Ever wonder what the neighborhood looked like before most homes in the area were built? Stop into the Glenwood Post Office this fall during regular business hours to find out. Beginning in November 2012, the Glenwood Post Office will feature the exhibit Historic Glenwood Landing and Glen Head: Selections from the Gold Coast Library Local History Collection.
The exhibit features some 20 prints from the library’s recently established local history collection, including several items from the Griffin Collection. Nearly all postcards dating to the late 19th and early 20th century, the Griffin Collection is a group of digitized images generously donated to the library by collectors Warren and Carol Griffin of Sea Cliff.
Several prints in the exhibit focus on the Glenwood Landing Waterfront. They show the dock at the western end of Glenwood Road where steamboats regularly picked up and dropped off passengers; boat yards where vessels that would one day become national landmarks were built; and Glenwood’s three popular 19th-century hotels: Karatsonyi and Kmetz, Hahn’s, and Ayers.
There also are two views of the Glenwood Post Office itself. One print appears to show the large pond that once was located at the site of the current post office. Other prints feature the Glen Head Rail Road Station and the entrance to North Shore Acres around the time of subdivision.
Three national landmarks also are highlighted: the Stone House in Roslyn Harbor, once owned by department store magnate Benjamin Stern, and two sloops built in Glenwood Landing: the Christeen, now sailing out of the Waterfront Center in Oyster Bay, and the Stephen Taber, now sailing as a windjammer out of Rockland, Maine.
The exhibit was organized by the Friends of the Gold Coast Library and the Glenwood / Glen Head Civic Association in appreciation of the library and in cooperation with the Glenwood Post Office. Digitized images of the prints in the exhibit, and many more historic images of Glen Head, Glenwood, and environs, can be viewed online at www.nyheritage.org.