Editing Old Westbury, New York (section)

== History ==
[[File:Vanderbilt Cup, 1906, Old Westbury "hairpin turn".jpeg|thumb|left|1906 [[Vanderbilt Cup]] [[hairpin turn]] in Old Westbury]]

Westbury was founded by Edmond Titus,<ref>[https://archive.org/stream/titusfamilyiname00titurich#page/2/mode/2up Titus Family in America-Page 3]</ref><ref>{{Cite web|date=|title=Westbury|url=https://www.courant.com/topic/us/new-york/nassau-county/north-hempstead/westbury-PLGEO0000755NY.topic|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140714180809/https://www.courant.com/topic/us/new-york/nassau-county/north-hempstead/westbury-PLGEO0000755NY.topic|archive-date=July 14, 2014|access-date=July 27, 2021|website=Hartford Courant}}</ref> and was later joined by Henry Willis, one of the first English settlers.<ref name=":81">{{Cite book|last=Winsche|first=Richard|title=The History of Nassau County Community Place-Names|date=October 1, 1999|publisher=Empire State Books|isbn=978-1557871541|location=[[Interlaken, New York]]|pages=77–78}}</ref> 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 [[fox hunting|hunt foxes]] and play [[polo]] at the [[Meadow Brook Polo Club]].

The Village of Old Westbury was incorporated in 1924, separating itself from [[Westbury, New York|Westbury]], the adjacent area that housed many of the families of the construction and building staffs for the Old Westbury mansions.<ref name=":81" /><ref>{{cite web|title=Village History|url=http://www.villageofoldwestbury.org/about-us/village-history/|access-date=July 14, 2012|work=Village of Old Westbury}}</ref> The "Old" part of Old Westbury's name reflects the community's need for its postal address to be different from the [[Westbury, Cayuga County, New York|Westbury]] in [[Cayuga County, New York|Cayuga County]], as per postal requirements (it had been using a postal address of North Hempstead for this reason); residents did this when they wanted a local post office ca. 1841, and when they incorporated Old Westbury as a village, they felt that it would be confusing for the village name and post office name to be different from one another.<ref name=":81" /> The Village of Westbury, located adjacent to Old Westbury, adopted that designation when it incorporated in 1932 as Cayuga County's Westbury's name was no longer being used.<ref name=":81" />

The area was originally known as Wallage, which is related to a [[Native Americans in the United States|Native American]] term roughly meaning "ditch" or "hole."<ref name=":81" /> By February 1663, it was known as Wood Edge, and by October 1675 it was known as "the Plains edge" or simply Plainedge.<ref name=":81" /> The name Westbury began to be used for the area around 1683. The name Westbury was chosen by Henry Willis, who named it after [[Westbury, Wiltshire]], his hometown in England.<ref name=":81" />

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 Whitney|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 (architect)|Thomas Hastings]] built a modest house for himself, 'Bagatelle', in 1908. [[Anson Conger Goodyear|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.<ref name="nris">{{NRISref|2009a}}</ref> The estate of Robert Winthrop, an investment banker 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 [[John LeBoutillier|LeBoutillier]].

During [[World War II]], a 187-foot-high tower at the present-day Old Westbury Golf & Country Club, aided the military during World War II as a lookout to spot enemy aircraft.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |title=About Us - Old Westbury Golf and Country Club |url=https://www.owgolf.com/about-us |access-date=December 18, 2023 |website=www.owgolf.com}}</ref> Originally built as the water tower for the Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney Residence, it now serves as the club's focal point.<ref name=":1" /><ref>{{Cite book |last=Hicks Nurseries (Westbury |first=Nassau County |url=http://archive.org/details/CAT31293926 |title=Illustrated price list : spring, 1913 |last2=Hicks |first2=Edward |last3=Hicks |first3=Henry |last4=Henry G. Gilbert Nursery and Seed Trade Catalog Collection |date=1913 |publisher=Westbury, Nassau Co., N.Y. : Isaac Hicks & Son |others=National Agricultural Library U. S. Department of Agriculture}}</ref>

When [[Robert Moses]] was planning the Northern State Parkway, the powers of Old Westbury forced him to re-site it five miles (8&nbsp;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. In the 1950s, the state purchased land from [[Charles Erwin Wilson|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 the [[Long Island Expressway]].