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Mjeacoma, the article is wrong on several accounts: the Village of Brookville is not the site of where the Great Gatsby lived (that would be the Village of Great Neck estates) nor is it small (relative to other North Shore villages).
For those who may not be familiar with Brookville:
Brookville is a village (incorporated in 1931) in the central part of the Town of Oyster Bay, in the north-central part of Nassau County, along the Oyster Bay/North Hempstead town line.
Beginning on the north and moving in a clockwise direction, the Village of Brookville in the Town of Oyster Bay is bordered on the north by the Village of Old Brookville, the Village of Upper Brookville and the Village of Muttontown; on the east by the Village of Muttontown; on the south by the Hamlet of Jericho and the Village of Old Westbury; and, on the west by the Village of Old Westbury and the Village of East Hills in the Town of North Hempstead (the Oyster Bay/North Hempstead town line).
Brookville is one of those many villages and hamlets on Long Island where none of the places in the community have the village name in their mailing address: places in the Village of Brookville have a "Glen Head, NY 11545", "Greenvale, NY 11548" and "Jericho, NY 11753" mailing address.
For a good set of town-by-town maps showing all the villages and hamlets in each of LI's 13 towns (3 in Nassau County and 10 in Suffolk County): //www.city-data.com/forum/long-...-resource.html
Mjeacoma, the article is wrong on several accounts: the Village of Brookville is not the site of where the Great Gatsby lived (that would be the Village of Great Neck estates) nor is it small (relative to other North Shore villages).
The Great Gatsby lived on the fictional West Egg Peninsula, not-so-loosely based on the Great Neck Peninsula...however it couldn't have been Great Neck Estates because at one point in the book Nick Carraway describes standing at the shoreline of the Great Gatsby's mansion and staring across the bay at East Egg (not-so-loosely based on the Cow Neck Peninsula). Great Neck Estates is on the west side, you can only see across to Douglaston from there. Most likely it was simply based on the part of Great Neck that would become Kings Point, as Kings Point hadn't become a village when most of the book was written.
There's a significant number of geography errors in that book, though (I believe Nick's walk is geographically impossible). Of course when we read the book in HS, we all had fun with the local geography.
It could have been that Fitzgerald based the setting on GN Estates, but transposed it to the other side of the peninsula so Gatsby could look at East Egg. Fitzgerald rented a house in the Estates so it would make sense that he based the setting on it.
The Great Gatsby lived on the fictional West Egg Peninsula, not-so-loosely based on the Great Neck Peninsula...however it couldn't have been Great Neck Estates
You're correct SeanX4.
I was thinking of F. Scott Fitzgerald but typed Great Gatsby.
There's a significant number of geography errors in that book, though (I believe Nick's walk is geographically impossible). Of course when we read the book in HS, we all had fun with the local geography.
It could have been that Fitzgerald based the setting on GN Estates, but transposed it to the other side of the peninsula so Gatsby could look at East Egg. Fitzgerald rented a house in the Estates so it would make sense that he based the setting on it.
It's been so many years, I'd have to read it again....
I do remember the description of the "smoldering fields of ash" Jay Gatsby saw out the window from the train to Manhattan, which was supposedly a fairly accurate take on the LIRR Port Washington branch trestle over Flushing Bay and what the scenery in that area looked like at the time. The mechanic's garage was supposed to be on Northern Boulevard somewhere in Douglaston.
I wonder if I still have a copy of that book....I'd love to pull it out and see if I can find any other geographic similarities that eluded me when I was in high school.
We have entered an economic era, of Class Warfare, where, "if" we don't learn the lessons of the past, we will be forced to repeat them...to our detriment.
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