Lost Apartments of the North Shore: Castleton Park

   From the maps and photographs, Castleton Park, once home to the gargantuan Hotel Castleton, and now home to the magnificently dull Castleton Park apartment towers, was a pleasant block of houses surrounding a park and watched over by two attractive apartment buildings. Only by checking the maps and dates right now, did I realize that when I first went to Curtis High School in 1980, that old Castleton Park might have only been recently destroyed. The DOITT NYCMap lists the current buildings, 165 St. Marks, as only having been built in 1976. In the past, I've gone on about how working class communities were destroyed for the ostensible benefit of housing projects, but this is the first time I've come across the obliteration of a middle-class section for affordable housing. 

   What strikes me immediately about Castleton Park's demolition is the absolute lack of any sort of concern for architectural attractiveness. Instead of the nicely detailed apartments and houses that were knocked down, the new apartments are looming, completely unadorned towers. Now, even the greenery that once covered the underground garage in imitation of the old park, seems to have been let go and replaced with concrete. Whatever reasons there are to remove something old and replace it, there's no reason to replace it with ugliness, but time and time again, that's what New York City (and, truth be told, most cities) have done over the past seventy-five years.

1934 Map - The Castleton in orange and The St. Marks in pink

ca. 1940 - my favorite picture of the Castleton as it seems to lurch around the corner of Nicholas and St. Marks

postcard of the Castleton with Castleton Park in the foreground

postcard of the Castleton

 

ca. 1940 - the St. Marks 

 

ca. 1940 - the St. Marks

postcard of the Castleton and the St. Marks

1928 -  skyline showing Curtis H.S., the St. Marks and the Castleton - I feel obligated to track down pictures of all the houses in this photograph

1924 vs ca. 2021 aerial maps

 

2021 - 165 St. Marks Place

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

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.

Methodism, wherefore art thou?

I've written before about something I call 'the Great Methodist Collapse". I still don't know anything about what happened to the Methodist churches on Staten Island in the late sixties but of the six churches (and one chapel) I know of on the North Shore, three of them closed and were sold off to other parties. Presumably it was a combination of the demographic changes (though the late sixties seems too early for that) and the general decline in urban mainline Protestant church attendance (and, again, there's a problem in that the Methodist church stayed strong through today). Someday I'll actually talk to a Methodist church historian and understand what happened. Just not today.

Faith United Methodist Church - 221 Heberton Avenue - Port Richmond


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The link leads to a detailed history of the birth of United Methodist Church from a combining of Grace Methodist Church (the present United church) with Kingsley Methodist in Stapleton and Trinity Methodist in West New Brighton.

More Lost Churches of the North Shore

The original St. Adalbert on Morningstar Road. I know several people who feel the new church is cold and normally I think I'd agree but for some unfathomable reason I don't. I only went to one Mass there and it was a funeral but for some reason the church worked.



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Original Our Lady of Mount Carmel on Castleton and Clove - Today the church site is a parking lot and the new church (a boxy, sixties thing) sits on the north side of Castleton Avenue a block or so away.


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Quick Churches for a Thawing Friday

Trinity Methodist Episcopal Church on the corner of Elizabeth and Delafield - another victim of the Great Methodist Collapse of the late 60's. I first saw this church in 1995 when I started driving (yes, I learned to drive very late and some, like the luminous Mrs. V., would tell you I've never really learned) and it blew me away. It's a gorgeous old neo-gothic building in the center of narrow, tree lined residential streets. At one time it must a have been a true community church. There's no place to park and if Methodists moved away (which I presume is what happened) then who's coming by bus?

At the time it was operated as a yeshiva but even that's passed on. The building's marked with the deadly FDNY "don't save" boxed X symbols now. Very sad.


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I'll have to get some actual photos someday. The googlemap picture is totally overgrown.









Calvary Presbyterian - corner of Castleton and Bement.

A beautiful church and a fading congregation. There must have been one big Scots Irish concentration for both Calvary and nearby Olivet Presbyterian (Broadway and Myrtle) to have existed so close together.


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It is listed in the National Register of Historic Places as of 2002.