APE SHALL NOT KILL APE

This is the end.... The Smith Infirmary's Days Are Numbered

2012-01-03T21:00:00.000-05:00

As promised, here's some fresh off the digital camera shots of the gradually collapsing Smith Infirmary of the original Staten Island Hospital.

Taken from Cebra and Rosewood

This is the perspective I saw the Smith Infirmary from at least once a day for over thirty years of my life. Closed for over thirty years, I can still picture it as an operating facility with doctors, nurses, aides and all sorts of maintenance workers. The shops at the intersection of Victory and Cebra flourished because of the hospital. There were Kohlmann's Florist, Matty's Barbershop, Precious Treasures Gifts, a jeweler's, a liquor store and several bars.

Over time those places went away and were replaced by decreasingly good delis, junk stores and Albanian pizzerias. At least these days there's Dosa Garden (which I'm not sure I could actually recommend enough).

The Hole - below, unseen, a great pile of

fallen bricks cover the ground

Brooding over it all is the crumbling hulk of the old hospital. For years there were plans to renovate it and turn it into some sort of condo complex. When I, in an early incarnation, worked for the city, I tried to uncover the insane web of ownership of the place for a potential investor.

In the end, after looking at deeds, plans, transaction records and talking to the Commissioner for Finance it all came to nothing. One man claimed to own it but, even in order to save himself millions of dollars in delinquent taxes, couldn't.

Ultimately the investor decided it was not worth dipping into the deep pool of garbage that was the old Staten Island Hospital site. I guessed the place would just deteriorate until it got so bad that the city's office of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) would simply take possession of the complex and bulldoze it.

The was thirteen years ago and the place was still salvageable but nothing happened. Since then, even when the city had money, no North Shore or borough politician stepped forward to invest money to at least stabilize the place. Then the roofs of the back buildings (where I worked on my dentistry merit badge) collapsed and HPD had to demolish them.

And it got worse and worse. There was fake landlord who rented out units in the converted new building. Then there were squatters. Eventually HPD did a better job of sealing the newer buildings up for good but the infirmary and other remaining old building (I think a nursing school) just crumbled.

And now I'm proven correct. HPD owns it and according to the Advance, they're going to raze it.

For many of the past thirty-two years this (the hospital's new building that was converted to housing, though it was allegedly a real estate scam) has looked pretty much like this. Through five City Council Members (the only one I consider blameless is Debi Rose because by the time she got elected the damage was done), three Borough Presidents, four mayors, three State Assembly members, two Staten Senators, and six members of the House of Representatives. Many of them were North Shore born and raised.

It's a little late.

For the New Year

2012-01-02T12:58:00.000-05:00

So here we are, 350 years old. Did anyone attend any of the various seminars and events held commemorating the Island's 350th birthday? I didn't. Nothing really caught my eye and then I just sort of forgot about it. Sort of shameful of me I guess.

I've been thinking about what to do next as I need an incentive to get me posting more regularly. I think I've come up with something that'll keep me going and it definitely involves maps - lots of maps. So we'll see how that goes this week.

Also, I hope to take and post some pictures of the collapsing Smith Infirmary. I was driving home over Cebra Avenue the other day and WHAM! I hadn't known how bad it had become. I hadn't seen it from that perspective in some time and the caved in roof is pretty terrifying. I know that eve through last spring people were taking clandestine tours and creeps of the place. Guess they're feeling pretty lucky right now. And good luck to the folks hoping to preserve some parts of it.

So that's what I've got to say for now. Hopefully I'll get the pictures tomorrow afternoon and I'll get back to posting at least once a week. It's nice to dream.

Italian Episcopalians

2011-12-18T21:31:00.000-05:00

As a native Staten Islander born the year after the Verrazano Bridge was opened, I grew up hearing a lot about how the Brooklyn Italians were "flooding" and "ruining" the borough. Whatever. I suspect that was mostly said by the people who had no idea of the deep Italian roots already on Staten Island long before the Verrazano was built. Eh, what can you do about people? They're going to say what they're going to say.

I'm glad this site started as the "church project" because the research I've done in that direction has been invaluable. More than anything else it's given me a better understanding and insight into the development of the Island and the shifts in its population, native born and immigrant, over the past centuries.

One of the most interesting things I've discovered are two churches formed as Italian protestant congregations. One, that I don't have much information or pictures of, was the Italian Pentecostal church. All I know is that it started on Pike Street in Tompkinsville in 1923 and later moved to Richmond Road. Today it's the Christian Pentecostal Church.

Jewett Avenue and New Street - 1929

The other, which I have less information about, but some nice pictures of, is the Holy Redeemer Protestant Episcopal Church (Italian). From it's name I assume it was a sort of mission outreach from Staten Island's old line (and Wasp) Episcopal churches to the Italian born immigrants. I wonder what the thoughts that went into the decision to to that were.

Was it thought that converting the Italians to mainline Protestantism would make the immigrants better citizens? Less Italian and therefore more American?

According to "A Brief History of the Episcopal Church" by David Lynn Holmes, Episcopalian outeach to Italians was possible because of Italian, particularly male, dissatisfaction with the Roman Catholic Church in America. They were angry that the Church had opposed Italian unification in 1870 and they were frustrated by Irish domination of the Church in America. Even many of the Episcopal priests were ex-Catholic priests.

I can't imagine the Episcopal Church of today, even if it was still vibrant and relevant, doing the same sort of outreach/conversion to the Hispanic immigrant population in the neighborhood. I think they'd think the whole undertaking reeked of racism and cultural superiority.

How long were there enough converts to keep a congregation going? Did they just merge into the existing English language congregations as they assimilated into America? Holmes' book says that's what happened with earlier German converts to the denomination. Like a history of Staten Island's Methodist congregations, I'd love one of the Episcopal churches. While no one ever really answers, I'm asking for any information anyone's got.

I love the swing set by the side entrance. Today the church grounds are an auto repair lot. That stretch of Jewett between Richmond Terrace and Castleton Avenue is one of the more scuzzy looking parts of Port Richmond.

Same location, a cold December morning - 2011

Jersey Street 1968

2011-12-15T12:10:00.000-05:00

The Staten Island Advance had a great page from its October 30, 1968 edition yesterday. While hard to read, it shows several terrible pictures of Jersey Street's decaying storefronts in that year. Jersey Street's history and decline is something I've written about several times in the past.

When I was a kid taking the old No. 5 bus to Curtis in 1980 I'd pass what I'm pretty sure was this stretch of buildings. On had a tree growing out of it. And then in 1983 or 1984 they were gone.

The long stretch of vacant stores were ripped down, presumably by the city, and replaced with fairly unattractive townhouses. Still, it was a better alternative than letting the stores continue abandoned and present fire and safety hazards to the neighborhood.

I only wonder that the Advance doesn't appear to offer any speculation as to why the stores were abandoned. Port Richmond stayed a viable shopping strip until some years after the Mall opened in New Springville. Stapleton lingered on and still does to a some degree. What caused Jersey Street to suddenly collapse? Perhaps it was the projects? Was it the Jewish working class moving up and away? What, when and how did this happen to such a vibrant neighborhood?

Christmas Greetings

2011-12-12T12:57:00.000-05:00

I haven't posted lately because the Christmas season is upon us. Too many things going on and whatnot. But I'm still excited about doing this blog and proud of much of what I've done over the years.
If I take a little time this week I might actually get some things up. My fingers are very crossed right now. Till then.

PS - Everyone have a blessed and happy Christmas!

Smith Infirmary - all things must pass

2011-11-13T18:04:00.000-05:00

According to the Advance the other day, the old heart of the original Staten Island Hospital, the Smith Infirmary, is about to end its days. After thirty years of neglect it's been deemed unsound and unsafe by HPD and the Buildings Dept.
I am of mixed emotions about the matter. It's sad that such a magnificent building has been allowed to go to ruin but then it is a dangerous site that could simply collapse.
The city did nothing to preserve it but then it really had no obligation to do so. It was a piece of private property sold to a private developer.
That the developer appears to have been a con artist and the condos actually built in the newer building were ultimately abandoned is not the city's fault either.
If it goes, which is most likely, I'll miss it. It's been part of my landscape my entire life (literally - I was born in the old hospital). Growing up and living on Cebra Avenue most of my life its literally been in my line of sight more days than not. One of my earliest posts was about the old hospital and my friends and my exploration of the abandoned complex. But it's what happens. We can document the past, even fetishize it, but we can't stop it from becoming the past.

Small Churches - St. Sylvester's

2011-11-08T10:50:00.000-05:00

Escaping the same devastation caused by the creation of the Staten Island Expressway that forced St. Simon's Episcopal Church to relocate to Richmond Road, St. Sylvester's R.C. Church and its attached shrine survived in their original location at the corner of Clove Road and Targee Street. It's a pretty neighborhood church that, unfortunately, suffers from the noise and exhaust of all the highway traffic just outside its doors. Still, it escaped Robert Moses' assault.
The only Catholic church I was at all familiar with growing up, was Our Lady of Good Counsel on Victory Boulevard near Silver Lake. It's an ugly example of the awful modern architecture that all denominations seemed to think was a good idea at the time. Just look at All Saints Episcopal, Olivet Presbyterian and Zion Lutheran for other examples of this drab ugliness. I'll take the wood and stained glass simplicity of this style of church over any of those testaments to dioceses and boards of elders and church councils gone wrong.

The church suffered the loss of its school this past summer in the Great School Closure that saw 27 schools in Archdiocese of New York cease operations. Parochial schools have been taking severe hits for years now and the expansion of charter schools (essentially private style schools without the tuition) has been a stab in the gut to them.
Still, this little church persists and provides a reminder of smaller, quieter times on the Island. There have been minor changes; the steeple's been enclosed and the wood shingle on it covered. It remains an attractive place. I do wonder how many people visit a grotto that once existed in just the quiet shadows of Grymes and Emerson Hills and today sits under the cacophonous one of the Expressway as well?

The Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes

The grotto in older days seems to have had a much wilder, more natural surroundings. Today it sits on a perfectly manicured lawn with precisely trimmed hedges next to it. Not an improvement in my eyes.

Once Upon a Farm

2011-11-05T21:49:00.000-04:00

Once Staten Island was covered in farms. Even when I was a boy in the early seventies some lingered on before succumbing to the bank accounts and bulldozers of developers. The last one I remember sat on Forest Avenue near the old Majors department store in Mariners' Harbor (where Lowes and Kohl's sit. It couldn't have had much land and it vanished when the street was widened (and this is all only the barest of memory and wide open to correction from you folks).
Willowbrook was, apparently, part of the heartland of the Staten Island farming district. It was well watered by the stream of the same name that ran through it. Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church and Chrampanis Farms are remnants of the Greek farming community. Immanuel Lutheran lingers from the German farmers long gone to New Jersey and points unknown.

573 Watchogue Road, May 1932

Same place, today

Aerial view, 1924

That little pink splotch is the house and all the patchwork quilt around it is farmed land. It shows up, unnamed, on the 1874 maps but I have no idea how old it is. I would guess early 19th century but that is only a guess. The farm appears to be carved out of a much larger piece of property belonging to the De Puy family, presumably one of the old Dutch families.

Now, except for the odd placement of the side windows (which, I know, you can't see in the modern picture), you'd probably never suspect how out of time the house really is. Under that siding is probably nearly two hundred year old wood shingle. Very cool.

Beautiful Mansion Reigning on Jewett Avenue

2011-10-07T17:20:00.000-04:00

These splendid Victorian era mansions remain towering over the west side Jewett Avenue between Maine Avenue and the Boulevard.
The latter has always struck me as the entrance to Westerleigh, the old National Prohibition Campground Association development. It's hard to imagine a group of Americans actually dedicating themselves to any sort of restraint these days.

The older pictures were taken in 1905. The Beers' Map from 1874 only shows empty lots owned by a Smith family. The temperance group didn't start buying property until around 1877 so this makes sense. They do appear on the 1917 map but there're no owner names listed.

Though they still stand, much of their period detail, like on so many of the houses I post about, has been stripped away. The little architectural fripperies that enhanced the already considerably character of these houses has been worn away by time and, I imagine, expense.

Still, while occasional tear downs still happen in Westerleigh, the neighborhood still preserves much of its 19th century feel and is more than well worth several drives through.

