Small Churches - St. Sylvester's

   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.

Horrmann Castle

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.

CORRECTION - In the comments, someone kindly told me this did not burn. Instead, it was simply demolished.


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Vale Snowden

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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Augustinian Academy

Once upon a time the Catholic Church built a school for boys, particularly geared towards entering the priesthood. It stood on top of Grymes Hill near the site of Wagner College (initially a Lutheran seminary. I wonder if they raided each others' campus.) looking over Clove Valley. In 1969 it closed due to declining enrollment. It became a retreat house (and I seem to recall my friend's father going there on retreat) and was eventually sold to developers in 1985. After that it fell into a sad state of ruin before finally being demolished over the past few years.





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I'm not the only one interested in Staten Island's fallen buildings. Here's a nice site with pictures of the Academy's sorry state prior to its destruction.