The Great Gatsby: locations

Where everyone is, scene by scene

New York and Long Island

• West EggScene

  Fictional Long Island community associated with new wealth. Nick rents a cottage beside Gatsby’s mansion, where extravagant parties take place. Commonly associated with Great Neck, but not an actual place of that name.

• East EggScene

  Fictional Long Island community associated with inherited wealth. Tom and Daisy Buchanan live here; their house is the setting for dinners, reunions and the aftermath of Myrtle’s death. Commonly associated with Sands Point.

• Valley of AshesScene

  Fictional industrial wasteland between the Eggs and Manhattan, containing Wilson’s garage and the billboard of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg. Myrtle is killed on the road here. It draws on the historical Corona ash dumps in Queens, but its precise fictional boundaries are unspecified.

• New York CityScene

  The principal urban setting, contrasting with the Long Island estates. Nick works here, and the characters visit its restaurants, hotels and private apartments.

• ManhattanScene

  The borough where Tom maintains an apartment for his affair with Myrtle and where several lunches, meetings and excursions take place. The apartment party exposes Tom’s brutality.

• Plaza HotelScene

  Real Manhattan hotel where Gatsby confronts Tom over Daisy during the sweltering afternoon that brings their rivalry to a crisis.

• Pennsylvania StationScene

  Nick and Tom leave their train here during the excursion with Myrtle that leads to shopping and the apartment party. The original station occupied the site of the present Penn Station.

• Queensboro BridgeScene

  Nick and Gatsby cross this real bridge on their drive into Manhattan. The crossing prompts Nick’s reflections on the city’s promise and extraordinary possibilities.

• Fifth AvenueScene

  Real Manhattan avenue along which Nick walks during his evenings in the city, imagining the lives of strangers and feeling its metropolitan excitement.

• Long Island SoundScene

  Real body of water associated with the shoreline setting of the Eggs and Gatsby’s parties. Its waters help frame the novel’s imagery of distance, desire and separation.

• Blackwell’s IslandMentioned

  Referenced during the drive across the Queensboro Bridge. This is the historical name of present-day Roosevelt Island in the East River.

• FlushingMentioned

  Referenced as the destination of Michaelis’s journey while Wilson is left alone before leaving to find Gatsby. It is a real district of Queens.