Tidewater Staten Island

2011-09-22T16:18:00.000-04:00

1280 Richmond Terrace, 1931

This simple and attractive house sits on the sharp bend in Richmond Terrace at the foot of Pelton Avenue. The lot in the right of the picture has over the years been used as storage for bundles of wood as well as heavy equipment. Once, though, it was a gas station, specifically a "Tydol" station. I'd never heard of it so of course I looked it up. Click on the link and you can learn about it too. Then you'll have that going for you.

Same house, today

The house, sans porch, doesn't otherwise look all that changed. A fence has replaced the hedges, though with the increased traffic on the Terrace that would seem to be sensible. The trees now tower over the house and the Captain's House behind it is hid from view.

A Mansion in West New Brighton

2011-09-20T16:44:00.000-04:00

618 Delafield Avenue, July, 1932

Described as a mansion on the NYPL site, this once ornate home sits on Delafield Avenue near Clove Road. Like so many beautiful older houses it has suffered the fate of being sided and stripped of all its unique touches. The shutters, original columns and corbels have all been lost to time. Still, there's hope the inside has been preserved.

Details of central roof section

Small Churches - part 1

2011-09-18T22:09:00.001-04:00

For those in the know, this blog's Staten Island focus started with big ideas regarding something I called "the Church Project". I was going to document and get photos and histories for all the older churches on the North Shore. Never happened. Still, it's something that lurks in the back of my head and surfaces from time to time. Here's something I'm calling "Small Churches - part 1".

Not far from my house are two little churches, one with an interesting cultural history and the other with an interesting congregational history.

Bethel Temple Church

I knew that Jersey Street once had Italians, Chinese, Jews and Germans. I didn't know it also Norwegians. This little church on Hendricks Avenue right off of Jersey Street was, according to Leng and Davis, originally the St. Olaf Norwegian Church. Who knew?

Bethel Community Church

This small church, located near the end of Van Duzer Street where it meets Bay Street, is only from 1940 or so but had a significantly longer history. This past spring they celebrated their 115th anniversary and had their stretch of the street named in honor of Bishop C. Asapansa Johnson.

According to "Holden's Staten Island", the congregation was founded in 1896 on Targee Street, incorporated as the Bethel African American Methodist Church in 1909 and in 1917 was located at 110 Van Duzer Street. In 1940 the congregation built and dedicated the present building, also on Van Duzer Street.

In the 40s the church became independent from the denomination under the leadership of its pastor, Rev. Coma Asapansa Johnson. I've learned a little about him and he appears and interesting figure.
He came to the US from Sierra Leone and was the first black chaplain in the FDNY. I also know my sister's 8th grade teacher at the late Trinity Lutheran School was named after him.

Someday I'd love to see history of all the strands of African-American history on the Island. One can only hope.

A Haunted House

2011-09-15T23:07:00.001-04:00

One of the games I play (in my head) is deciding whether or not a particular house might be haunted. Sometimes it's an easier call to make than others. This one - no question - haunted. It even had a cat sitting guard on the front porch.

Driving from Tompkins Avenue to the south, it emerges thru the trees

From the curb in front it looms large, filled with menace

Finally, pulling away towards Bay Street, looking back over your shoulder it towers above you

The house is on Townsend Street, part of a once beautiful section of Clifton with many large, stately homes. They once existed in the shadow of the Vanderbilt estate.

It was owned by someone named Farrington in 1874

Today, like South Avenue in Mariners' Harbor, many of the larger homes have been demolished and replaced with rows of fairly ugly townhouses.

Cornices and Corbels

2011-09-01T19:29:00.000-04:00

So we (the luminous Mrs. V. and I) bought a decent Canon camera this summer and I intend to use it to revitalize this site and help out those folks suffering from slowness with the google street views. These are just some shots of attractive details from my immediate neighborhood. There's probably a way to tell what firm made which corbel but it's presently beyond me. If you know anything let me know something.

frieze below the corbels

corbels on brick

who was P. Mart?

cat adorned corbels

click to see the cat better

between the two corbels are little bits called dentils

So there you go, folks. A return of Ape Shall Not Kill Ape and some pleasant decorative architecture from the Hamilton Park area.

Delafield Place

2011-07-14T21:02:00.000-04:00

69 Delafield Place - btw Davis and Bard Avenues - 1931

This beautiful stone house is the centerpiece of a hidden treasure (well not so much anymore), Delafield Place. From other information it seems to have been built around 1840. The NYPL digital collection indicates that in 1898 it had belonged to someone named Voorhis. A good Dutch name, I like that.

They leave out that it is the Elliot house of Elliot houses. It was the actual home of Dr. Samuel MacKenzie Elliot himself. He built almost two dozen stone homes across the North Shore, including the present parsonage of Our Savior Lutheran Church and St. Mary's Episcopal Church.

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Today, though bereft of the ivy, the house remains pretty unchanged. The home to its right is still there though thoroughly obscured by the trees. To its left, however, only a few years back, a rundown but attractive enough old home was torn down and four unpleasant townhouses put in its place. Not only are they ugly, but they look seriously out of place across the street from Walker Park.

Delafield Avenue - just another pretty house

2011-07-05T13:45:00.000-04:00

587 Delafield Avenue (off Broadway), August 1932

Delafield Avenue is an interesting street. Like West New Brighton overall it runs the gamut from beautiful to fairly shambolic. This house is on the stretch between Broadway and Elizabeth and that piece of Delafield has a bit of both. There are homes in beautiful states of maintenance, a few looking to fall to bits and some that have been repaired oft seen mix of lousy brick facing and cheap siding.

I think the house above, listed in 1932 as belonging to the Gordon family, is one of the nicer ones. Still, I don't like the replacement of the screening on the front porch with year-round windows, even with the added porch. The loss of contrast between the window frames and the support posts causes their inward angle to be lost to the eye and that's one of the nice touches about the house as originally built. Also, the siding over what appears to be stucco is disappointing. Still, it's a nice house, a nice house.

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They Took My Thumb

2011-06-30T19:54:00.000-04:00

Erie-Lackawanna tugboat, Richmond Terrace and Bement Avenue

My grandfather, the late Holger Anderson, was many things in his life; subway tunnel digger, LIE tree cutter, brass foundry worker, carpenter, floor scraper and other things. By the time I was born he was exclusively a floor scraper, in fact, one of the best around. Not long before I was born, though, he had still been a carpenter.

As a carpenter he work for the Erie-Lackawanna Railway at a boatyard they maintained at the foot of Bement Avenue and Richmond Terrace. He primarily worked repairing the wooden barges used by the railroad to shunt car around the harbor. He had started in the yard working for Bethlehem Steel but at ome point the railroad took over and he ended up with a pension from them.

As a railroad carpenter my grandfather worked with huge circular saws. They had all sorts of safety guards and things to keep the users safe. He also used little handheld saws. With one of them he took off his thumb one day.

Supposedly he stuck the severed digit into his pocket and drove up to St. Vincent's Hospital. It was the early sixties so reattachment didn't work. Later in life he used the sharp little stump of his thumb to grab recalcitrant grandchildren. It was very effective.

He's been gone 23 years now and would have been 102. Still miss him.

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SiTreasure

2011-06-23T14:54:00.000-04:00

I just came across a new (to me) site called SiTreasure. It's run by Angela D'Aiuto, a real estate saleswoman and community activist. She also has a blog called SiTreasure Blog but that hasn't been updated in months. Still, the more the merry and the more information and pictures the better

Moving on to West New Brighton

2011-06-23T11:07:00.024-04:00

Civil Courthouse at Castleton and Bement

So, Rosebank turned out to be a bit of a bust. Not enough decent free pictures to put up for examination. I'm happy with the few I posted but it's time to move on.

West New Brighton is a huge area. I've always put it from Lafayette to the Terrace to Clove Road to Forest Avenue. Within it are the small semi-neighborhoods of Randall Manor, Livingston, Sunset Hill (ok, that's not even a real semi-neighborhood, just a real estate designation) and Snug Harbor.

There are stately old homes as well as city housing projects. It's population is Irish, African-American, German, Italian, Hispanic from all over, and too many people from too many other places to list. It's a great place with great stores. New Brighton (Cottage Hill in particular) may be my home but much of my business is done in West Brighton.

Hopefully I'll be able to get more pictures of West New Brighton than I was of Rosebank. I'll also try to get back to a little more regular posting again. Thanks for the support and comments.

House built and owned by Dr. Elliot,
now Our Savior Lutheran's parsonage

Belair Road - Hidden Jewel in the Crown

2011-05-25T17:26:00.000-04:00

Some might argue that Belair Road is really part of Shore Acres. Feh. For me, Shore Acres only includes that area between Bay Street and the water. I place this little traveled street squarely in the neighborhood of Rosebank.

Winter - looking southward from in front of 37 Belair Road - 1934

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25 Belair Road - 1934

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While the decorative supports for the porch roof have been lost a zoom in on it will show the beautiful scrollwork eaves have survived.

18 Belair Road - 1934

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Today the hedges have been allowed to grow over the columns standing astride the entrance walk and the tree in the front yard towers high above the roof of this quaint Mediterranean style house.

59 Belair Road - 1934

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Oddly unpainted but largely intact - sorry about the telephone pole

I'm finding I'm having a much tougher time creating posts about Rosebank that I thought I would. Most of my work is predicated on what I can find digging through NYPL's digital collection. While I'm finding numerous good shots of Rosebank's beautiful and often stately homes, I'm finding few images of the neighborhood's commercial structures.

Oh, there are a few specific shots, but most are like the stores I put up that were essentially background images on Rosebank's Tangled Backstreets. So far I'm having little luck with pictures showing Bay Street in its past glory which seems odd. I mean we're talking about a stretch of major road from Vanderbilt Avenue to at least Hylan Boulevard and I'm getting next to nothing. So there's a bunch of work I need to do and it means getting up off my rump and going to the St. George Library. Oh, well.

NY Daily News - Stapleton Article

2011-05-14T22:03:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, the NY Daily News ran a nice article highlighting the best of Stapleton's beautiful homes. There were good pictures and information on Harrison Street and St. Paul's Avenue (the usual suspects). I can't find the link for it so if you want to see it you need to find your old copy.

There was also a mention of the city backed disaster about to start at the Homeport . Of all the things I dislike about the Napoleon of City Hall, regarding Staten Island, it's his killing of the movie studio planned for the Homeport that angers me the most. It was frowned on by the Giuliani people in EDC but it was the present mayor that murdered it for good.

Let's see, we have an already operating business that will employ people at high salaries who'll spend money in the area. But wait, it'll compete with studios in other boroughs. And the local developers want to get their hands on the land. What to do?

Instead we'll build an pointless mixed-use complex. When they can't fill or finish apartments or storefronts in St. George and Tompkinsville (where people really might want to live) do they really think this will succeed? That it will become a destination shopping district? It leaves me all very annoyed.

Rosebank's Tangled Backstreets

2011-05-07T20:09:00.000-04:00

Reynolds Street, 1934 - looking east from Bell Street to St. Mary's Avenue

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To the southeast of the intersection of Tompkins Avenus and Hylan Boulevard is a near maze of narrow streets and old houses. It's a physically fascinating remnant of the sorts of old working class neighborhoods that have been vanishing since at least before I was born. Witness the disappearing bungalows of Midland Beach or the neighborhoods that once existed where the Stapleton or West Brighton Projects are today.

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White Plains Avenue from Bell Street, 1934

I first encountered this little section during a low speed chase between friends back in the mid-eighties. The car I was in quickly became lost but the Rosebank's labyrinth remains etched in my mind to this day.

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Pigeon Coops at the Northeast corner of Oak and Bell Streets, 1934

One of the things you find doing this is that once there were stores sprinkled throughout residential areas away from the more developed commercial areas. I can't tell what the store in the below picture's right is but the one on the left's awning appears to read "Italian Deli"

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Till next time, same Rosebank Time, same Rosebank Channel

Rosebank - A Place I Don't Know

2011-05-03T10:24:00.000-04:00

When I was young, every Thursday night, my grandfather would take my mom and my aunt grocery shopping at the A&P in Rosebank. It was one of the biggest supermarkets on the North Shore at the time and my grandfather knew people working in the butcher shop. And that was about the extent of my interaction with the neighborhood.

The only other thing I knew was that it was Italian, and pre-bridge non-Brooklyn Italian at that. Giuseppe Garibaldi had lived there in 1850-1851 and his house was preserved as a museum.

