b'SPECIAL FEATURECharles London (left) taught himself how to fix watches and clocks and opened his own jewelry store in 1926.Zach represent the fourth, sustaining a business thats onclocks on the massive estates along the North Shore of the cusp of celebrating its 100th anniversary.Long Island, called the Gold Coast. Mark says these mansions had about 50 rooms and each A RICH BEGINNING room had an eight-day clock, which, as the name suggests, London Jewelers isnt the only Long Island institutionneeds to be wound every eight days. celebrating its centennial.London, who was Marks maternal grandfather, had to go The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgeralds book aboutto 15 mansions every week and wind 50 clocks in each man-Jazz Age excess set in the fictional North Shore towns ofsion, meaning he worked on more than 700 clocks a week.West Egg and East Egg, turned 100 in April 2025. The people who owned all the mansions on the Gold While Fitzgeralds seminal novel is a work of fictionCoast loved him, Mark says, people whose family names are at its core, the book is based on his experiences living insynonymous with American wealth and were Jazz Age titansGreat Neck, Long Island, in the early 1920s, and paints athe Whitneys, the Vanderbilts, the Pratts, and the Morgans. picture of a place with fertile ground for a successful fineEventually, Londons customers started asking him for jewelry business. rings, wristwatches, and chains.London, a self-taught watchmaker who immigrated toSo thats what he did. He started getting into jewelry, the United States from Poland in 1923, got his start windingMark says.NATIONAL JEWELER 43'