Glen Cove renames museum for former Mayor Joseph Suozzi and wife, Marguerite

The North Shore Historical Museum in Glen Cove Sunday became the Marguerite and Joseph Suozzi Building in honor of the city's former mayor and his wife.

The 107-year-old historical gallery and former courthouse was renamed after the Suozzis, longtime Glen Cove residents, made an undisclosed six-figure donation for facility renovations.

"It's great to see community members continue to raise money to preserve the vitality of the building," Brian Mercadante, museum president, said.

More than 100 Suozzi friends and family members packed into the small building on Glen Street, where 60-year residents Joseph and Marguerite Suozzi received a plaque and applause, to which Marguerite Suozzi replied, "Thank you."

Joseph Suozzi, 93, an Italian immigrant and World War II veteran, was Glen Cove's mayor from 1956 to 1960, and served as a justice of the State Supreme Court for two terms.

"The Suozzis are pillars of our county's cultural history," said Nassau Legis. Delia DeRiggie-Witton (D-Glen Cove).

Marguerite, 89, a former nurse at Glen Cove Community Hospital, pioneered the Morgan Park Summer Music Festival, a 55-year-old Glen Cove event, said her daughter Rosemary Lloyd, of Lincoln, Massachusetts.

"My mother said thank you because you have to have people who accept your gifts in order to give them," said Lloyd, 59.

The Suozzis have five children; their youngest, Thomas Suozzi, also served as Glen Cove mayor. "They really are an example of giving back to your community," Thomas Suozzi, 51, said.

The Suozzi building has brilliant fir floors and oak paneling, Mercadante said, and looks almost like it did in 1908 when it was a courthouse. It was used as a police headquarters and a court in Alfred Hitchcock's 1959 film, "North by Northwest."

Originally owned by the Town of Oyster Bay, the building was passed to the City of Glen Cove in 1917. The building went through various changes in ownership until 1997, when it became a museum, Mercadante said.