Rosebank had a bad reputation as being a very insular and somewhat racist neighborhood. In 1988 a young black man named Derek A. Tyrus was hit and killed by a car while being chased by a gang of white guys. But that's 23 years ago.

It wasn't until I went to work for the Police Athletic League in 1995 and started driving all over the Island that I started becoming familiar with Rosebank. When I went to work for City Hall in the late 90's I really got to discover the neighborhood in greater detail and it's an easy place to love. There are quiet, tree lined streets, odd, little twisting back streets and large, commercial strips. Many beautiful older homes survive and their are three churches, elevated train tracks and old factory complexes, all side by side.

Today it's a much more integrated place. There has been a lot of commercial development along Bay Street and many of the beautiful older homes on Rosebank's sidestreets have been demolished and filled with the usual array of Staten Island attached nightmares.

So, here goes. In an effort to learn a little more about the place myself and for your edification I'm dedicating the next series of posts to Rosebank

Signage Remnants

2011-04-29T12:30:00.000-04:00

Even the "new" sign doesn't look that new anymore

Like a beacon of decay towering over the avenue

I guess when a store is no longer an actual C H Martin it gets some of its letter taken away. Or that could just be a lack of concern about appearances

These folks still exist across the street

I've got nothing pithy

Posting Annoyance

2011-04-28T16:50:00.002-04:00

Have some nice pictures to post and either CSI's wifi connection is busticated or blogger's acting all crazy like. Either way, no pictures right now. Maybe tonight.

Destination Port Richmond: Names, Dates, Friezes and Cornices

2011-04-16T09:11:00.000-04:00

Sickness and Bloggingness

2011-04-14T14:57:00.002-04:00

For the past three weeks I've been sick, sometimes as much as the proverbial dog. The thought of sitting and posting only made me feel worse.

Well, I appear to be better (thanks Dr. M. and an antibiotic prescription) and here we go again.

Patell and Waterman's History of New York

2011-03-21T17:05:00.000-04:00

I've added Pattell and Waterman's History of New York site to the blogroll on the right. They've linked to me in the past and I've never really returned the courtesy. They a way more serious and academic site than this one so you should really spend some time and check them out instead of wasting your time here.

Port Richmond - some quick and easy shots of back streets

2011-03-17T16:02:00.000-04:00

Here are some houses scattered across Port Richmond that I find attractive. They're just regular homes, none of particular historic or architectural significance. They're just here to show off the visually pleasing place that is Port Richmond.

I didn't list addresses because you should take some time and drive along the area's back streets and find the houses on your own.

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Faber Street

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Faber and Harrison

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Sharpe Avenue - peekaboo

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Sharpe Avenue - again

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Clinton Place

Fraternal Port Richmond

2011-03-03T17:40:00.019-05:00

NE corner of Bennett and Port Richmond Avenues, 1905 - Masonic Hall - same place, 2011

Once upon a time Americans bonded with each other at all sorts of fraternal organizations. At the organization's height in 1959 there were just over 4 million Masons in American. Notably there were huge numbers of Elks, Moose, Eagles and Odd Fellows as well.

Today the Masons have dropped below the 2 million mark. At the same time the country's population climbed from 179 million to 308 million. I don't know how high the others groups were in the past but I feel safe in assuming their numbers have shrunk as well.

Loyal Order of Moose Club House on the corner of Bennett and Park, 1927 - same corner, 2011

More knowledgeable people than your humble blogger have examined the question of declining American civic and community participation (see Robert Putnam's "Bowling Alone") but I have to wonder why Americans have really turned inward to such an astonishing degree. What turned us from a society of inveterate joiners and boosters into isolated little family units? Is it all the tv and internet that's cut us off from our fellows? I'm not even saying it's a bad thing (if you don't know, I was the kid in corner with his nose in a book), it's just such a drastic change in such a little bit of time.

Once upon a time Port Richmond was home to many of these organizations, hosting large facilities they built with the dues of their members. On Bennett Street you had the Masons and the Moose. A few blocks west on Harrison Street was the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. One lot west of Faber Street on Richmond Terrace was the Knights of Columbus' house.

2180 Richmond Terrace, 1932 - Knights of Columbus Assumption Council 1694

According to information from rootsweb, in 1888, the Order of United American Mechanics (a nativist group) had two chapters meeting in a public hall in the neighborhood and the Grand Army of the Republic had its own hall.

Later the Masons built a more magnificent hall on Anderson Avenue.

Eventually, though, they closed up shop and sold the facility to the CYO. From numerous North Shore lodges they've been reduced to one in Stapleton (Tompkins No. 471 to be precise).

The Moose sold their property and bought an old Lutheran church on Nicholas Avenue and the Odd Fellows' nearest location appears to be near West Point. The other groups I listed don't even exist anymore.

once the Independent Order of Odd Fellows Hall, now an apartment - Harrison Street

PORT RICHMOND - and I mean it

2011-03-01T17:44:00.012-05:00

The first of several planned posts on Port Richmond.

Without a doubt Port Richmond has the potential to be the greatest neighborhood on Staten Island. Much of its old housing stock has survived the despoliation that ravaged so many older neighborhoods on the Rock. Right off Port Richmond Avenue is Veterans' Park, towered over by the great edifice of P.S. 20, and surrounded by several churches and pleasant pre-war apartment buildings. Architecturally, few neighborhoods have held onto such a significant portion of its past as Port Richmond. Even the simple residential back streets hold significant and attractive homes. In its layout and buildings it is still one of the most pleasing looking parts of Staten Island.

Along Port Richmond Avenue are countless commercial buildings, large and small, many with office space and apartments on their upper floors. At present the neighborhood is well served by several bus lines. But, if the North Shore rail was ever actually built or the Borough President's excellent idea for a bus linkage to the NJ light rail in Bayonne were implemented Port Richmond's stock would go through the roof. It could become the starting point of one of the fastest Manhattan commutes going.

Unfortunately, once New York City decided to allow itself to become dependent on cheap, often illegal, immigrant labor, places had to be designated for them to live. On Staten Island, Port Richmond, much of it a troubled neighborhood by the early nineties when this trend began, drew the short straw. Soon men, working tough, physically exhausting jobs in many cases, were living together packed into poorly maintained apartments. Only later did immigrant families take root and businesses to serve them specifically open.

Much of the Port Richmond of today is one of decayed commercial properties, poor or little municipal maintenance (I dare you to drive either way on Port Richmond Avenue in a straight line without ripping out your car's underside on a pothole or sudden depression in the roadbed), several slumlike apartments, and a steady level of distrust between the African-American and Mexican residents. The latter led to the present near occupation of the neighborhood (at least the section between Nicholas, Castleton, Heberton and the Terrace) by units from the 120th Precinct.

Like much of Staten Island, Port Richmond is an oddly dichotomous place. North of Castleton Avenue has a mostly African-American and Mexican population and there is substantial poverty and several abandoned, tattered houses. South of Castleton Avenue is white, black and all shades of brown and the home of such stalwart Port Richmond businesses as Denino's Pizza, Ralph's Ices and Merlino Photo Studios.

The possibility of the northern section becoming attractive is very real in the light of improved transportation. I don't know how this would happen though without many of the poor or minority residents being forced out. But if the travel time to Manhattan is reduced I see it happening and I don't suspect it will be a pretty event.

Red Things for a Rainy Friday

2011-02-25T11:42:00.005-05:00

Stapleton Chinese Restaurant (and it's NOT Tung Bo)

2011-02-22T08:12:00.003-05:00

97-99 Water Street, Stapleton - 1931

When I was a kid Chinese restaurants were not that common and many tended to be of the Jade Island "Polynesian" variety. Today, of course, they're everywhere and some are quite good. My first memory of eating in one was in Stapleton in the very early seventies. It struck my five year old self as very exotic and very great. I remember the food was like nothing I had had ever had before and I liked it.

You can't see the restaurant's name but you can see the wonderful Chinese-style awning and the curtains and decorations on the second floor window in detail.

I can't remember it's name right now, but it was originally located up on the second floor of a building on Water Street in Stapleton two store fronts down from the the late and lamented Woolworths.

At some point it moved half a block away to Beach Street and remained there into the eighties. Eventually it closed and was replaced by a hair salon. You can still see the outline of the Chinese style entrance and small windows that marked it's existence.

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NOTE: I'd like to know more about the history of Chinese-Americans on Staten Island. Growing up I didn't encounter too many but from my readings I know that at one point there were like a dozen Chinese laundries on Jersey Street with more about the Island. The restaurant above was opened in at lest 1931 and remained open for more than fifty years. That's a remarkable history. I'd like to know who these immigrants were, what drew them here and what happened to them.

John Barry RIP

2011-02-09T23:55:00.002-05:00

He did tons and tons of great music but it's going to be the Bond stuff that people will most remember. The swagger in the music complements Sean Connery's Bond perfectly. And it really sort of swings.

Gary Moore - RIP

2011-02-09T23:51:00.001-05:00

I wasn't a particular fan of his solo work but with Phil Lynott and Thin Lizzy he burned up the stage.

The Rorengo House

2011-02-01T11:13:00.007-05:00

The Home of Domenico Rorengo (according to 1917 maps) - pictured in 1932

Here's a interesting home that once stood at the end of Buchanan Street where it used to intersect with York Avenue. I've meant to get this picture up for some time now but my usual predilection for wasting time let to not doing that.

Recently I received a lengthy and informative e-mail from a reader, Richard M., who grew up in Hamilton Park from the 50s through the 70s. I plan to make as much use of the information he sent me as possible for this and future posts.

Apparently, according to my new information, while the original source of Domenico Rorengo's money is not known, what is known is that he lost it in the market crash of 1929. His family held onto to the property but ultimately lost it in the 40s.

The house in the picture was damaged by fire in the 50s but remained occupied by a neighborhood character known as "the captain" through the 70s. If anyone has anymore information on THAT, feel free to drop me line.

Today the property is filled with town houses built in the past decade or so. I think perhaps the grade of the present site is the same as that in the picture but beyond that nothing remains.

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Clifton Berley

2011-01-12T00:33:00.015-05:00

In one of last December's posts I wrote about about Miss Anne Flemming Cameron's wedding in 1895. It mentioned that she and the wedding party left the church to attend a reception at her father Sir Roderick Cameron's Arrochar country steading "Clifton Berley". Well, here it is in a state of fading glory.

"Clifton Berley" was Sir Roderick's 150-acre estate that he purchased in 1861. There, he spent much time and money importing, breeding and raising thoroughbred horses. A listing for a large collection of horse racing documents on Christie's web site included several from Sir Roderick. Apparently, some of Sir Roderick's horses were some of the best of their time.

Clifton Berley Barn - May 4, 1932

Sir Roderick died in 1900 and I don't know how long his family retained ownership of "Clifton Berley". However, by the time of these pictures in the May of 1932, the once beautiful mansion was a decaying hulk. Significant patches of tiles are gone from the roof and I strongly suspect that on the other side of the roof's peak has holes in it. The road around the house is in obvious disrepair. I imagine these pictures are final documents of the house before its demolition.

Today there is almost nothing to indicate the house was ever there. Its rolling grounds and fields are covered with asphalt and dozens of houses. The only vestige of Sir Roderick's forty years of ownership is his name on the small lake to the west of where his home once stood.

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Radcliff Road, northside, between Steuben and Briarcliff

I know posting a mansion so soon after some of my recent comments seems a tad out of place but this was a beautifully serendipitous finding.

Top Map - 1917 - The red circle is the house and the blue the barn
Bottom Map - 2011 - Again, red circle is the barn

York Avenue, New Brighton

2011-01-06T15:37:00.010-05:00

A quick display looking south at the east side of York Avenue between E. Buchanan and Carlyle Streets. Once upon a time York Avenue was a good looking working class street running parallel to Jersey Street. There were large homes on the hill to the west and even a few shops and at one point a German Lutheran church in addition to St Stanislaus Kostka Catholic Church.

Today much of York Avenue has clearly seen better days, but this stretch of houses is pretty unchanged from July, 1932.

Harbor Road revisited

2010-12-30T01:15:00.013-05:00

West side of Harbor Road between Leyden and Richmond Terr. - Apr 23, 1932

View Larger MapSame view today

These shots of Harbor Road in Mariners Harbor start with the second house north of Summerfield United Methodist Church. All of the houses shown here are still in existence in one way or another. Let me show you.

