Shopping in Style....

Great Neck Plaza

by Claudia Gryvatz Copquin
(From Distinction Magazine)

Groucho Marx, Eugene O'Neill, W.C. Fields, Fanny Brice, P.G. Wodehouse, Sid Caesar and, of course, F. Scott Fitzgerald, all called Great Neck home at one time or another. Known as the Gold Coast in its heyday, Great Neck is an 11.4-square-mile peninsula on the northwestern edge of Nassau County.

The seasoned resident may be able to differentiate between the nine contiguous incorporated villages and small pockets of unincorporated areas that make up Great Neck. But the Village of great Neck Plaza is distinctive, as an area comprised mostly of residential co-ops and condos as opposed to the single-family houses that line Great Neck's immaculate streets. Great Neck Plaza is also home to the long Island Rail Road station. And it's a high-end shopping district with a vast array of shops and services. In all likelihood, the luminaries who once lived in the Great Neck villages (Great Neck Estates, Saddle Rock, Kensigton, Russell Gardens, Thoaston, Kings Point, Lake Success, Great Neck village) shopped and dined in the very streets that still form the commercial hub of Great Neck - the Village of Great Neck Plaza.

Back then, "everyone shopped in the Plaza", recalls 97-year-old Plaza resident Jesse Kahn, who's been living in the Great Neck area for the past 69 years. "But on Sundays, everything was closed. You couldn't get a drop of milk or slice of bread".

These days, there is an abundance of restaurants, banks and upscale boutiques. "Some of the villages (in Great Neck) don't have downtowns," notes Mayor Robert Rosegarten, who's been in office since 1992 and has lived in the Plaza since 1969. "Russell Gardens has no stores. Saddle Rock is all residential."

Along with being the Plaza's "Biggest cheerleader," the Mayor's job is to assure the Plaza maintains the "Main Street USA" image it's been carefully fostering. In order to boost its economy, in the 1980's the village formed a Business Improvement district (BID), which is run by the Plaza's Management Council. The Village of Great Neck Plaza was the first non-city in New York State to establish a BID. Through BIDs, businesses band together and tax themselves a certain percentage of their property value. The funds are then utilized to enhance the area.

"We plant like crazy," rosegarten says of the flowers that bloom on every available spot. The village is litter and graffiti free. By creating an area that is aesthetically pleasing, controlling the commercial diversity of its merchants and maintaining a low retail vacancy rate, village officials hope residents will resist the lure of malls that are cropping up in Nassau County.

"The Plaza has highly improved in appearance. All the stores had old-fashioned storefronts," says Jesse Kahn, who helped found North Shore Community Hospital and Long Island Jewish Hospital, as well as Temple Beth-El, Great Neck's first synagogue, in 1932. "the Mayor has put in red brick sidewalks and there's a tremendous amount of trees and bushes."

Several years ago, an antique-looking clock tower was installed on the intersection of Grace Avenue and Middle Neck Road. "It's a great symbol," Rosegarten says.

Perhaps he sees it as a symbol of a time gone by, when Great Neck was a rural farming community, not unlike the rest of the Town of North Hempstead. Originally called "Wallage" by the local Massapeke and Mattinecock Indian natives, Great Neck was also once known as Madnan" by the English, who took political control of Long Island from the Dutch settlers.

Great Neck flourished as a farming community. Its close proximity to Manhattan enabled commercial transactions via steamships, followed by the railroad, which arrived in Great Neck in 1866. According to This is Great Neck, by the League of Women Voters of Great Neck, the lush, utopian qualities of the coastal area were soon discovered by wealthy New Yorkers. Among the first of them was William Russell (W.R.) Grace, a millionaire who served as mayor of New York City in 1881. Grace build vast estates in Great Neck and was soon joined by wealthy contemporaries such as the Vanderbilt, Hewlett, Chrysler and King families. The 20th century drew a melange of entertainment and literary figures. After World War I, the incorporation of Great Neck villages became a popular mode of regulating and controlling community growth.

"The millionaires owned 40,50 acres at a time, in large blocks of property that ran from Bayview Avenue to the Sound.", Recalls Jesse Kahn. Those estates were eventually sold off as subdivisions and single family homes were established.

As the population grew, so did the number of retail stores and by 1930, Great Neck Plaza became incorporated. The village covers just a third of a square mile area north of Northern Boulevard and Lakeville Road. It has its own village hall and local laws.

"There are only 146 single family homes in Great Neck Plaza. Most of our residents-and there are 6,000 of us-live in co-ops and condos," says Mayor rosegarten. "We have 260 retail stores in the Plaza. We have an arts center, three synagogues, two churches, 31 restaurants, 12 banks." Office buildings, a senior citizens home and a new assisted-care facility. About 40 percent of Plaza residents are seniors, the Mayor adds. Two parks are situated within the village, but they are owned and maintained by the Great Neck Parks District, which owns eight parks in the area.

"[The Village] doesn't have the history of a Roslyn," for instance, Rosegarten explains, because many of the current structures were built from the 1940's on. But it does have a character of its own as a distinctly commercial area flanked by highly desirable neighborhoods housing high-income families.

"We want our residents to shop here as much as possible," states Rosegarten. And a stroll through the Village on a typical weekday afternoon indicates that indeed, they are.

But to draw even more people to the Plaza, the Great neck Plaza Management council sponsors special events like the Street Festival and Autofest. The festival was created in 1986 as a way "to promote the business, retail, social and cultural uniqueness of Great Neck Plaza to the Long Island region." During this year's festival, which will take place October 17, 1999, over 150 antiques, classical and collectible cars and trucks will be on display. An extensive antique show, musical entertainment, carnival rides and other family-oriented entertainment are expected to draw between 35,000 and 40,000 people.

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