvements which have been conducted therein since the purchase, have been but the preliminary steps toward the founding of a collegiate system unlike anything in this country, remotely resembling that of Oxford, and to be permanently and munificently endowed."

The New York Times, May 26, 1879

Many who have grown up in Garden City learned that Garden City was created by Alexander Stewart to be the nation's first planned community, with stately homes and lovely streets. But in the contemporary newspaper account above, it seems that Stewart had a further dream-the creation of enduring educational institutions that would benefit rich and poor, girls and boys.

Sadly, his educational dreams did not survive the test of twentieth century economics. It would be a further pity if the main building itself is lost to twenty-first century bickering.

In this time of national economic crisis, isn't there some way we can't come together and find a acceptable solution that saves an important part of Garden City's heritage, but doesn't bankrupt her residents?

Meg Morgan Norris

Publisher

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