Map 1874- The first house in the photo above is that of "Capt.Jones" followed by those of "F. Jones", "Capt. J. Wright", "M. Van Name", and "Capt. Tomlinson". I think I safe assuming that the captains here are oyster captains. A nice indication of the neighborhood's famous past.

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The Capt.Jones house - The porch columns match those in the photo but the railings and beautiful eaves and wood shingling have been removed or covered.

View Larger MapThe F. Jones House - All the beautiful detail has been removed and siding of some sort has covered up the wood shingle. The loss of the porch leaves this house a big blank, unattractive box.

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The first house, that of Capt. Wright, is presently greatly obscured by foliage (so I'm not showing it). You'll have to trust me when I write that the front porches have been removed.

The second, that of M. Van Name (and one of many in the neighborhood), is visible, as is the awful faux-brick asphalt shingle that now covers it. Similar to many of the captains' homes that once lined the Terrace, this house has always been one of my favorite.

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Finally, we have the house of Capt. Tomlinson. It's the most beautifully preserved of this series of houses, though the porch columns have lost their elaborate shapes and are simple four sided columns now and the decorative eaves is gone. Still, the dark trim and curved door is much to my liking.

Well, I suspect this is my last post for 2010. I hope you few readers have enjoyed my pretty slack efforts. I appreciate everyone's comments and I look forward to more feedback and questions in the coming year from everybody.

To everyone, a blessed and happy New Year!

Mariners Harbor - how many times is it?

2010-12-29T14:54:00.006-05:00

East side of Van Pelt Avenue looking north to the Terrace

View Larger MapSame view (more or less) today - much of the detail appears to have been lost to siding and painting over the decades but it still remains a beautiful house. You can see the large home in the old picture's foreground was torn down and replaced with a smaller one, probably in the 20's.

I keep coming back to Mariners Harbor because it has the greatest collection of surviving old homes (admittedly, since the rape of South Avenue in the 90's, not that many large Victorian piles, and few in perfect condition) on the North Shore. Sure, the preservationists have protected their own homes on St. Paul's and St. Mark's, but for me the real gems are the simple homes tucked away in Mariners Harbor, Stapleton and Port Richmond. These, owned by people often unable to maintain them at all, let alone to the levels demanded by the crazy landmark regulations, are in the greatest danger of being lost.

For me, these houses, some of which date to the earliest part of the 19th century, represent the real woof and warp of life during Staten Island's past. Obviously I'm a sucker for the lost manors and suburban palaces of the Golden Age's magnates, but the places where the working and middle class people lived are my greatest joys. It's much easier for me to imagine, and have some sort of historical empathy for, those families, with their worries and activities.

People like the Stokes, the Vanderbilts and the Camerons lived lives filled with servants and wielded power and wealth beyond anything I'm in regular contact with. The doctors and lawyers, the oyster captains, the clerks, the farmers and brewery workers are the people I'm most interested in. I know, was, and am related to people just like this (okay, well not any oystermen).

These are the people who lost the most with the changes wrought on Staten Island over the past fifty years. Working class neighborhoods were what were destroyed by the advent of the housing projects. The highways that would have crossed Todt and Emerson Hills were stopped but not the one that cut Concord in two. These are the people forced to deal with overcrowded roads and often poorly constructed tract housing.

So that's what interests me and motivates much of what I do here. Don't get me wrong, I do want to know what all those demolished estates looked like, but if I can find more pictures like those on display today I'll be a little bit happier.

A Staten Island Wedding

2010-12-26T18:09:00.012-05:00

I was informed by Mrs. B. about the Museum of New York's photo archives when she sent me the following picture asking if I knew what church it was. I was pretty sure it was St. John's Episcopal in Rosebank. It took a little digging to decide that it absolutely was St. John's. I checked present day images of the church on its own website, looked at the old maps to see if there was a house next to the church in the past (there was; a G.S. Schofield lived there), and finally drove past the church to do one last double check. I was right.

On June 1, 1895, Miss Anne Flemming Cameron, third daughter of Sir Roderick Cameron, married Mr. Belmont Tiffany, grandson of Commodore Matthew C. Perry, at St. John's Episcopal Church in Rosebank, Staten Island. Following the wedding they took carriages to the bride's father's 130-acre country estate in Arrochar, "Clifton Berley".

The Bride's Arrival at St. John's Episcopal Church

A little more digging turned up the following article from the New York Times on May 17, 1895. One of the things I've learned in digging into the history of Staten Island's golden age is that the very wealthy were very well documented.

Above - The Bride's Carriage Returns - Right - The church today

The Bride's Departure

Wedding Reception Photos - presumably this is at "Clifton Berley".

Further research told me that the couple divorce and both outlived their only son, George. Belmont ended up in the papers when he was sued by widow for failing to live up to his promise to marry her. Mrs. Tiffany became a noted society decorator and decorate the Astor Estate on Bermuda. Later both ended up in the papers again when it seemed their son was arrested for drug addiction and committed to the Bloomingdale Hospital for the Insane.

New Link - The Museum of the City of New York

2010-12-26T18:05:00.003-05:00

A new link to the right - the Museum of the City of New York. The assortment of Staten Island pictures is greatly limited but it is a nice selection of things I haven't seen before. Cool, and a generous tip of my hat to the lovely Mrs. B. for brining it to my attention.

Anson Phelps Stokes' Mansion

2010-12-21T08:14:00.011-05:00

1928 - The Stokes Mansion two years prior to its demolition. A close look reveals a collapsing roof on the sun room in on the center first floor. There's a general look of abandoment to the place.

One of the most elaborate appearing mansions from Staten Island's Golden Age was that of Anson Phelps Stokes. It occupied part of the hillside land between Hamilton Avenue and St. Mark's Place and looked out over the harbor and New Jersey.

With architects, merchant bankers, Episcopal priest and whatnot in their family tree it would be interesting to see where the heirs of this once prominent family have ended up.

The family was clearly very devout, with Anson's grandfather helping to found the
London Missionary Society. Anson Stokes actively supported the American Bible Society, the American Tract Society and the American Peace Society. His son, Anson II, became an Episcopal priest and resident canon at the National Cathedral. His grandson, Anson III, also became an Episcopal priest and eventually the bishop of Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts.

Caroline Phelps Stokes, one of Anson's sisters, left her estate to the form the Phelps Stokes Fund in order to help improve the housing and education of minorities. Later his other sister, Olivia, used the fund to specifically aid "Negro education". Nowhere on its website does it do more than acknowledge that it was founded by a bequest of Anson's sister Caroline. Her brother Anson and his son the Rev. Anson P. Stokes were both initial trustees of the fund. I wonder if any members of the family have anything to do with the fund at all anymore.

1928 - Same house different vantage point

1874 - The Stokes Mansion and Estate - The heyday of the Island's great estates. To the west is Ladislao de Escoriaza's estate and to
the east that of J.C Green, esq.

1917 - De Escoriza's and Green's mansions are gone, the latter replaced by Curtis High School.

2010 - The only reminder of the Stokes estate is Phelps Place.

1928 - Gate and gatehouse to the Stokes Estate - northside of Hamilton Avenue between Phelps and Egmont

1928 - Gate and gatehouse to the Stokes Estate - northside of Hamilton Avenue looking west from Egmont Place

Lost Streets and Homes

2010-12-01T23:35:00.017-05:00

The Bayonne Bridge is one of the beautiful municipal structures that remain from a lost golden age. It drive past it several times a week and I'm never not caught by the bold curve of it arch in the day and the patriotic lighting in the night.

But, like many elements of the City's infrastructure its creation came at the cost of homes and pieces of neighborhoods. Going to the maps I set out to see what had vanished in the wake of the bridge's construction in 1928. While no whole heart of a neighborhood was destroyed like with the housing projects in Stapleton, West Brighton and New Brighton, it did result in a giant structure rising like a wall between Elm Park and Port Richmond.

1917 Map - someone helpfully penciled in the bridge's location. Douglas Street is gone and Newark Street half deleted and John Street cut into parts.

Bridge Stanchions Crossing Richmond Terrace
- l. 1931 (Dean Linseed Oil Works in the background)
r. 2010

Below - demolition on the south side of Innis Street - 1928
Bottom - roughly same location - 2010

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There are times when real public needs require drastic changes in landscape. This would seem to safely be one of those times. It never hurts, though, to remember that bridges and highways come at costs more than dollars.

Above - West side of Newark Avenue south of Richmond Terrace - 1928 and 2010

SPECIAL BONUS SHOT - Dean Linseed Oil Works seen from Bayonne

L. P. Gratacap and a house I almost bought

2010-11-24T14:18:00.006-05:00

Louis P. Gratacap

Before I bought the glorious "Good Prospect" I now live in, I saw several other properties. All were too expensive, entailed the responsibility of being a landlord and in need of way too much repair. The only one I entertained any thought of maybe buying if I wanted to live in probably not so genteel poverty for the rest of my life was on the east side of Bement Avenue just north of Henderson Avenue.

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It's a huge, beautiful 19th century home. It was divided into several units and has an amazing front lawn. Unfortunately, it also had a beautiful side yard that wasn't for sale and had already been subdivided and plans submitted to and accepted by the City's Department of Buildings. You can see the right of two homes that have been subsequently built on that lot.

The imminence of those coming houses right up along the house in question meant there was no way I was going to beggar myself in order to have neighbors looking in my kitchen.

Louis P. Gratacap home - 1924 - circled in red

A recent map tour showed it had belonged to one L.P. Gratacap. An odd sounding name, I immediately googled it and, quickly enough I found out who he was.

Born in Gowanus,New York, Louis P. Gatacarp was the curator of the New York Mineralogical Club and the mineralogy curator at the Museum of Natural History as well. He died, unexpectedly, in 1917 at the age of 67.

Today his once lovely house sits surrounded too closely by newer homes. Still, it stands as reminder of less crowded times on the Island.

North Shore Staten Island Stuff

2010-11-21T23:57:00.002-05:00

The facebook group I created is called North Shore Staten Island Stuff. It's not particularly active at this point, with no one responding to any of the questions I put up and anything. Someday, though, it'll all work.

My Neighborhood - Cottage Hill

2010-11-18T11:34:00.000-05:00

New Brighton around Hamilton Park - 1874

Hamilton Park detail - 1874 - Pritchard House circled in red

Hamilton Park - 1917 Here the Pritchard House is owned by Bertha K. Baker. The only reference I could find regarding her was her membership on the board of the Staten Island Institute of Arts and Sciences from 1907.

I've written at length in the past about Hamilton Park and shown some of the houses that stand where it once stood. Recently my ongoing excavations of the NYPL Digital Collection brought me to this beautiful 1874 map of the HP environs.

I was amazed at the difference in a mere 43 years. The open lawns and gardens of the original Hamilton Park estates and "cottages" are gone by 1917. Some of the original homes are still there (like the Pritchard House at 66 Harvard which remains even today) but their property is greatly depleted and they are coming to be surrounded by newer, smaller homes.

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66 Harvard Avenue - Pritchard House - the wooded back yard on the house's west side used to be a lawn looking out over at the fields and farms of New Jersey. Today its enclosed with a giant hedge and overgrown.

The difference between 1917 and 2010 is less noticeable. The big estates were already broken up in 1917. There were new homes built, but aside from the large estate of Domenico Rorengo (no reference found) and several other larger houses on Buchanan Avenue, any tear downs aren't immediately apparent. I guess most of the cottages came down in that 1874-1917 period.

Hamilton Park - 2010

This is a closeup of the Stebbins property at the north of the Hamilton Park development property. HG Stebbins was a War Democrat, congressman and later the president of the NY Stock Exchange. His estate, which I don't presently have a picture of, was described as castlelike and crenelated. By 1917 it was all gone, as were many of the neighboring mansions to the north along Richmond Terrace.

As usual Forgotten New York has already covered the neighborhood and provided more and much better pictures than I've ever put up. Thanks for making me feel small ;)

Easy, Breezy (Port) Richmond Avenue

2010-11-04T16:00:00.016-04:00

NE corner of Vreeland and Castelton, summer 1936

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I've been working on some elaborate posts using the 1874 maps of my neighborhood and some picture scans but I'm not getting it done. So...here are some easy to slap together shots of the beautiful Port Richmond commercial and residential strip of the distant past versus its fairly rundown and sad looking present.

NW corner of Harrison and Richmond Avenue - 1929 - Perhaps the most iconic Port Richmond commercial image. In my youth this corner building was still in god shape. It's what still jumps to mind (alongside the Reformed Church) when I first think of Port Richmond.

