Glen Cove Through the Lens

If Glen Covers want to learn more about the city's history, they now have a new resource to access.  

Resident Joan Harrison recently published "Glen Cove Revisited," a book that discusses the rich history of the city through pictures. Harrison's book contains 200 photos and some text that depicts the city from the 1830s to the present. 

Harrison has been compiling information for the book, which is a follow up to her first book "Glen Cove," for the past two years. The new book covers topics such as the city's waterfront and its old hotels. 

"People were [asking] for more after the first book," said Harrison, who has been a resident of the city for more than 30 years.

Harrison, a professor of art and photography at the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University in Brookville, has been a photographer most of her life. She began taking photographs of the city after the September 11 attacks.

"I was taking photographs of people's front and backyard shrines," she recalled. "Then I started taking photos of the beautiful things that I passed everyday. I photographed different places in Glen Cove."

Her collection is entitled, What We See Where We Live, and is currently stored in the Glen Cove Public Library's history room.

"After taking those photos, I began to wonder what was there in earlier times," Harrison explained. "I began to do research on the history of Glen Cove."

Harrison said she searched for a pictorial book of the city, but there was not one printed. She contacted Arcadia Publishing company proposing to create a photo book that illustrates the history of the city and was offered a book contract in just two weeks.

Some photos Harrison collected are from the library's history room. When those photos proved not to be enough, Harrison said,  she contacted families that helped to shape the city and visited their homes to scan family photos. She collected photos from the Pratt family, who owned big estates in the city, and photos from  JP Morgan's grandson, Paul Pennoyer.

"The Morgan family had a huge influence on the city," Harrison said. "Morgan Park was named [after] JP Morgan's wife, Jane Norton Morgan. JP Morgan bought up a huge piece of land, leveled the buildings and made Morgan Park."

And although Harrison loves all the photos in the book, she added that there were several great ones that didn't make the cut.

"There's a photo of the House of Elsinore, which was one of the first great Gold Coast Estates. The house was torn down between 1914 and 1930," she said. "It was an amazing huge Victorian Mansion. There's a photo of it in the British Architectural Library because the architect, Jacob Wrey Mould, was British. I haven't been able to get the photo because they want a huge amount of money for it."

"Glen Cove Revisited" is currently on sale at Henry's Confectionary on Glen Street and Landing Bakery on Landing Road.