We want to issue a correction and an apology.
The apology is for making this correction a little late—actually, a lot late as in 99 years after the story was published. But the truth matters, especially at a time of so much disinformation and misinformation.
In 1926, the Great Neck News reported that West Egg in “The Great Gatsby” was not Great Neck, writing “West Egg Not Us.”
This is not true.
F. Scott Fitzgerald lived with his wife Zelda in the Great Neck Estates section of Great Neck in 1923 and 1924 while he was writing The Great Gatsby, which drew directly from the area’s wealthy social scene. He finished the novel in 1925 in France, the year it was published.
Scholars and literary critics now widely acknowledge the parallels between the fictional settings in “The Great Gatsby” and the real communities of Great Neck and Sands Point.
During this period, Great Neck was home to many newly wealthy individuals, including celebrities like writer Ring Lardner, actor Lew Fields, and comedian Ed Wynn. This community of “new money” residents is reflected in the novel’s depiction of West Egg as the home of the self-made millionaire Jay Gatsby.
Its counterpart, East Egg, is believed to be modeled after Sands Point, located on the neighboring peninsula. Sands Point was known for its established wealth and old-money families, mirroring the aristocratic setting of East Egg in the novel, where characters like Tom and Daisy Buchanan reside.
The unnamed author of the story that appeared in the Great Neck News 99 years ago said several New York critics were “trying to pin” West Egg on Great Neck.
“They’re simply guessing,” the author said.
Writing about a theatrical production of the book presented in a Great Neck playhouse, the author took particular umbrage with Fitzgerald’s depiction of “the night revelry on Gatsby’s estate,” which he or she called “exaggerated.”
The Great Neck News author went on to say Fitzerald’s account was written “so as to be interesting” and was a flawed depiction of the “post-war manners of Great Neck” that presented a “gaudy West Egg, Long Island.”
We suspect the Great Neck News author was trying to defend the reputation of his or her hometown despite its obvious connection to the play and novel.
This is clearly not an issue in 2025 as Great Neck and communities across Nassau County celebrate a novel considered one of the masterpieces of American literature with themes still relevant today – 100 years after it was written.
The divide between West Egg and East Egg is reflected in the novel in the real-life cultural and class tension between the self-made rich and the inherited wealth on Long Island’s North Shore at the time.
Like great literature, this tension between the newly rich and long-established wealth continues to this day.
But this is not the only parallel reflected by Fitzgerald in “The Great Gatsby” or the 1920s.
Fitzgerald touches upon the income inequality of the 1920s with Gatsby’s romantic connection to a woman in Queens. In 1920, income inequality was at one of the highest points in American history—only to be eclipsed by the income equality that has roiled politics in present-day America.
One of the novel’s central themes—the destructive entitlement of the wealthy and their ability to escape consequences—also has modern-day parallels as Nick Carraway, the book’s narrator, speaks about Tom and Daisy Buchanan.
“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy — they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made,” Carraway says.
Like now, immigration was also a major issue with the passage of the Immigration Act of 1924, which established national quotas for the first time. It was based on the 1890 U.S. Census and excluded newer groups like Italians, Greeks, and Jews from Southern and Eastern Europe.
Drugs were also a major issue in Fitzgerald’s time. In his case, the drug was alcohol, whose manufacture, sale and transportation were banned by Prohibition starting in January 1920 with the passage of the 18th Amendment and ending in December 1933. This was a subtext of Gatsby’s wild parties where alcohol flowed freely.
The tariffs just imposed by President Trump also parallel and actually exceed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, which President Herbert Hoover signed into law on June 17, 1930.
Smoot-Hawley significantly raised U.S. tariffs on over 20,000 imported goods, aiming to protect American industries during the early stages of the Great Depression. It led to international retaliation and is widely believed to have worsened the global economic downturn.
We are not in a Great Depression now, but many believe that Trump’s tariffs could lead to an international recession. We hope not.
We also hope that we do not suffer the fate described by Fitzgerald in the last paragraph of “The Great Gatsby,” one of the most famous closing passages in American literature.
It speaks to hope, the pursuit of dreams, and the inescapable pull of the past.
“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” Fitzgerald wrote.
We don’t believe the 1930s will be repeated, as Fitzgerald implies. But we must acknowledge that we have been wrong before.