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Like some many other long time Islanders I grew up shopping in Port Richmond on a regular basis. since we didn't drive we'd hop onto the #3 bus in front of SI Hospital at Castleton and Cebra and get off on Richmond Avenue. There were five a dime stores, discount stores, hobby stores, clothing stores and the Luggage Shoppe. The last was one of the first stores to move off of the Richmond Avenue strip. They moved to New Dorp Lane and only closed in the past year or so.

The Ritz Theater and neighboring shops - 1930 - The movie playing was "Sunny Side Up", a musical from 1929 starring Janet Gaynor.

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The JC Penney's Plaza on Forest Avenue went a long way to killing Port Richmond but the Mall's advent in 1973 spelled it's final death. It lingered on for the next two decades and some of the old stores actually remain (Merlino's Photo Studio, Brownies Hobby Shop, and the oft referenced Tirone's Shoes only just closed).

But the big discount and five and dimes closed up. There was an effort by the Port Richmond LDC to encourage furniture stores to move in to the vacant stores and that helped a little but the whole neighborhood of churches, apartments and nice homes fell into a slowly, grinding disrepair. Even today, with Mexican shops replacing the old ones, the shine has never been restored to the avenue. Beautiful facades have been covered up, windows are blocked up with cheap looking advertisements and trash flutters along down the sidewalks.

Richmond Avenue, south from Hatfield Place, c. 1910

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Today the beautiful home on the left corner is gone but behind trees the one to its left remains, obscured somewhat by trees.

Port Richmond was in the news a lot this past summer because of supposed racial incidents between the Mexican and black residents of the northern part of the neighborhood. While there's been longstanding tensions between the two communitiesnThe coverage in the news was woefully inadequate and often misleading.

A group called "Make the Road New York" claims the neighborhood is predominantly black and Hispanic and has an income level of around $19,000. This is only true is you restrict Port Richmond to the space between Heberton and Nicholas and Castelton and the Terrace. Most of the "racial" incidents were simple thuggery and thievery. Instead of simply addressing the straightforward law enforcement needs of the neighborhood it was turned into a circus for the likes of the Mexican consul to grandstand.

New York Shoe Market - in the heart of the heart of West New Brighton

2010-10-21T16:03:00.008-04:00

sw corner of Caroline and Castleton, c. 1927 You can see that the no longer extant fake mansard roof and gables was already decaying.

As I've written about several times previously, the site of the West Brighton Projects was once a diverse and complete district unto itself. There were movie theaters (including the first ever on Staten Island) on Castleton and Broadway. a factory filled the land now later turned into Cpl. Thompson Park. There were tenements, houses, churches, and of course stores. Decent stores, not just scuzzy delis and 99 cent stores. Tompkins Department Store was on Castleton only a few blocks from Broadway. Now, the residential heart of the area bounded by Castleton, Broadway, Henderson and Alaska has been long replaced with anthill like housing projects and the theaters are long, long gone.

The buildings that once housed the stores and theaters remain, repurposed and often run to seed. But they are still there and a little squinting can bring up images of a time most of us walking there today can't quite believe ever was.

Today's building is listed on the map as belonging to James Butler. The info tag indicates that the James Butler store in the picture is one of several.

I'm more interested in the left side of the building and the cheap, quality shoes it has on offer.
I like the image of the woman passing by and stopping and debating the quality and necessity of the shoes on display and contemplating if she's got the $2 or $3 she'd have to spend on them.

You can just make out the words on the truck's side: New York Shoe Store

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The building, owned by a community group called "Heritage House", for a long time, was allowed to fall deep into decay and now sits marked with the dread boxed X indicating it's not to be saved in case of a fire.

A Park Fit for Heroes

2010-10-12T09:40:00.007-04:00

Hero Park was built on land donated by Dr. Louis and Berta Dreyfus back in 1920. The centerpiece of the park was (and still is) the glacial Sugar Loaf boulder and its plaques commemorating the 144 Staten Islanders who died in the First World War.

Dr. Dreyfus(whose house I posted about in the past) had invented a process for manufacturing chewing gum base in 1909 had become fairly wealthy as a result. He founded the L.A. Dreyfus Company in Clifton in 1909. Dr. Dreyfus died quite unexpectedly in 1920 at the age of 52. He was about to give a speech at the opening of the new trolley line in St. George when he suffered a heart attack, fell into the arms of Msgr. Cassidy of St. Peter's and was taken off the stage as the Police Band broke into the Star Spangled Banner.

Dr. Dreyfus' widow, Berta, donated thousands of dollars to numerous churches and charities over the years. In return she got IS 49 named after her. Woo hoo! When she died it was clearly a notable event. Even Mayor LaGuardia came to her funeral.

(r. to l. Pastor Carl Sutter, Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia)

Hero Park was the park my friends and I went to go sledding at when Silver Lake was too much effort and where we played football on a the same ridiculously sloped area along Victory Boulevard.

Often it was just a place to hang out. When I was younger I had heard tales of "older kids", mostly the brothers of my friends, having keg parties up in the wooded patch near Howard Avenue. The cops might show up, make sure they weren't too loud, and then roll by for a beer before going off duty. By the time I was old enough for keg parties the cops weren't that accommodating anymore.

My time just hanging out at Hero Park was spent mostly around and on the Sugar Loaf boulder. With its eagle topped plaque it was a striking focal point of the park. When the plaques started vanishing we were all dismayed. In recent years the Friends of Hero Park have helped refurbish the park and replaced the missing plaques.

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I tried to track down whatever happened to Dr. Dreyfus' company and finally found out in an article on the Free Library site. After Dreyfus' death the firm continued to grow. In 1935 it became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Wrigley and in 1949 it outgrew its home base and moved to Edison, NJ. In 2005 Wrigley, in order to survive, consolidated its gum base production in Georgia and closed the Edison plant. There are some touching words about how grateful they were for the LA Dreyfus plant's employees' dedication over the decades but business being what it is it was time for a change.

North Shore Staten Island Stuff

2010-10-12T09:26:00.003-04:00

So I started a facebook group called "North Shore Staten Island Stuff" in order to get the Ape word out to more people. I admit to a little bit of jealousy when I saw the cool looking site and connectivity on the Secret Staten Island site.

Of course that's just silly. It's a nice looking site and they've had the foresight to use social media to get more people involved. It's also a different sort of site than "Ape Shall Not Kill Ape". It's much more direct and inclusive than ASNKA and it's set up to encourage reader input and participation. Mine's still an idiosyncratic blog dedicated to my own peculiar interests and the North Shore specifically. SSI is dedicated to covering the entire Island and they look like they're doing a great job.

So, I've started a facebook group for ASNKA and I hope it gets more people involved and puts me into more contact with people with the information I'm looking for.

Asbury African M.E. Churchyard

2010-10-09T10:37:00.005-04:00

A recent first time visit to Meislohn-Silvie Funeral Home the other day got me to looking around at the Pathmark plaza and the tangle of streets behind that testament to grubbiness. I started thinking about the tangle of streets behind it (Lexington, etc.) and I trying to picture what it all looked like once. So I turned to the trusty 1917 maps I've been using.
I'll do more digging later but right now the thing that caught my immediate attention was the "African Ch. Cemetery". It was on forest Avenue between Linden (now Eldgridge) Avenue and Livermore Avenue. Now if my increasingly spotty memory serves me right that where Osaka and the new 7-11 are located.
A quick visit to tremendously helpful Friends of Abandoned Cemeteries Staten Island site filled me on this lost graveyard. Apparently, while never officially registered with the city as a cemetery, the property was owned by the Second Asbury (Zion) African Methodist Episcopoal (AME) Church and used for burials.
By 1913 there were no standing headstones and by 1980 when developers who'd bought it from the city dug it up they claimed no bodies were found. My cynicism makes me immediately doubt this claim.
So the next time you get a bag of chips or some sushi think about the the bodies of ex-slaves and their relatives probably lying under your feet. Ah, commerce.

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Request

2010-10-09T10:34:00.002-04:00

I'm always (sort of) on the lookout for postable stuff, information and above all photos. In particular I'm looking for pictures from the seventies and early eighties of commercial sites and of the North Shore specifically. If you or anyone you know had anything like that and might be willing to share it with me please let me know. Thanks.

Horrmann Castle

2010-10-05T08:22:00.004-04:00

High atop a hill in Eldorado, or at least Grymes Hill, Staten Island, stood a castle. A wonderful castle built by beer and with German whimsy. For decades it towered over the brewery owned by its builder and the Stapleton homes of its owners employees.

Later it became a convent and eventually burned down. When I was young its site had become a wooded cliffside where stolen cars were dumped. I know some of the tiles from its ruins had been rescued by the Olsens, a family with their own beautiful home nearby. Today its beautiful vantage point overlooking the now decrepit Stapleton neighborhood is occupied by a series of fairly typical Staten Island mansions at the end of their own little gated private road.

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Another Business Gone the Dodo Way

2010-09-16T18:01:00.004-04:00

The intersection of Port Richmond Avenue and Richmond Terrace is a place I've gone to for pictures and postings several times before. I keep finding new (old) vantage points it's been shown from and it keeps fitting into new ideas for posting topics.

July 1, 1929 - In the front, the Port Richmond National Bank, followed by the Staten Island National Bank and Trust Company

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Upon the slightest bit of research I discovered that the two banks are really one. In 1902 the Port Richmond National Bank was founded and in 1926 it renamed itself the Staten Island National Bank and Trust Company. It ceased to exist when it was acquired by Chase in 1957.

April, 1930 - Looking north along Port Richmond Avenue at the two banks from alongside the Dutch Reformed Church's cemetery

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April, 1930 - A close up of the Staten Island National Bank and Trust Company

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If you see the bank from Richmond Terrace you can see where a teller booth for cars was added in what I imagine was an effort to modernize the bank and attempt to keep it going as foot traffic died on Port Richmond Avenue in the late seventies. In the google picture there's a black van parked in the old drivethru and the booth is the low building to the van's right.

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Back to Business

2010-09-14T10:13:00.006-04:00

I've been away for awhile. The luminous Mrs. V and I took and extended road trip west through Ontario and America's northern tier to Glacier National Park in Montana. I strongly recommend it to anyone with the slightest interest in seeing some of the country's most beautiful places.

In an effort to work something in with the heading I'd already come up with I glommed some pictures (the usual then/now sort of things) of businesses that are no longer with us even if the skeletal remains of their structures linger on in some reconfigured fashion. They reflect a pre-mall/shopping plaza era when the businesses people frequented were only a close walk, or at worst, a short bus ride away. While I miss the personal quirks of small, neighborhood stores, their higher prices and smaller selections make me not miss them that much.

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Canal Street, Stapleton 10/04/36 - north of Broad Street

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The foot of Victory Boulevard looking west from Bay Street, Tompkinsville - 11/08/33

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Morningstar and Innis, Elm Park - 3/24/28 - The curved section of the cornice on the building in the center reads "Bodine's Big Store".

More to come.......

American Dock Terminal

2010-07-15T17:30:00.018-04:00

Hanging out with Alex R. and his wife, Angie, the other day, he reminded me of one of the several places we explored when we were kids and Staten Island was a wilder and woolier place. He thought the coolest place we'd sneaked into and wandered around in were the great big warehouses that were converted into the Bay Landings condos starting around 1981.

We were able to easily enter them by walking through the porous fencing near the supposedly, incredibly creepy (creepier than the average) strip club (now a yoga joint) at the bottom of Victory Boulevard and then through the unblocked doorways of the buildings.

From our initial vantage point the warehouses were hemmed in on the left by the SIRT tracks and the great retaining wall that rises up to Bay Street. To their right were the greasy waters of the harbor and the collapsed piers the warehouses once served. The buildings themselves were huge, primordial constructions dominating the neighborhood. They were like some Lovecraftian towers that had survived the arrival and retraction of the glaciers mostly unscathed.

The blank buildings were seven floors of plain brick and concrete inhabited by flocks of pigeons and often little evidence of ever having been used. We never encountered anyone else in all the times we investigated the various buildings. There was never even the stray fisherman or rats, something we'd routinely see when going into (and under) the abandoned piers in Stapleton.

From photos the buildings were once white but by our time they were dirty and
stained unpainted cement covering brick. Whole floors were simply empty and windowless and exposed to the elements but then smooth cement is pretty hardy so the wear seemed negligible.

