The litter in littérateur. Ricky Opaterny on Books, Music, Art, and Sports

The eight F. Scott Fitzgerald Conference begins tomorrow at Hofstra University in New York. As a huge Fitzgerald fan, I wish I could be there. The focus this year is on Fitzgerald’s time out on Long Island, where he conceived and wrote much of The Great Gatsby. (Because of the conference’s location and subject, it even got some nice coverage in the Times.) Fitzgerald lived at 6 Gateway Drive in Great Neck—a house that became the model for Nick Carraway’s West Egg bungalow in Gatsby. I visited New York for the first time when I was 17 and this was the one place that I had to check out. So, I took the LIRR out to Great Neck, and walked out to the house. At the time it was undergoing some rather extensive remodeling. Last May before I moved out of New York, I made it a point to go out to Great Neck again to see the house. Here is how it looked in 2004: