#90 - The Garden City Senior Center

Where can you find George Salem on a weekday afternoon? Salem and his friend, Rudy Kaiser, like to hang out at the Garden City Senior Center where they organize activities for the Garden City Retired Men’s Club. For an afternoon of relaxing the club's co-presidents and their buddies play poker, bridge and pool.

“Once a month we have a guest speaker and twice a month we have a luncheon of deli or ethnic food. We have about 100 dues-paying members and average attendance ranges from 40-60 persons. For speaker events we frequently invite senior village residents - both men and women,” Salem said.

Monday the club sponsored a big bash birthday for Howard Otte, who turned 102 years old. The center was filled with well-wishers eating birthday cake.

The senior center was dedicated in 1976 when Frank R. Liebert was mayor of Garden City. The architects were Edwards and Malone.

The center is located on Golf Club Lane at the corner of Eleventh Street, next to The Garden City Historical Society. It has many activities for senior residents age 60 and older. It consists of a game room with billiards, a large multi-purpose room for all meetings and activities and a kitchen. Outdoors, it has a covered patio and picnic benches with bocce and shuffleboard courts. There is an outdoor chess board table and chairs, as well as horseshoes.

While Kaiser and Salem are involved with the Retired Men’s Club, other clubs also use the building. There is a Senior Women’s Club that uses the facility, as well as the Grandmother’s Club, various bridge groups, Senior Quilters, the Republican Club, the American Legion and its Women’s Auxiliary.

For more information, call the Garden City Recreation Department at 465-4075 or visit www.GardenCityRecreation.org.

Come back next Tuesday at 10 a.m. for reason #89. Click here if you missed reason #91.

Category: Recreation

Price: Dues-paying

Season: Year-round