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 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 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

The Stapleton Projects Project - Part Seven

So, I already missed posting new pictures last week. I screwed up labeling the ones below and didn't fix it until just now. Sorry about that. 

The obvious standout today is Bennett's Bicycles. Their website says they opened as a general store in Fort Wadsworth before moving to Tompkins Street in the thirties. They stayed there until 1957 when the property was taken as part of the eminent domains proceedings that demolished the back streets, and then were given a check and thirty days to vacate. Good going, NYC!

The rest is the usual mix of houses and apartments. Something I forgot to include last time is the present day map showing where these buildings were originally located.

Tompkins Street between Cedar Street and Tompkins Avenue

1917 street map

Tompkins Street between Clarke Street and Cedar Street

Approximate location of old buildings

The Stapleton Projects Project - Part Six

Clarke Avenue between Tompkins Street and the baseball field

One of the problems in doing this project is the limited resources I have to work with. The maps are from 1917 and the photos from twenty to twenty-five years later, so they don't always match up. During the time between the maps and the photos, some buildings were destroyed and others built. A new building isn't too much trouble, but a missing one is.

All that's to say is, unlike other entries in this series, I can't put together a complete panorama view of the street in question. Still, I do have a nice batch of photos that display the diverse nature of construction in the area: single family houses and apartments of various sizes. Right around the corner on Tompkins Street were stores (follow the link to the very first Projects Project installment to see them). You can also see the front of the dark building with white window frames on the right of the B photo in that installment. It is building a. 

                         A                            B  

                           C                                    D

                              E                                  F                        

G