By Sophia Lian
John F. Remsen Harness Shop & Saddlery operated as a car agency and repair shop in the early 20th century, selling cars and providing auto repair services.
Business owners John Remsen and Samuel Hewlett erected the Roslyn Garage on Northern Boulevard as part of the harness and repair shop.
The 80 ft. x 60 ft. garage could store up to 35 cars and was filled with machinery. The business was an agent for popular automobile brands including Model T Fords, Hupmobiles, Chryslers, and even used cars, which it sold to estate owners from all over the North Shore, including Clarence Mackay and Joseph E. Davies.
John F. Remsen was not only the owner of John F. Remsen Harness Shop & Saddlery but also a member of the Roslyn School Board, founder of the Roslyn National Bank and Trust Company, and chairman of the Board of Commissioners in the Roslyn Water District.
Remsen started to gain business experience early in his career because of his father, John Burtis Remsen. Remsen assisted his father with opening a grocery store, J. B. Remsen and Son, before starting his own business.
Remsen & Hewlett Harness Shop & Saddlery was sold to a new owner a few decades after it opened.
Elwyn Benjamin, one of the first people to get a driver’s license in New York State, bought the building in 1926 after renting it for a few years. A handshake, rather than an official legal procedure, formalized the transaction.
In the same year, Benjamin bought the Old Village School adjacent to the garage and used it as a parking lot and storage area for the new automobile shop.
The livery stable at the rear of the store, which dates from Remsen’s ownership, was later destroyed by fire in the 1950s and 1960s.
Around the same period, the business experienced a shift in its customer demographics as an influx of city people moved into Roslyn.
More and more average-income residents could afford automobiles and needed them to move around town, becoming a major driver of business.
However, when Elwyn Benjamin’s son, Jack Benjamin, took over the automobile agency and repair shop, business started to decline due to the area’s growing car dealership market and the high interest rate on automobiles.
The space was later replaced by Fern’s Harness Shop Restaurant in the 1970s and then the Poco Loco restaurant until the building was damaged by a fire a decade ago.
To learn more about the history and for an inside look into the John F. Remsen Harness Shop & Saddlery, visit the Roslyn Landmark Society’s website at roslynlandmarks.org. You can also visit the Bryant Library’s Local History Collection at localhistory.bryantlibrary.org to explore more of Roslyn’s historical past.
Sophia Lian is a Roslyn Landmark Society 2024 Gardiner Young Scholars Program high school intern and part of the new “Young Historians” collaboration between the Roslyn Landmark Society and Schneps Media LI. Special thanks to the Bryant Library’s Local History Collection for providing research assistance.
