Moving Right Along - Van Duzer Trolley Tracks Again

Looking north on Van Duzer Street from corner of Beach Street - 1926 vs. today

The building on the right side was still standing when I was a kid. On the Beach Street side (unseen) was a dry cleaners and a pet store. We'd always stop and look in the window on the way up from shopping in Stapleton.

northeast corner of Van Duzer and Beach Streets 1926 vs. today 

Roulston's was a Brooklyn based grocery store chain that collapsed when the owner died.

looking north along Van Duzer from the corner of Prospect Street

1923 vs. today

That large building on the right is indeed the long gone German Club (along with the Germans of Staten Island). I was told that the large hall was where the giant painting of Christ's ascension behind the altar at Trinity Lutheran was prepared there as it was the only available place big enough at the time.

Close up detail and 1917 map.

Stapleton: A Bit Of A Rant

   I've bought my share of the Images of America books pertaining to Staten Island over the years.  The one about the Jewish community is particularly compelling and actually filled with useful information and amazing pictures.  I've never bothered, though to buy many more.  Instead of solid information and pictures, they, the Irish community one in particular, seem really an excuse for lots of family pictures.  I'm not saying it's a bad thing, just not something I need to spend twenty bucks on.
   A few years back several neighborhood specific books came out and I got a little excited.  There are so many things I don't know about that any new information is compelling.  Unfortunately, when the Stapleton book came out (my hometown) I was pretty underwhelmed.  There are good pictures and information, don't get me wrong, but it just didn't feel well put together.

  Paging through the book I was struck by the caption on a picture of the Elk's Club building on Van Duzer Street.  It said that the exact location of the building was unknown.  That surprised me.  I was always pretty sure I knew which building it was myself (simply by looking at the buildings actually on Van Duzer Street).  Still, maybe I was wrong and someday I'd have to look into it better.
   Well, that day's come.  I'm in the middle of working on a post concerning Van Duzer Street, from Beach to Victory and the Elk's Club came back up.  So I drove on over with my camera and started getting some pictures.






   I think the pictures make it pretty clear the building of yesterday is the building of today.  Sure it's been stripped of any attractive detailing and windows have been blocked and the mansard roof has been obliterated. But it's the same building.  If you drive down the street you can still see the porch that's in the left of the postcard on the house next door.
   It was hard to get a clear picture of the lowest portions of the building but if you enlarge it you can see the same same basement windows with curved tops.  There's the outcropping on the left towards the rear and the whole two stage outcropping at the front.  Pretty terrible devastation was wrought on this building but it must have been a beast to maintain.

   So here are the maps from 1874, 1885 and 1917.  Same building footprint (save the added bowling alley in by 1917), same location.  Not only is it listed as the Elk's Club on the 1917 map but on the two earlier maps it's designated the Methfessel Institute.  That means it's probably the first incarnation of Staten Island Academy prior to its move to Academy Place (originally Carroll Place).  I did this mostly sitting at a desk looking at easily available maps and pictures.    That's actually a very cool discovery.  The photos were really only for my own satisfaction as the maps say it all.

   I'm not expert on the history and architecture of the North Shore, only a motivated amateur.  I hope I never present myself here as anything more.  Still, I hope never to steer you wrong or fail to follow down any leads I can find.  Of course I will and I hope to hear from you and be corrected as swiftly as possible.  The fluidity of a blog and the ease of correction is definitely one of its greatest assets and I hope to utilize that to the best of my ability.

PS: While working on the Van Duzer post I found myself looking at the Amazon listing for the Stapleton book to make sure I was remembering the Elk's Club picture caption correctly when I came across another serious error.  Which of course makes me wonder how many more there might be.  

   This one concerns a "double house" on the north side of Beach Street between Jackson and Van Duzer Streets.  According to the authors the building, looking quite picturesque in 1927, drifted off into derelict status before being demolished in the 21st century.  Here's a shot similar to one in the book but from 1931.

   Here it is from today (sorry about the Google Maps picture, it's all I've got).  Still there, though.  I drove past it two days ago and it was STILL there.  Probably still now.


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   I know this sounds like I'm just griping.  At a certain level I surely am, but you know what, if you're going to put out a book take some time to go see the places you're writing about.  Look at the maps.  Get it right or leave it out.

PPS - It still is. I just drove past it.

The Church Project Lite

So I'm too lazy/too overwhelmed/too tired, or just too something indefinable to carry out the Church Project the way I originally intended to. So...
So, what I'll do is just get googlemap shots and the occasional old timey picture of the North Shore churches and some information about them.
I'll do it by denomination, starting with my home court, the Lutheran churches.

DAY ONE

Trinity Evangelical Lutheran - 309 Saint Pauls Ave - Stapleton


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My old church and elementary school. Founded by Germans back in the nineteenth century, Trinity really took off in the early twentieth century under the stewardship of Pastor Fredrick Sutter. In the google picture you can see the damage to the steeple caused by the tornado that ravaged the North Shore 2 years ago.


Zion Lutheran - 505 Watchogue Road, Westerleigh


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The group that founded Zion Lutheran started as an adult Norwegian Sunday school class in a no longer standing building in Port Richmond. At some point they collected enough money and built a beautiful neo-Gothic church on Bennett Street alongside Port Richmond Park. In the sixties they relocated to Westerleigh and built the kind of ugly modern church they still occupy on Watchogue and Willowbrook Roads.










I started with Trinity and Zion because they represent the two most active and vibrant Lutheran congregations remaining on Staten Island. They also still have a strong sense of their initial ethnic origins. Trinity was still holding German services in the early eighties.

They also represent two distinct wings of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Trinity came from money (particularly the Stapleton beer barons of the nineteenth century) and Zion from working class poverty. Today Trinity maintains a much more ritual filled worship service and Zion's is more stripped down.

The great wave of Lutheranism that once represented Germans, Norwegians and Swedes in numerous churches has receded with the demographic changes across the Island as well as the general collapse of the mainline denominations.