Old Westbury, New York

Old Westbury, New York
—  Village  —
U.S. Census Map
Old Westbury, New York Location within the state of New York
Coordinates: 40°46′55″N 73°35′50″W / 40.78194°N 73.59722°W / 40.78194; -73.59722Coordinates: 40°46′55″N 73°35′50″W / 40.78194°N 73.59722°W / 40.78194; -73.59722
Country	United States
State	New York
County	Nassau
Area
- Total	8.6 sq mi (22.2 km2)
- Land	8.6 sq mi (22.2 km2)
- Water	0.0 sq mi (0.0 km2)
Elevation	164 ft (50 m)
Population (2010)
- Total	4,671
Time zone	Eastern (EST) (UTC-5)
- Summer (DST)	EDT (UTC-4)
ZIP code	11568
Area code(s)	516
FIPS code	36-54705
GNIS feature ID	0959332

Old Westbury is a village in Nassau County, New York on the North Shore of Long Island. As of the 2010 United States Census, the village population was 4,671.

The Village of Old Westbury is located in both the Town of Oyster Bay and the Town of North Hempstead.

Business Week dubbed Old Westbury New York's most expensive suburb.^[1] Old Westbury Gardens has been recognized as one of the three best public gardens in the world.^[2] by Four Seasons magazine

Geography

Old Westbury is located at 40°46′55″N 73°35′50″W / 40.78194°N 73.59722°W / 40.78194; -73.59722 (40.782038, -73.597236).^[3]

According to the United States Census Bureau, the village has a total area of 8.6 square miles (22 km²), all of it land.

Demographics

Ranked #10 for most expensive zip codes In the United States. As of the census^[4] of 2000, there were 4,228 people, 1,063 households, and 967 families residing in the village. The population density was 493.9 people per square mile (190.7/km²). There were 1,109 housing units at an average density of 129.5 per square mile (50.0/km²). The racial makeup of the village was 68.19% White, 14.24% African American, 0.02% Native American, 11.52% Asian, 3.67% from other races, and 2.37% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 7.14% of the population.

There were 1,063 households out of which 43.2% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 82.2% were married couples living together, 5.9% had a female householder with no husband present, and 9.0% were non-families. 5.6% of all households were made up of individuals and 2.9% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 3.33 and the average family size was 3.37.

In the village the population was spread out with 22.7% under the age of 18, 20.2% from 18 to 24, 19.9% from 25 to 44, 25.7% from 45 to 64, and 11.6% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 35 years. For every 100 females there were 86.7 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 84.6 males.

The median income for a household in the village was $163,046, and the median income in the village was $184,298 for a family. The median earnings of the 899 households (89.6% of total households) in the village that took in earnings supplemental to income was $230,721. Males had a median income of $100,000+ versus $45,200 for females. The per capita income for the village was $72,932. About 1.1% of families and 3.5% of the population were below the poverty line, including 1.5% of those under age 18 and 3.3% of those age 65 or over.

History

Westbury was founded by Edmond Titus,^[5][6] and was later joined by Henry Willis. Henry Willis, one of the first English settlers, named the area after a town in his home county of Wiltshire, England. Westbury had been a Quaker community of isolated farms until the railroad came in 1836; after the Civil War, the New York elite discovered that the rich, well wooded flat countryside of the Hempstead Plains was a place to raise horses, and to hunt foxes and play polo at the Meadow Brook Club. They bought entire farms and built grand houses, somewhat separated from the Gold Coast mansions along Long Island's North Shore. 'Westbury House', was the residence of Henry Phipps' eldest son, John Shaffer Phipps. Today, the property is operated as Old Westbury Gardens. Robert Low Bacon built 'Old Acres' in the style of an Italian villa.

Other landowners were Thomas Hitchcock and his family, Harry Payne Whitney and his wife the former Gertrude Vanderbilt, founder of New York's Whitney Museum, at Apple Green (formerly a Mott house), Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney, whose estate is now subdivided into the Old Westbury Country Club and New York Institute of Technology. The architect Thomas Hastings built a modest house for himself, 'Bagatelle', in 1908. A. Conger Goodyear, then president of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City had a house built in 1938 by famed architect Edward Durell Stone, who also destined the building for Conger's museum. In 2003, the A. Conger Goodyear House was added to the National Register of Historic Places to protect the structure from being demolished to subdivide the expensive land surrounding it.^[7] The estate of Robert Winthrop, an investment bank and member of the Dudley–Winthrop family, for whom Winthrop-University Hospital was named, has been similarly preserved. Part of Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney's estate and her sculpture studio has been preserved and maintained by one of her grandchildren, Pamela Tower LeBoutillier, who currently resides there.

When Robert Moses was planning the Northern State Parkway, the powers of Old Westbury forced him to re-site it five miles (8 km) to the south. Once the parkway was completed, many residents found it to not be the eyesore they had been anticipating and regretted making their commutes more inconvenient than necessary. The residents, however, did not have to wait very long: The state was able to buy land from Charles E. Wilson, a former president of General Motors who needed to sell off his Old Westbury estate to pull himself out of financial crisis and relocate to the nation's capital to serve in President Dwight D. Eisenhower's cabinet. The land, which runs along an edge of the village, was used for Moses' next project, the Long Island Expressway.