From the exposed stairwells you could see out across the rooftops of Tompkinsville and St. George. From the top of the building we looked out to Manhattan and Brooklyn. For a bunch of twelve year olds it was exhilarating (do 12 year olds even explore abandoned buildings anymore?).

In some places the things of man were very evident and the appearance was of sudden abandonment. On a few floors huge quantities of loose coffee beans simply spilled out of rotted sacks. Ground floor offices were littered with old telephone books, blank company forms and all sorts of soil and mineral samples in jars. We never understood the last bit but with a little research today I discovered some of the docks' and warehouses' history.

I found an account of the Port of Staten Island, its docks and development on Google Books in something called "Shipping - The Magazine of Marine Transportation, Construction and Supplies" from 1922. Its chock full of illustrations, detailed descriptions of the businesses concerned with the port operations and names of individuals involved and addresses where the businesses were located.

The buildings we were in were those of the American Dock Terminal. The president of the firm was A.B. Pouch who was related to William H. Pouch of Clifton's Pouch Terminal. Eventually the two complexes were practically combined. From the "Shipping" article it appears the oldest building was from about 1900 and the newest from 1922. By 1978 when we first explored them they were totally abandoned.

Mayor John. Hylan and Docks Commissioner Murray Hulbert had visions of Staten Island's North Shore becoming a major cargo port. Numerous thousand foot long covered piers were built increasing the existing facilities several fold. There were several large cargo complexes built or expanded to service the piers (American Dock Terminal, Union Transport Company and Pouch Terminal). It was an ambitious future.

Several great warehouses, of which only three survive, were built by the American Dock Terminal to house primarily grain and coffee (hence the beans on the floor decades later). There were small trains to service the complex and connected to the main shore track running between all the piers.

Today nothing of that plan remains as envisioned. At some point the Pouch family, which owned the ADT sold it off and it entered a long period of speculation and failed development attempts. The surviving buildings have been converted to co-ops. The piers are now mostly gone. Pier No.5 had housed a bar and restaurant through the early nineties until it collapsed. Recently, Pier No.6, long the NYC Parks Department's Cromwell Center, began collapsing into the bay. Something about shoddy workmanship during its numerous refurbishments I think I heard.

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Bay Landing from Bay Street - The remnants of the American Dock Terminal - American industry converted to over priced urban housing.

I don't know how the American Dock Terminal came to its seemingly rushed end but I suspect it had to do with Staten Island's opposition to giant apartment construction.

In 1961 the developer William Zeckendorf bought the American Dock Terminal site from its owner, Gulf States Land and Industries, Inc., for $3 million (which means the newest buildings were in use for less than forty years). He planned to raze much of the site and build four or five 35 story buildings. The goal was 4,000 units geared toward the wealthy and for a rental price of $60 per room.

They would have clearly dominated the Island's skyline and opened the door for similar constructions across the borough. All he need was to get the property rezoned for residential use.

That didn't happened and in 1965 he went bankrupt. He and his son held onto the property, though, and waited for future developments. In 1975 a similar project was put forward to be financed by Westinghouse with the Zeckendorfs taking the actual lead on the project. A NY Times article from that year claims the politicians, community board and unions all supported the development. I strongly suspect the residents did not. This dream too faded away.

At some point the ownership of the property passed to a metals firm from Michigan (reading about the convoluted way they came to own the American Dock Terminal is mind boggling). The new owners developed a much more realistic and less ambitious residential development program and stuck with it. The original plan never came to pass but in 1981 the first of the Bay Landing buildings were converted.

I helped my grandfather, a floor scraper and carpenter, work in one of the earliest apartments in the Bay Landing building at the foot of Victory Boulevard opposite Lyon's Pool. It was a blank, white painted cement and plaster space to which my grandfather was adding hardwood floors and slightly raised section under the windows. Even to my fifteen year old eyes the conversion of the building from decaying industrial site to modern dwelling seemed cheap, poorly done. The plaster was already chipped and the cement exposed and cold. I haven't been in any of the buildings since.

This is a lot more content and history than I usually post but it's one of the first times I was able to pull up so much specific information online. I still don't know about the closure of though I suspect it had to do with a declining financial outlook. It's interesting to study about the rise, fall, and resurrection of a location and how plans changed so radically over two decades.

Oh My

2010-07-13T11:10:00.003-04:00

Tooling about the interweb this morning I discovered ANOTHER amazing NYC provided resource. It's the LaGuardia and Wagner Archives and has photos of what existed on the land prior to the construction of housing projects. It's also got mayoral archives for the LaGuardia, Wagner, Beame,and Koch administrations (where's Impelliteri?) but I'm more interested in the housing stuff at the moment.

Go to the NYC Housing Authority tab on the left and click it. Then put in the neighborhood you wish to look at and away you go. There's not a whole lot for Staten Island but what's there is worthwhile. It's also depressing to read that the neighborhood at the foot of Jersey Street filling the present footprint of the Richmond Terrace Houses was "a neighborhood considered for demolition long before the housing project was built"

Cleveland Street, New Broghton - part of the aforementioned places eyed for destruction. And it was.

Public housing is one of the greatest failures of the 20th century liberal statist dream for the future. The laudable goal of alleviating the horrendous conditions in many urban slums was murdered by construction monstrous human hives. Working, existing neighborhoods were eliminated and replaced with oversized unnatural constructions. That many are being torn down only attests to their failure a mere two or three generations after their completion.

S.S. White

2010-07-13T09:15:00.003-04:00

The only memory I have personally of the S.S. White Factory out on Seguine Avenue is of watching it burn while I was at a Boy Scout Olympics nearby. From our vantage point across Princes Bay we watched the brilliant red and orange column of fire rise up against the night sky. Thirty years after the event the beauty of that destructive night remains vivid.

S.S. White was a dental products company started by Dr. Samuel Stockton White of Philadelphia in the 19th century. He opened distribution sites along the East Coast and finally a large factory complex at the foot of Seguine Avenue in Princes Bay.

In 1968 the firm was bought by the Pennwalt Corporation. In 1972 they closed the factory, split its dental and industrial operations and moved them both to New Jersey.

The closed factory operated later as the Princes Bay Trade Mart. The conversion to giant flea market came about when the factory's purchaser was told he couldn't build 10 30-story apartment buildings. I know there was a performance venue on the site at some point.

Then in the late seventies it burned. Several times I think. Finally it was demolished and to this day the land remains empty despite attempts to build a huge and undesired condo complex in the late nineties.

I never would written about this if not for yesterday. The luminous Mrs. V, her mother, and I, were driving about New Jersey when suddenly we saw the S.S. White Technologies Inc. building along Rte 151. I remembered reading at some point that the firm had been moved into New Jersey and here I was faced with the actual new plant.

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It was odd to come across this lost bit of Staten Island's legacy 16 miles away from where it started.

Woo Hoo!!!!!!!!!

2010-07-08T20:06:00.001-04:00

I just noticed NYCityMap added a new aerial view of the city from 1951. Thank you, DOITT!!!!

Port Richmond Avenue

2010-07-08T17:13:00.009-04:00

Port Richmond Avenue looking north toward the Bergen Ferry

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Same view today - The buildings are ramshackle, some abandoned or used for homeless housing.

I've put up pictures of this intersection before but the new one I just came across above drew me right back in. The photo displays a vibrant Port Richmond intersection with restaurants, a theater in the background (the old Farrell Lumber building, which used to be Leo's Empire), an SRO, numerous cars and a bank. There's some sort of "academy" advertised in a window at the pictures' left. It's streets that are alive and thriving.

I didn't recognize the Murad brand of cigarettes advertised on the building in the left foreground (apparently it was the world's best brand) so I googled it and found scads of beautiful advertising.

Today it's all gone. Some of the buildings remain by the life has drained out.
Instead of trolleys and shops the streets are near empty and the shops gone and the bank closed up. There's not even a Coca Cola ad in the present view.

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I know Main Streets suffered with the advent of shopping plazas and malls and I don't think there's any way their deaths could have been prevented. However, Port Richmond seems to have been more than just a shopping district. There's a real town with houses, apartments, schools and churches all around the storefronts. That it's only staggered on as the place where we allow our day laborers to live (and then don't bother to maintain it) makes me feel a little ashamed.

View looking north on (Port) Richmond Avenue. You can see the still standing Port Richmond Reformed Church in the distance on the left side of the avenue.

Missing Tombstone Brought Home

2010-07-08T16:22:00.003-04:00

Great article in today's NY Times about the discovery of an old tombstone and its journey to the United Hebrew section of the Ocean View Cemetery out on Amboy Road.

You can still see the remains of the great Jewish tide that swept over the Lower East Side of Manhattan a century ago. Today those immigrants have moved on only to be replaced by other immigrants (or hipsters), but, if you look up at many of the little Spanish language churches in the area you can still see Hebrew and torahs carved into the tops of them.

Definitely a mitzvah by Mr. Lankenau.

Clove Lake Boat House and Restaurant

2010-07-07T21:33:00.007-04:00

So the dog days are definitely upon us. When I walk outside I feel like I've been hammered with a sack of swamp water. It's the time of the year I find most unpleasant. So, I've tracked down a pleasant pair of pictures to ease my discomfort.
I don't know the history of the building but the Parks Department's page about Clove Lakes implies its comes from the thirties. The black and white picture would seem to come from at least the thirties. The color one is obviously later and probably from the fifties or early sixties (at least to my untutored eye that's what the vivid color makes me think as well as the clothing).

I spent much of this past Memorial Day at Clove Lakes Park. I went there with my family to watch a demonstration by the USMC in helicopter assault tactics. It was pretty impressive, particularly when the downdraft from the Osprey took out much of several trees endangering the onlookers.

What impressed me more, though, that day, was the wildlife I encountered when we walked around the main lake. I only got a few, lousy, pictures, but here they are:

Preservation League of Staten Island and NY City Map

2010-06-29T09:23:00.002-04:00

Added a new link on the right for the PRESERVATION LEAGUE OF STATEN ISLAND. I may not agree with all of their goals but I appreciate and support their stand on preserving various individual historic/culturally important buildings.

I'm also belatedly adding the very cool NY City Map page.

Enjoy!

Vanderbilts No More

2010-06-26T08:57:00.005-04:00

Over 18 months ago I posted a piece about the defunct Swedish Nursing Home in Sunnyside and the Island's one remaining Vanderbilt family home that was part of that small establishment. Well it's no more. More precisely it's been no more for six months or so. I just missed it. (I apologize for my tardiness but I have no army of county wide informants sending me reports from the front).

I was driving through the back streets of Sunnyside two weeks ago and realized something was significantly different. It took a minute or two to understand the enormity of the change and lost relic.

Last night I tooled around the SI Advance's site and learned about what brought about the mansion's demise. It's not an untypical tale and I understand the neighborhood peoples' decision to not fight the mansions demolition. The Preservation League put up a good fight and lost. It's all understandable and regrettable.

I AM disappointed at the inaction of the Landmarks Commission. They preserve all sorts of rubbish, take whole neighborhoods out from under their owners for the desires of a few fools and yet they express no interest in the last remaining vestige of the Vanderbilts' home on Staten Island. It's so typical of the disdain I always feel coming out of City Hall and its organs towards Staten Island.

The Grounds of Snug Harbor

2010-06-22T11:27:00.007-04:00

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This is just to give you a sense of where the various lost buildings were once located. It's also interesting to note from the maps that the Snug Harbor property once ran all the way up to Forest Avenue.

Finally, Snug Harbor (my longest post ever)

2010-06-15T13:53:00.012-04:00

I've been thinking about Snug Harbor a bunch lately and a recent SI Advance article about artifacts coming home to Staten Island only stoked my brain-fires a little more. I've long had a love-hate relationship with the Harbor but it's really the juggernaut of Island cultural institutions and architectural wonders and at some point I guess I have to write something about the place. Even though the church and hospital are long gone Snug Harbor stands as one of the greatest collections of Greek Revival buildings in the country. There is clearly nothing else like it on Staten Island and I'd doubt anything else in the city really compares.

Randall Memorial Church: Built as a reduced scale replica of St. Paul's Cathedral, disrepair and no money led to its demolition in 1952

While much work still needs to be done to fully restore Snug Harbor's buildings to their original beauty, under the eyes of the most recent director (she was also the director of the SI Botanical Garden located on the Harbor's grounds for almost 2 decades), Fran X.P.Huber, much has been done. Despite the inappropriateness of Huber's Chinese and Tuscan gardens (yes, they are beautiful, no, they are not germane to the history of Snug Harbor or Staten Island. If you haven't realized that by now, that's the sort of thing that fires the engines of my blathering), she has been a generally decent steward of the Robert Randall's bequest in most other regards.

