The Stapleton Projects Project - Part Fourteen - Warren Street to Fulton Street to Patten Street to Meadow Street

After a lengthy hiatus, welcome back to the lost buildings and homes wiped out by the construction of the Stapleton Housing Projects. Here's a large number of photos from a block that once existed along Warren Street between Hill and Gordon. Unlike many of the other blocks I've recreated, there are no stores. The only things that isn't a house is the original Holy Trinity Ukrainian Church (click HERE for its history).

Holy Trinity Ukrainian Catholic Church - the congregation moved to Vanderbilt Avenue in 1957 when the city decided to build the projects.

The Stapleton Projects Project - Part Thirteen - Cedar St btw the old ball field and Tompkins St, Tompkins St btw Cedar St and Tompkins Ave, and Tompkins Ave btw Tompkins St. and the old ball field

Today this entire block is covered by baseball fields. The residential buildings look a little run down in these ca. 1940 shots. I don't have anything to say, except, enojy the pictures.

 While the service station is clearly shown on the 1917 map, the following two aren't. However, by comparing the buildings in the background to other pictures, I can safely figure out where the first, the garage, was. To see this, go to this post and look at the buildings marked D and E. The garage can be seen on the right hand side of the third building, the one with the Horn Paint sign on front.

Sorry about the quality of this picture. 

1917 tax map

today

The Stapleton Projects Project - Part Twelve - Hill Street between Warren Street and the old ball field

Hill Street formed the southern boundary of the lost backstreets and it still exists today. Between the projects and I.S. 49, nothing remains of the homes that onced lined the short stretch. Unlike most of the other streets I've resurrected, Hill Street's buildings are all residential. Not an especially interesting observation, but I just thought I'd point it out.

North side of Hill Street

South side of Hill Street

1917 Street Map

Aerial View from today

The Stapleton Projects Project - Part Eleven - Cedar Street between McKeon Street and the old baseball field and south side of McKeon between Clarke and Cedar

Back into the back streets today, with a mostly residential block. It's a mix of single- and multi-family homes. Not much else to say about them, except, these were where people lived, raised families, and then others did the same. Then the city declared it blighted and demolished them.

below - west side of Cedar Street at the old ball field

west side of Cedar St., north of the old ball field

  below - south side of McKeon (Tompkins) Street at the S E corner of Cedar St.

1917 Map of Cedar Street

Approximate positions of houses in above photos and locations of no longer extant streets

The Stapleton Projects Project - Part Ten - Meadow Street between Gordon and Patten Streets, McKeon between Gordon and Patten, and Warren between Meadow and McKeon

A typical backstreet block, a mix of commerical and residential with a definite worn-out appearance. Even with my antipathy toward urban renewal and dislike of housing projects that pack people together like rats, these pictures show a pretty run down neighborhood. If this is what it looked like in the late thirties, I imagine twenty years only made it worse. Between the publication of the map (1917) and the photos (ca. 1940), several lots became vacant, not, I'd wager, a sign indicative of good neighborhood health.

When I see people, especially kids, in these pictures, I love it. They add a dimension of life to them that make it easier to imagine these lost place alive again. Then I realize these kids are in their eighties at least - if they're still alive.

The Stapleton Projects Project - Part Nine - Gordon Street between Broad and McKeon Streets

After a lengthy delay, here's another series of recaptured images from a Stapleton lost over fifty years ago to urban renewal. That was the polite term for slum clearance, itself a polite way of describing the process whereby poor working class neighborhoods were destroyed to make way for some urban planner's dream. That dream meant eliminating older neighborhoods of mixed residential and commercial properties and replacing them with higher density housing projects, which rarely was an improvement.

The Stapleton Projects Project - Part Eight

Moving west along Tompkins Street, we reach between Patten and Clarke Streets. The southside was actually featured in the very first Stapleton Projects Project last year. A mix of commercial and residential buildings, it's typical of the backstreets I've looked at so far.

The northside is mostly residential, but there is the cool looking luncheonette with the Pepsi Cola sign on it. Also, lurking overhead to the right is Horrmann Castle high atop Grymes Hill. 

Today I took my first trip to the new Staten Island Museum at Snug Harbor today and learned a terrible bit of backstreets history. Apparently, during the New York City Draft Riots in 1863, white Islanders attacked black residents of McKeon Street. McKeon Street was the original name for Tompkins Street. Nice to know Staten Island got to play its part in one of the city's most ignominious events.

Southside of Tompkins Street between Patten and Clarke Streets, pts. 1, 2, and 3

Northside of Tompkins Street between Patten and Clarke, 

pts. 1 and 2

1917 map showing locations of buildings