Notable sites

• Meadowbrook Polo Club - the birthplace of American polo; longest running polo club in the United States
• Old Westbury Gardens - a public English style garden

Education

• Holy Child Academy - A private catholic day school, grades K through 8.
• New York Institute of Technology - A private undergraduate and graduate university.
• SUNY Old Westbury - A public, four-year liberal arts college.
• The Wheatley School - A public high school

Notable residents: past and present

• Carol Alt, supermodel, television personality
• Frank X. Altimari, judge
• Artful, champion thoroughbred horse
• Ashanti, musician^[8]
• Jerome Ash, owner of Sam Ash music stores
• Robert Low Bacon, banker and congressman
• Alva Belmont, socialite, woman's suffragist
• Oliver Belmont, son of August Belmont
• John G. Blowers, Jr., musician, closely associated with Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, and Billie Holiday among others, philanthropist, Humble Oil heir
• Bold Reason, champion thoroughbred horse
• George Herbert Bostwick, US Tennis player, jockey, trainer
• Pete Bostwick, standard oil heir, tennis champion
• David H. Brooks, founder of DHB Industries (largest military armor supplier)
• Buckpasser. champion thoroughbred horse
• Carl Andrew Capasso, NYC contractor involved in bribery and tax evasion scandal
• Michael Cimino, film writer and director
• F. Ambrose Clark, equestrian, heir to Singer Sewing Machine Co.
• Eliot Cross, architect and owner of Cross and Cross
• Herman Duryea, thoroughbred race horse owner and breeder
• Herman Edwards, Kansas City Chiefs coach
• Robert Entenmann, Entenmann's heir, thoroughbred horse owner
• William Entenmann, founder of Entenmann's bakery products
• Victoria Gotti, daughter of John Gotti, reality television star, author
• C. Z. Guest, socialite, Truman Capote swan, celebrity gardener, author^[9]
• Cornelia Guest, socialite, crowned "Deb of the Decade" by Andy Warhol (1980s), author^[10]
• Thomas Hastings, architect
• Floyd H. Flake, member of U.S. House of Representatives
• Leila Hadley, socialite, author
• Frederick Hicks, congressman, diplomat
• Thomas Hitchcock, polo champion
• A. Conger Goodyear, founder, first president of the Museum of Modern Art (NYC)
• Edward Francis Hutton, financier and co-founder of E. F. Hutton & Co.
• Matthew Ianniello, restaurateur
• Foxhall Keene, champion automobile racer, polo player, thoroughbred horse breeder and purported original namesake for "Chicken à la King"
• Ed Kranepool, New York Mets first baseman
• Nicole Krauss, author, wife of Jonathan Safran Foer
• James Lanier, entrepreneur, banker, founder of Winslow, Lanier & Co., owner of Lanier Mansion
• John LeBoutillier, U.S. congressman
• James Brown Lord, architect
• Peter Madoff, brother of Bernie Madoff
• Marvin Middlemark, inventor of/patent-holder for the "rabbit ears" television antenna
• Bess Myerson, Miss America (1945)
• Nas, rapper^[11]
• Angel Penna, Sr., thoroughbred horse trainer
• Murray Pergament, founder of Pergament Home Centers
• John Shaffer Phipps, director of U.S. Steel and W. R. Grace & Co.
• Lillian Bostwick Phipps, socialite, thoroughbred horse stable owner
• Ogden Phipps, Carnegie Steel heir, tennis champion, philanthropist
• Leonard Pines, owner of Hebrew National
• Lilly Pulitzer, designer, socialite
• Christopher Randolph, President of the Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation
• Steven Schonfeld, American billionaire, ranked 371 on Forbes 400
• John Shalam, founder and CEO of Audiovox
• Igor Sikorsky, airplane developer and first major producer of helicopters
• David Simon, CEO of Simon Property Group
• Howard Stern, entertainer
• Beatrice Straight, member of Whitney family, actress
• Willard Dickerman Straight, banker, diplomat, co-founder of The New Republic magazine
• Seabury Tredwell, future owner of what is now the Merchant's House Museum in Manhattan
• Gloria Vanderbilt, Vanderbilt family heiress, clothing and perfume designer
• Francis Skiddy von Stade, Sr., polo champion, Saratoga Race Course president
• Electra Havemeyer Webb, collector, philanthropist, founder of the Shelburne Museum
• Isaac Underhill Willets, prominent Quaker landowner
• William Collins Whitney, founder of the Whitney family, financier, U.S. Cabinet member, thoroughbred stable owner
• Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney, Vanderbilt family and Whitney family heir, financier, philanthropist
• Dorothy Payne Whitney, Whitney family heiress, co-founder of The New Republic magazine and the Dartington School
• Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, Vanderbilt family heiress, founder of the Whitney Museum of American Art
• Harry Payne Whitney, member of Whitney family, thoroughbred horse breeder
• Marylou Whitney, socialite, philanthropist, thoroughbred stable owner
• Charles E. Wilson, president of General Motors, U.S. Cabinet member
• Robert Winthrop, member of the Dudley–Winthrop family, banker, philanthropist (Winthrop University hospital)
• Louis Wolfson, financier, thoroughbred horse owner
• Raphael Yakoby, creator of Hpnotiq
• Alexei Yashin, professional hockey player, New York Islanders