Hospital: The main building was erected in 1850 to cope with a population that was there because of disability. The wings were added in 1879 and 1898. In the "downsizing" of 1950 that saw the destruction of almost a third of the buildings it came down.

When I was little my mother told me stories about the Harbor and the Snuggies. She grew up and lived only two blocks away from the Harbor and spent a fair amount of time running around its grounds as a kid. It was clear that when the remaining residents were bundled off to North Carolina she was saddened. She, like I suspect many others, felt it was simply a ploy by the trustees to get their hands on the Harbor's 83 acres.

Snug Harbor was created out of a desire to provide for the men who'd served the merchant fleet of this nation when they'd fallen on hardtimes. From its beginnings there were issues with the trustees, money and the way the residents were treated. In the last several decades of its operation as a residential facility things got bad with the trustees looking to charge rent and develop off acres of property with stores and high rise apartments. There were court cases and all sorts of charges made.

The buildings had been designated landmarks but the trustees were still able to offer up 65 acres for development. Only aggressive community action was able to stop the construction of 2,800 apartment units and get a cash poor NYC to purchase the rest of the property. Even then, in the darkest days of the City's last great fiscal crisis, it was a not clear Snug Harbor would survive unscathed.

Over the years I watched the Snug Harbor Cultural Center misuse and make all sorts of mistakes with its patrimony. I don't think I stepped onto the grounds of Snug Harbor until I worked there in the mid-nineties. There was just nothing there that was compelling to me.

Well, there actually was, but my friends and I never acted on it. Somebody, somewhere, at sometime, told me and my friends that there tunnels under the grounds of Snug Harbor. They didn't know how to access them but they assured us it was supposed to be easy. You just had to find the right manhole cover and you'd be in. You could traverse the whole grounds of the Harbor never coming above the surface.

We actually planned out what we'd have to take in order to ensure light and not getting lost. Alas, it never went beyond the most basic of prep sessions. To this day I don't know if there actually are or aren't tunnels under the earth of Snug Harbor.

I suspect the board of directors dreamed of being a national arts destination and as such its own gallery shows focused on everything but local artists. The late Art Network came about in direct opposition to the Harbor's almost mandatory cosmopolitanism. Local organizations deemed not cultural enough (ex. the Bridge Club) were forced out even though their rent for fifteen years had helped pay the bills. The idea of Snug Harbor simply being a many faceted cultural draw for Staten Islanders seemed to be too small for the various directors.

Dreams of fixing the theater in the future displaced the need to fix the cottages so they rotted for twenty years. When they were finally fixed it was for much more than it'd have cost in the first place AND the theater remained unusable for several more years.

For most of my life there have been no reasons to go to Snug Harbor. The gallery shows have tended towards unappealing art and you can only go to the John Noble Gallery so many times. The grounds consisted of old roads, overgrown meadows and woods.

Governor's Residence: long gone it stood along Richmond Terrace to at the western corner of the property near the West Gate. Termite damage was enough of an excuse for the trustees to demolish it around 1950.

The West Gate: the governor's mansion is off to the left

In recent years this has changed. The primary draw for me are the grounds and I lay that directly at the feet of Huber. Without her I suspect the gardens and and lawns would not be where they are today which is beautiful. She restored the ponds and added various small gardens throughout the grounds. She has cared for and preserved the stands of trees lining Henderson and Kissel Avenues. I know there are those out there who don't like her, and I don't want to give undue credit to her, but, until she achieved critical mass at the Botanical Garden in the mid-nineties Snug Harbor was mostly know for the Staten Island Children's Museum and lousy catering in the great hall. Now it's actually much more. So, go, check out Snug Harbor. There are various events held on the grounds by outside groups (most recently Trinity Lutheran's first German Maifest), plays in the theaters, art shows (several years ago there was a very cool Arthur Rackham show), and above all, 83 acres of (mostly) beautiful lawns, gardens and building to wander through.

When I was little my dad and I would walk from our house on Cebra Avenue to my grandparent's on Henderson Avenue. We'd walk along Castleton Avenue, down Conyingham and Brentwood and then along Henderson alongside Snug Harbor's fenced in south side. At one point you can look down from streetlevel to a stream that runs from under the road, north towards the Kill Van Kull. There was something mysterious and wild about that running water, coming into the sun from some unknown subterranean place and hemmed in by bending trees as it flowed to the sea. I half expected to see deer drinking along its edges.

My dad and I always stopped for a moment or two, no longer, to look at the stream. Today it's got a seedy look to it. Many of the trees are gone and I know that the tunnel is just a channel for a stream the city built a road over. Still, if I look at it right and let my eyes not see the Harbor's building through the thinned out trees a little hint of the mystery comes back.

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NOTE: I found a chapter from something called "Archaeology and Preservation of Gendered Landscapes" that has great information about Snug Harbor's history and social structures. It also calls out the "director of the Botanical Garden" for seeking to "incorporate more outdoor space into new attractive gardens that
have no connection to the historic landscape". Good food for thought.

Beach Hotels

2010-06-05T08:17:00.008-04:00

The pictures I've posted earlier show huge crowds. Obviously, they had to stay somewhere. There were bungalows and campgrounds, but by far, it seems the primary places to stay were hotels. There were lots of them, from a little away from the water in Arrochar all the way south along the beach to New Dorp.

Hotel Lincoln - Midland Beach

I think there are a few of the original buildings remaining in South Beach that have now been converted into apartments. Specifically there is one remaining hotel building today standing alone at the foot of Midland Avenue near the corner of Fr. Capaodano Blvd. It still functions as a hotel but not, I think, as one you might take your family to for a summer excursion to the beach.

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Summertime And The Beaches Are Open

2010-06-03T20:05:00.007-04:00

With the dread of summer upon me (I dislike the heat, the sun, the humididdity and the extra long days) I've decided to venture south of the Staten Island Expressway for a rare excursion. Apparently, there are some people crazy enough to enjoy going to crowded, hot, amusement strewn beaches and boardwalks in the summertime. Well, ....

...once upon a time, long ago in the dim and distant past, South Beach and Midland Beach were glorious havens of escape and adventure.

Gaudily illuminated and painted tents, rides and buildings ran alongside the boardwalk that lined the north eastern shore of Staten Island. From the late nineteenth century through the late nineteen twenties the twin beaches had hotels, summer cottages, campgrounds and theaters and rides. In 1906 Happy Land Amusement Park opened in South Beach.

Midland Beach had its own collection of resorts and like its northern neighbor its own train station.

The Great Depression (no link, you really should know that one) killed the resorts. By the time the tourists dried up in 1939 the abandoned halls, rides and hotels were ready for demolition. The feds bought the property, knocked everything down and eventually building what is now known as the FDR Boardwalk.

Considering the emptiness of the beaches today (one restaurant/catering hall, public toilets and a fishing pier are about it) and the reputation of South Beach and Midland Beach as two run down neighborhoods the above pictures might come as a surprise. To think that Staten Island was ever anyone's idea of a destination is staggering. As much as I love this stupid place it's mostly for nutty, personal reasons. Otherwise this island is simply a place where people live and work.
I know that's absurdly reductionist but I still have a hard time picturing imaging hordes of people coming from anywhere else to spend weeks on Staten Island's shore. The closest comparison is Ocean City, NJ (though clearly people dressed MUCH better back then). Nearness to the rest of the city and the ease of getting here compared to New Jersey makes sense. Still.....

Back to Detroit - Wayne Kramer

2010-05-06T22:15:00.002-04:00

Wayne Kramer, one of the MC5's guitarists, after a life of missteps, drugs and jail, righted himself. Since then he's released some heavy hitting albums. They're mixes of protopunk guitar rock, beat poetry over tape loops and pretty instrumentals. I recommend them heartily.

For our purposes I'm posting his video for "Back to Detroit". It's his town and the song is about the lost place that city's become. The video's a little too dark at times but the bleak, hopelessness of the place is conveyed. Enjoy!

/

Is Bloomberg (and the rest of the politicians) insane?

2010-05-04T08:50:00.004-04:00

When I read that Mayor Bloomberg suggested the Times Square bomber might have been a lone crazy or "somebody with a political agenda that doesn't like the health care bill or something" I was floored. Aside from, at best unintentionally, linking it to the Tea Party crowd, it seemed, well, sort of dumb. Now I don't know that it wasn't a "lone wolf" but I sure as anything don't assume from the start that someone who's put a bomb in TIMES SQUARE near the VIACOM building(hello, South Park) is upset about the health care bill. Not as one of my first choices. Probably not as my eleventh or eighty seventh choice. When someone tries to set a bomb off in a very public place in NYC I think Islamic terrorists. I base on on a vast preponderance of past experience. I may be wrong but my point is that if I were to start looking for suspects I don't think I'd start with the anti-health reform bill crowd.
Now that a naturalized US citizen from Pakistan was caught on a plane ready to lift off to Dubai I'm wondering if the mayor will retract his statement. I hope it does prove to be a lone wolf (though, of course, the possibility of dozens of other similar men acting in a similar fashion in the future scares the bejabbers out of me), but I'm sort of doubtful that he has anything important to offer in the way of a health care bill critique.
Was the mayor trying to allay New Yorkers' fears by making the bombing attempt look like just some run of the mill Patriot movement militia member? Is he worried that if he says it might have been, shall we say, at least related to the larger Islamic terrorist offensive against the West someone will look at him askance? I, surely, cannot see into the little heart of Mayor Bloomberg and discern his motives. I will say, though, that I wish he'd simply said 'no comment', or 'the investigation's proceeding'. Then we wouldn't have the experience of his dismissive little gust of nonsense being revealed as wrong and I wouldn't be worried that he was simply lying or, worse yet, wrong, revealing a lack of understanding of the dangerous situation this city was in on Saturday night. Please, tell us the truth about what you actually know or keep your mouths shut. Don't try to calm us with misdirecting nonsense or scare us by revealing your blinding ignorance.

Richmond Terrace as Classical Playground

2010-04-27T11:30:00.011-04:00

Once upon a time, when Staten Island was a playground for the more than moderately wealthy, stately homes and near palaces graced the county. One notable location was Richmond Terrace, particularly between the ferry terminal and Westervelt Avenue. The only remaining evidence of this grand period is the weed shrouded Pavillion catering hall on the corner of Westervelt and the Terrace.
Once several ornate, classically columned and decorated homes graced Richmond Terrace looking northward across the bay towards New Jersey and Manhattan. Staten Island actually had a elegance that seems utterly alien to its car jammed streets and too-small townhouses.
By the early decades of the last century these homes, like the great mansions of the Hendersons, Vanderbilts and Lows were being demolished and their land subdivided. I'm not sure when these building met their ultimate fates but by 1928 the property of 386 and 396 Richmond Terrace is clearly overgrown, the first is for sale and both are in disrepair. I don't know where these wealthy families went or what became of them (whence the Pendletons, Barretts, Hendersons and Jewetts?) but at some point these homes and similarly scaled ones across the North Shore seem to have become burdensome or out of date and they left them to decay and the wrecker's ball.

Democratic Party Clubhouse - Now the site of St. Peter's Girls' School

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386 and 396 Richmond Terrace - between St. Peter's Place and Westervelt Avenue - 5/2/1928 - The former is listed on 1917 maps as the "West Day and Evening School" and prior to 1907 belonged to the Pendleton family. The latter belonged to the Wilkinson family. It's hard to tell without zooming in on the original digital photo but the school building has a sign indicating it's for sale.

396 Richmond Terrace - 5/2/1928 -

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404 Richmond Terrace - southeast corner of Westervelt - 5/2/1928 - In 1907 it belonged to one George J. Greenfield, and between 1874 and 1898 the Wilkinson's owned it. Much later it became the Pavillion, a catering hall where my aunt and uncle had their 25th anniversary party.

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Coolest New Toy

2010-04-14T09:56:00.002-04:00

I never see my the comments people make when they make them only noticing them weeks after the fact. Well, a Dave left me information about a NYC website called City Map. Using the clever sliding bar you can see aerials maps of the city from 1924, 1996, 2006 and 2008. You can slide back and forth switching the pictures. It's awesome.
All the big houses I've written about (Ward Mansion, etc.) are present in gloriously blurry black and white. It's the coolest thing I've been shown in ages. Have fun!

