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What follows is a description of Great Neck, as published in the
The Book of Great Neck (1) in
1936. Note the tone of the piece; Arthur Rausch doesn't take himself too
seriously, making this a great read, even if it does sound a bit too much
like advertising-copy. Now, you can decide how well Rausch's description
still holds true today. -SMF
A Look Ahead
with
Arthur F. Rausch
[...] We can start by saying that Great Neck is a very desirable place to
live. No, that is much too modest. Let us say, Great Neck is one of the
most desirable residential communities in the metropolitan area of New
York. No, that is still not right. It sounds too much like a near-by
community which claims to be "the smartest community in the East." (2) If it is that, we will have to find
more effective words to convey the idea of what we are. Maybe we had
better get at it in another way. Where is there any other community which
has what we have? An elevation, in some places, sufficiently high to see
both the skyline of New York and the Atlantic Ocean; a climate which makes
for perfect living; access to the water on three sides; golf courses,
yacht clubs, tennis courts and polo fields practically in our back yards;
bathing beaches, the finest ever, providing either surf or still water
bathing within a short auto ride over parkways which for beauty and
useability cannot be surpassed; a community made up entirely of
incorporated villages, each wisely and properly governed by owner resident
officials who make sure that nothing can be built that is not
architecturally right or that does not conform to restrictions set down,
maintained, defended and protected by every resident; a community made up
of residents who have come from all over the world because they were
successful and could afford the good things to be had and were smart
enough to know good things when they saw them,--professional men,
merchants, manufacturers, artists, bankers and a variety of others and
their wives and families, all big minded and intelligent--in other words
the best of good neighbors.
Now I ask, where is there any other community that offers all of these
advantages and the answer just naturally comes, "nowhere." So we can start
with the fact that we have the finest residential community in the world.
Editor's Footnotes
1. The Book of Great Neck. Devah and Gil Spear,
editors. Great Neck, New York: self-published, 1936. pg 40-41
2. Note the rivalry with Port Washington, even at this
date. This same rivalry is evident in Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby of ten years earlier and its
Great Neck / Port Washington juxtaposition.
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