Entertainment

Film

• 8mm (1999), starring Nicolas Cage: the home of the wealthy widow, Mrs. Carter
• The Age of Innocence (1993), starring Daniel Day-Lewis: the scenes depicting May Welland (Winona Ryder)'s Floridian mansion were actually shot in Old Westbury
• American Gangster (2007), starring Denzel Washington: Dominic Cattano's house
• Arthur (1981): the mansion that Arthur (Dudley Moore) lives in
• The Associate (1996): Whoopi Goldberg's character Ayers attends an Old Westbury house party dressed as Cutty (a man) for the first time
• Bernard and Doris (2008): the Phipps' estate used for the Doris Duke (played by Susan Sarandon) mansion in Newport, Rhode Island
• Captain Valedor (2006): filmed in an Old Westbury home and backyard
• Cruel Intentions (1999): the home of Kathryn (Sarah Michelle Gellar) and Sebastian's (Ryan Phillippe's) Aunt Helen on Long Island, where Annette (Reese Witherspoon) is living
• The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001) by Woody Allen: scenes shot at Old Westbury gardens and mansion
• From the Terrace (1960), starring Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward
• He Got Game (1998) by Spike Lee, starring Denzel Washington: scenes filmed in an Old Westbury home's indoor basketball court
• Hitch (2005), starring Will Smith and Eva Mendes: Allegra Cole's
• Just Tell Me What You Want (1980) by Sidney Lumet
• Love Story (1970), starring Ali MacGraw and Ryan O'Neal: the home of Oliver's wealthy father
• Lovesick (1983), starring Dudley Moore, Elizabeth McGovern, and Alec Guinness
• The Manchurian Candidate (2004): the Phipps' estate used for the home of Eleanor Shaw (played by Meryl Streep)
• North by Northwest (1959) by Alfred Hitchcock: Townsend’s home, where Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) is taken after being kidnapped
• Oliver's Story (1978), sequel to Love Story, starring Ryan O'Neal and Candice Bergen
• Reversal of Fortune (1990), starring Glenn Close and Jeremy Irons: the Knole estate used for interiors of the Sunny von Bülow mansion
• The Swimmer (1968), starring Burt Lancaster
• To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar (1995), starring Wesley Snipes and Patrick Swayze: film's final scene
• Wolf (1994): the country home of Laura (Michelle Pfeiffer) where Jack Nicholson's character first becomes a wolf, which appears on the DVD cover

Television

• Gossip Girl: Season two's nineteenth episode, "The Grandfather," originally airing March 23, 2009, featured an Old Westbury estate as the "van der Bilt" mansion
• Growing Up Gotti: A&E Network reality series about life in Victoria Gotti's Old Westbury home.
• Royal Pains: Season one's third episode, "Strategic Planning," originally airing June 18, 2009, features the Phipps estate as the home of a wealthy senator and used the lawn as a University of Notre Dame Fighting Irish practice field
• Sex and the City: Season five's finale episode, "I Love a Charade," originally airing September 8, 2002, featured an Old Westbury home in place of an estate in the Hamptons

References

1. ^ Businesss Week, "The Most Expensive Suburbs of the Biggest U.S. Cities, New York City: Old Westbury"
2. ^ Four Seasons' Magazine, "Where is the World's Best Public Garden?" Old Westbury Gardens, Royal Horticultural Society Garden Wisley and Singapore's National Orchard Garden are named as the three best public gardens in the world
3. ^ "US Gazetteer files: 2010, 2000, and 1990". United States Census Bureau. 2011-02-12. http://www.census.gov/geo/www/gazetteer/gazette.html. Retrieved 2011-04-23. 
4. ^ "American FactFinder". United States Census Bureau. http://factfinder.census.gov. Retrieved 2008-01-31. 
5. ^ Titus Family in America-Page 3
6. ^ Hartford Courant
7. ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. 2009-03-13. http://nrhp.focus.nps.gov/natreg/docs/All_Data.html. 
8. ^ http://cityfile.com/profiles/ashanti
9. ^ http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/bestdressed/bestdressed_women?currentPage=2
10. ^ http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/19/magazine/to-the-manor-born.html
11. ^ Bryan, Carmen, It's No Secret: From Nas to Jay-Z, from seduction to scandal, a hip-hop Helen of Troy tells all. New York: VH1 Books, 2006. p 208.

External links

• Pictures of Old Westbury's Historic Estates
• Old Westbury Hebrew Congregation
• Newsday: Westbury Children's Library^{[dead link]}
• Newsday: Even They Couldn't Stop the LIE^{[dead link]}
• NYT: LIVING IN/Old Westbury, L.I.; Preserving Open Space, Evoking an Opulent Past
• NYT: A House That's a Bargain for $16 Million?
• The High End: Indoor Pools, and Racquetball Courts