Lost West New Brighton

2010-04-13T13:54:00.008-04:00

Sorry my only posts lately haven't been particularly Staten Islandy, but, hey, what can I tell you?
I've written about, and posted about, the lost West New Brighton neighborhood now squatted on by the West Brighton Houses. It was several blocks of homes, a church (the original St. Benedicta), and was served by theaters and stores along Broadway and Castleton Avenue. Nearby where the factories and dockyards where the people made their livings. It must have been something until the City decided packing thousands of people in like ants was a better alternative than small tenements and a vibrant neighborhood.

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Shiloh AME Zion Church, Henderson Avenue between Broadway and Richmond Street (no longer exists) June 29, 1931 - This pretty little wooden church has been long replaced with a larger brick one.

St.Benedicata, northwest corner of Staten and Market Streets, August 7, 1930. The intersection no longer exists.

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St. Benedicata stood on the ground behind the seniors apartments on Broadway.

PS 18, northeast corner of Market Street - March 24, 1930

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This beautiful, ornate structure was torn down and replaced with a fairly generic box of brick and cement a block to the north. The cigar store in the pictures left was where the Broadway senior houses shown above are now located.

North side of Richmond Terrace west of Alaska Street, November 4, 1931

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These two buildings (found at the left of the 1931 picture)are the sole survivors from the five originally shown. I'm sure a featureless brick box (the one on the right) is a much better neighbor that stores with apartments overhead.

D & D - an old school fan's dream come true

2010-03-31T23:34:00.004-04:00

I was introduced to the original pamphlet-style D & D rules by Densel E. in the Boy Scouts back in 1977 or so. He had Blackmoor, Greyhawk, Chainmail, the whole bunch. I was hooked. Later me and the Neighborhood started playing D & D (which a bunch of us got for Christmas) and eventually moved on to Advanced D & D. I remember walking to and from Smilin' Sunny's on Forest Avenue to buy my copy of the Dungeon Master's Guide.

Within a few years we had stopped playing D & D and moved on to other RPGs. We didn't like the class or combat systems in D & D. In DragonQuest and later in the Fantasy Hero we found better systems (if more complicated). Still, D & D was the first and definitely the one where the experiences, the fun and inventiveness were the best.

I recently was directed to a very cool fantast RPG site called Grognardia. Apparently, over the past few years a movement of "old school RPG" players has grown up. These people long for the simpler days when the first started playing and everything was fresh and very (very) uncommercial.

They remember and long for the days when the art was done by friends of the creators and the text type in rulebooks an modules was out of place. They remember umber hulks and displacer beasts fondly. The campaign worlds were the ones made up at night on pages of graph paper and with colored pencils. Dungeons ofter existed for no reason (except to garner treasure and magic items) in ridiculous locations. There were no endless reams of derivative and poorly written novels or an unending supply of modules set in somebody else's universe. Halcyon days.

As nostalgia overcame me I decided to see if I could download any of the old module covers just to see what I remembered. What I found was pure gold as they say (no, I don't really know where). Somebody posted EVERY old school TSR product. Every terrible Erol Otus picture, every superhero influence Jeff Dee picture. Every beautiful multicolored cover with sword wielding paladins, orcs and axe swinging dwarfs.

For about fifteen or sixteen years I played games on many weekends and countless days in the summer. Those were great times I can never go back to but I would never want to give up.

Anger is an energy (one of those occassional political posts)

2010-03-27T11:52:00.004-04:00

Gutfeld makes me laugh and he's right on target. I feel like I've taken crazy pills when Paul Krugman gets worked up over anti-Pelosi literature but earlier wrote that folks should hang Sen. Lieberman in effigy. I worked for NYC City Hall in the last years of Giuliani and constantly saw posters of him as Hitler (which was later done to Bush Jr.).

I'm not against all that sort of juvenile hyperbolic placard waving stuff. If you want to parade around with pictures of your enemy in Nazi garb and expose your dumbocity to the world, go for it. Just don't get your panties all in a twist when the other side does equivalent stuff.

And, NO, I'm not down with rock throwing, fires or going to some dimwitted politician's private home where his family's at. Though, again, seems I recall that was done to McCain, Rove and Wall Street people.

The Lost Iron Tower of Howard Avenue

2010-03-25T19:25:00.005-04:00

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Like something out of Edgar Rice Burroughs or Robert E. Howard, this tall cylinder can been seen peeking out from behind the trees on Howard Avenue next to St. John's. Of course when I was younger my friends and I decided we had to make an effort to penetrate the dense woods and find out what it was.
Well, as you can sort of see, security's pretty lax and the woods aren't really that thick. We simply slipped through a gap in the fence and walked up to the metal column. I guess it's about eight or ninety feet high. There's not really much going on with it. There was an oval hole in the side that we were able to look into and see the great nothing inside and the sky through the open top above. And that was it. We went home and never bothered going back.

Apparently it's just a DEP Water Department water tower. The old photo's from 1937.

Vale Snowden

2010-03-23T13:11:00.005-04:00

I wish I had a picture of Elizabeth Snowden Nichols' home. Named Vale Snowden, it stood on the lower southern slope of Grymes Hill.

I found this excerpt about it from "The History and legend of Howard Avenue and the Serpentine Road, Grymes Hill, Staten Island" by C.G. Hine on the Internet Archive:

"Vale Snowden", which corners on the
Clove road, is the home of Mrs. William
Snowden Nichols. The house was erected
by Satterthwaite about 1852-1854 and was
purchased by Mr. Nichols in 1864. The
architect was James Renwick, mentioned in
connection with the Davis place, and the
grounds were laid out by Frederick Law
Olmstead.

Mrs. Nichols tells me that General Green,
one time minister to Russia, and who was
associated with Mr. Olmstead in the laying
out of Central Park, once said that Mr. Olm-
stead and Mr. Satterthwaite were friends and
that the former gained a large part of his
practical knowledge as a landscape architect
in the laying out of this place. Originally it
was a most unpromising spot, a mass of
soapstone (serpentine), and it required the
work of eight yoke of oxen almost a year to
haul sufficient earth from the top of the hill
to make a foundation for the garden.

A well which is situated almost in front
of the house and very near the road was, ac-
cording to local tradition, a regular stopping
place for the Philadelphia stages. Mrs.
Nichols does not know anything more than
that this statement came from Mr. Satter-
thwait. It is possible that there may have
been an inn on the Little Clove road here,
but if so there does not appear to be any
record concerning it.

^ Mrs. Nichols recalls that the Richmond
County Country Club grew out of an in-
formal riding and driving club which used
this place as a rendezvous, as the younger
members of her family took a lively interest
in its formation and development.

Today the house, and even memories of it, are lost in to the past. Now Wagner College's baseball field stands in its place.

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Why I Dislike Politicians

2010-03-20T22:29:00.002-04:00

Rep. Alcee Hastings, (D) 23rd Florida
This is a man who was impeached and removed from the federal bench by fellow Democrats back in 1988 for taking a $150,000 bribe. He only escaped jail because his co-conspirator refused to testify against him (that man went to jail and later got a pardon from Bill Clinton).

Theater Fix

2010-03-20T11:16:00.002-04:00

The Lyric Theater - in Rosebank at the on Tompkins near Clifton

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Apparently you can buy this bit of Staten Island theatrical history.

Fox Hills Golf Club (and some cows)

2010-03-18T16:40:00.006-04:00

Once upon a time Staten Island was a home and playground for the rich. Names like Vanderbilt, Barrett and Tompkins still mark our neighborhoods and street signs. Larger signs, like their homes and playgrounds, as I've often tried to illustrate, are long gone with overcrowded streets and shoddy housing taking much of their place.

Fox Hills, now mostly covered with Trump produced apartment buildings and bad reputation, the neighborhood once was the grounds of the Fox Hills Golf Club. There were also several large homes but the gold club seems to have been the primary point of interest.

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The best newspaper reference I found was about someone's cows grazing themselves on the golf club's greens.

NY Times Sept. 13, 1902

OLGC

2010-03-18T16:06:00.002-04:00

When I was a kid growing up on Cebra most of the kids around me who were Catholic went to Our Lady of Good Counsel for school and church. It also had a lenient policy about letting neighborhood kids use their schoolyard (really just a blacktop parking lot) for playing softball and just hanging around in so I spent a lot of time there.
There womens' guild or whatever they call it used to hold book fairs every year. My dad and I would walk up to Austin Place and buy tons of paperbacks for something like a quarter a piece. Good times.

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St. Simon's Chapel - Episcopal

2010-03-16T10:32:00.005-04:00

St. Simon's Chapel - demolished and rebuilt on Richmond Road

When I came across the Bethlehem Orphan and Half Orphan Asylum I discovered something new to dig into. When the Verrazano Bridge and the Staten Island Expressway were built they obliterated substantial parts of several neighborhoods. I don't know how much I can uncover from just tooling about the NYPL site but it's better than nothing.

Construction on the highway started in 1959 and was opened over the course of 1964. The bridge opened in 1964. Obviously Staten Island's never been the same.

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Before demolition and after - St. Simon's is the yellow building to the left of the pink car barn set where Clove and Richmond Roads meet.

Bethlehem Orphan and Half Orphan Asylum

2010-03-11T16:29:00.004-05:00

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In perusing the maps of Rosebank and Fort Wadsworth I wander a little south of my usual hunting grounds and discovered something new: the Bethlehem Orphan and Half Orphan Asylum. A little quick digging revealed it was a Lutheran (yay) undertaking.
A little more research told me that the orphanage had been founded in 1886 by eleven churches in response to large number of children orphaned during a severe cholera outbreak in NYC. In 1915 they were able to buy about 20 acres of land on Staten Island from the Barrett family.

postcard showing the entrance to the orphanage

The establishment operated until it burned down in 1972. As the social services were turning away from orphanages towards foster care the Lutheran Social Services of New York declined to rebuild it and sold off the property. Today it's a huge tract of typically unattractive townhouses.

New York Times article from 1915

Fingerboard Road

2010-03-09T21:06:00.003-05:00

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Nice little postcard of the intersection of Fingerboard and Tompkins looking south towards Fox Hill Villa (by then already a part of the Jesuit's Mount Manresa retreat). That towered building was taken down in 1963.
Based on some of the other postcards in the NYPL collection I'd guess it's from between the end of the 19th and the earliest part of the 20th centuries.
That bridge in the foreground is over the old South Beach Railroad. When I was a kid the old trestles of the line still existed along the overgrown right-of-way. In the mid nineties all that was lost when endless lines of far too small townhouses were built on top of the right-of-way. Progress.

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Beautiful Hues

2010-03-09T20:40:00.005-05:00

Came across this beautiful bright blue New York harbor view. You can see the old Cromwell piers in Tompkinsville, the rail yards at the SI Ferry Terminal and the apartments around Curtis High School. And the V-Z Bridge. Great find. Thank you, NYPL.

First Home

2010-03-04T19:15:00.005-05:00

MacGregror Arms Apartments - 1925
In 1965 the late Richard and Jane Vredenburgh moved into this fine building following their marriage. A year later when I came along I guess you could say I moved in too.
We lived there until 1969 when the rent was raised (I think to $137) above what my parents could get a mortgage for. So they moved to Cebra Avenue and spent the rest of their lives there.
I have clear memories from living in the building and numerous stories told me by my folks over the years. I loved to greet my dad coming home walking up the stairs next to Borough Hall from the ferry. The ceilings were nine feet high and our apartment, not subdivided like some, was huge. There was a dentist in the ground floor (later home to Montezuma's, the Side Street and now a tapas place). There were tons of places for my mom to shop along the foot of Victory Blvd. and we were always going to the library.

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But then we moved to then quiet, paving stoned, tree-lined Cebra Avenue. In the summer horses from Clove Lakes Stables would come over Cebra steadily clip clopping along. The woods were filled with possums and pheasants. Strange abandoned treehouses made of doors high up in the trees on the hill rising above Cebra Avenue became visible when the leaves fell in the fall. Moving to Cebra in the summer of 1969 still calls me a back with a magical pull that I hope never fades completely away.

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ERRORERRORERROR

2010-03-04T15:25:00.002-05:00

Our computer died last night. Got a new Tb hard drive in the mail for tomorrow and after an XP install hope to salvage data from the old drive. I don't expect good luck with this.