Fitzgerald attended parties on Long Island’s North Shore that helped inspire The Great Gatsby.
In 1922 and 1923, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda lived in Great Neck, on Long Island’s affluent North Shore. Fitzgerald encountered the region’s wealthy social world firsthand, including lavish gatherings associated with figures such as journalist Herbert Bayard Swope and writer Ring Lardner. These experiences helped shape the novel’s party culture and social atmosphere.
The book transforms real geography into fiction. Great Neck and nearby communities are commonly connected with West Egg, while the old-money estates around Sands Point and Manhasset Bay helped suggest East Egg. The novel’s locations are not exact maps, however; Fitzgerald blended several people, houses, parties, and impressions into a fictional landscape.
A common mix-up is the South Shore, which is also part of Long Island but was not the setting generally associated with Fitzgerald’s Gatsby-inspired parties. The North Shore’s Gold Coast is the canonical answer.