Delafield Place

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 Elliott house of Elliott houses.  It was the actual home of  Dr. Samuel MacKenzie Elliott 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

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

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

   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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sickness and Bloggingness

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 its name right now, but it was originally located up on the second floor of a building on Water Street in Stapleton two storefronts down from 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 its existence. 

View Larger Map 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

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.