The Village of Garden City has won the 2001 American Public Works Association Award for its Franklin Avenue project, which beautified the village's now bustling downtown area from Sixth Street to Eleventh Street, with new curbs, sidewalks, gutters, lampposts, plantings, bus shelters and more.

Robert Mangan, the village's director of Public Works, said each year the association's metropolitan chapter, which encompasses southeastern New York, including Rockland and Westchester counties, and all of Long Island, selects a project of the year and Garden City's Franklin Avenue streetscape project was chosen for 2001.

The streetscape work renewed the village's downtown area and further complemented the upscale stores that choose to do business along the avenue. The project site, being the first planned community in the United States, influenced designers. Once dubbed the Fifth Avenue of Long Island, they said it influenced their design to the extent that they were sympathetic to the historic character of the streetscape buildings and neighborhood.

By incorporating a gazebo near Gross Jewelers, a fountain by CVS and trees, shrubs and a sitting area near the intersection of Franklin and Stewart Avenues, the area became a friendly and elegant place for residents, shoppers and area businesspeople to socialize.

Village officials wanted the avenue's design to create a sense of visual unity between the different businesses along Franklin Avenue. By using raised planters, flowering trees and planters for flowering vines over the alleyways, the buildings which have such varying designs are tied together and the empty spaces, which can create a bleak and exposed feeling, were softened with plants.

With input from the Chamber of Commerce, Historical Society, Business Planning Coalition, POA's and other village and county agencies, designers, in regard to the avenue's landscaping, created a sense of protection from traffic on Franklin Avenue and an element of privacy for the various alfresco dining areas. The green-colored lampposts have been installed, along with light bollards and new bus shelters, set further back on the sidewalk to make them more handicapped accessible.

The Franklin Avenue project, which Mangan said is now coming to a close after last minute maintenance and replanting is completed, took about a year and three months to accomplish. It followed the Seventh Street streetscape done in 1987 and the New Hyde Park Road streetscape, which was completed in 1991. "We're very proud of the work we've done on Franklin Avenue," he said.