Garden City is a village in the Town of Hempstead in central Nassau County, New York, in the United States. It was founded by multi-millionaire Alexander Turney Stewart in 1869, and is located on Long Island, to the east of New York City, 18.5 miles (29.8 km) from mid-town Manhattan, and just south of the Town of North Hempstead. As of the 2000 census, the population of the incorporated village was 21,672. The village is a upper class, predominantly white, Roman Catholic and Protestant community. Many families can trace their heritage to Italian and Irish immigrants who moved to Long Island from New York City. The Garden City name is also applied to unincorporated areas in the region such as Garden City South, Garden City Park and East Garden City. Roosevelt Field, the current shopping center and former airfield from which Charles Lindbergh took off on his landmark 1927 flight, is located in East Garden City.