'Jeopardy!' clueless about location of Nassau County's Museum Row

Here's the clue: It's the Long Island hamlet that's home to Nassau County's Museum Row, along with NYCB Live's Nassau Coliseum, Hofstra University and Nassau Community College.

The answer: Uniondale.

But as is often the case with Long Island geography and demographics, it's not quite that simple.

On the June 3 broadcast of "Jeopardy!," the three contestants were asked a question that likely piqued the interests of many Long Islanders.

The question read: “Type of institution that has a ‘row’ in Garden City on Long Island, including one about firefighting and a children’s one.”

The answer, which none of the contestants successfully guessed, was “museum.”

But for local lawmakers and advocates who fought for decades to have a three-mile stretch of central Nassau designated as Uniondale — and not the more affluent East Garden City --- the clue was a frustrating whitewashing effort and a reminder of the tricky socio-economic issues surrounding community branding.

Legis. Siela Bynoe (D-Westbury), whose district includes part of Uniondale, wrote Wednesday to "Jeopardy!" executive producer Michael Davies regarding the erroneous clue. She contends developers have purposely mislabeled parts of Uniondale, which is comprised largely of minorities, as “East Garden City."

"I believe there was an honest error on the behalf of the show, or not doing enough research to determine that it was already a controversial issue regarding the naming of that area," Bynoe said in an interview. "But the real issue lies on the shoulders of those who, over the years, have worked to create a matter of narrative that there is such a thing as East Garden City."

A "Jeopardy!" spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment on Thursday.

The Town of Hempstead has references to East Garden City dating back decades, and historians note that the federal government purchased the land around Mitchel Field from the Garden City Company in 1917.

East Garden City was designated a census tract in the 1970s but was literally wiped off the maps during the 2020 census following intense lobbying from area elected officials.

Hempstead Town officials passed a resolution in 2015 rejecting East Garden City and reaffirming the community is part of Uniondale.

Nonetheless, the confusion lives on.

The Long Island Children's Museum, Cradle of Aviation and Nassau County Firefighter's Museum, which comprise Museum Row, still list their addresses online as Garden City, as do several other businesses in the area, including Roosevelt Field mall.

"It still boils down to the continued fight for our identity," said Pearl Jacobs, president of the Uniondale Nostrand Gardens Civic Association, who joined other civic leaders last month at a Museum Row rally in a renewed effort to erase the East Garden City designation. "It still boils down to the branding of our community. And it's just blatant disrespect."

With John Asbury

By Robert Brodsky

robert.brodsky@newsday.com@BrodskyRobert

Robert Brodsky is a breaking news reporter who has worked at Newsday since 2011. He is a Queens College and American University alum.