Home Again, Home Again......

So the luminous Mrs. V and I just returned from a two and a half week trip to England. Our initial plan was to follow the Two Moors Way Trail and walk from Ivybridge on the south edge of Dartmoor, northward and eventually through Exmoor and emerge on the north Devon coast at Lynmouth.

After a week or so of that we gave up (more precisely our feet gave out). Also, beautiful as Devon is, it seemed unlikely we would see anything different from the moors, valleys, farms and villages we had already seen. We probably hiked and walked over seventy miles along the trail and in Exeter and Bath before we decided to move on to different pastures.

After a ten mile hike along the Kennet & Avon Canal we took a train to Oxford and hunkered down there for a few days. We decided to then head to Salisbury and use it a base of operations to go to Avebury and Winchester but we got to the city and couldn't find a place to stay. So we went to London and just stayed there for the last five days of our trip.

I'm tired and I don't have the brains to go into much more detail now but I'll do that later. And picture will be posted to facebook. So be prepared.

Honestly, theyr'e not ALL corrupt

Every time I get insane because of the incompetence of the legislature in Albany or the arrogant dictator running the city I deeply love, a dispatch arrives from the west bank of the Hudson and makes me feel so much better. Pound for pound New Jersey has to be the most corrupt state in the Union. I don't think even Louisiana measures up next to the Garden State.

So if you're and New Yorker read the link and feel better. If you're a New Jerseyite just hang your head in despair that you and your neighbors keep electing the same colorful criminals to office and your taxes just keep going up and up.

Insane Times

Proof that we're in the stupid times.

WANTED - DEAD OR ALIVE

Northern Mockingbird

These avian nightmares have infested the trees about my home and start calling to each other at 2:30 am. As recently as this morning I have been dive bombed by these little monsters for presumably coming too close to a nest. I want them gone. Give me some nice crows that sleep at night any day. I'll even take pigeons.

The Lost Houses of Richmond Terrace in New Brighton

Above: 654 Richmond Terrace - 1932


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654 Richmond Terrace - still vacant


Above and Below: 632 Richmond Terrace at the s/w corner of Franklin Avenue - 1932




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632 Richmond Terrace today - still vacant


The Ward House, known also as "the Cement House" - c.1900, it was demolished between then and 1917.



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Where the Cement House once stood - paved over



526 Richmond Terrace - the Vredenburg House (though spelled without the terminal H they were probably related to me and mine) - 1932

Staten Island....or Lovecraft Country?

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Staten Island or Arkham? You decide. Is this a run down string of buildings on Sentinel Street or just York Avenue in New Brighton?



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Some unnamed street on French Hill in Lovecraft Country, USA or Thompson Street, Stapleton?



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Is that Captain Marsh's second wife hidden on the top floor or is this just a house in West New Brighton?


Can you tell I've been rereading a lot (a lot) of Lovecraft and associated stuff lately? I've even dug out Ramsey Campbell's "Cold Print". Obsessed as I am with aged and lost Staten Island, it's Lovecraft's similar obsession that's grabbing me most strongly this time around reading the stories. So this is my little tribute to a man born on the same date as me 76 years earlier.

Van Duzer Street - from North to South

Running from Tompkinsville to Stapleton and then to Concord and parallel to St. Paul's Avenue, Van Duzer Street is lined with some of the most interesting older houses and buildings surviving on the Island. The street's name is obviously Dutch in origin (street name seem to be the only lasting impression of my forbears founding of this city) but beyond that I don't know specifically for whom it's named. I've only posted pictures from the beginning of Van Duzer at Victory Blvd in Tompkinsville to Targee Street in Stapleton. It's the stretch I'm most familiar with and definitely the most interesting.




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Facing North(ish) on Van Duzer and looking at Victory Blvd.





The original El-Bethel AME Church and as it looks today


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247 Van Duzer Street at between Clinton and Baltic. According to the late Dick Dickenson's edition of "Holden's Staten Island" this little house dates from before 1786. Wow.





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House on the corner of William and Van Duzer with restaurant addition - appears on 1874 map - Many of us know it with varying degrees of distaste as Giggles, the 19th Hole or perhaps Beer Goggles.




292 Van Duzer Street - the Democratic Club c. 1935 - in 1874 it was owned by W.C. Anderson. Today it remains but in a considerably worn down state






Looking west along Van Duzer at Sands Street - in the background is the steeple of Trinity Lutheran Church





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This beautiful house on the corner of Van Duzer and Smith Terrace. In 1874 it was owned by K. Jessup. Today it is much more secluded and sits hidden behind trees.





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523 to 525 Van Duzer Street - in 1932 the wood frame building was occupied by the Eagle Social Club.





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561 Van Duzer Street - This old brick home was owned by J. Oneill in 1874 and Chas. Rosenberg from 1907 to 1917. The old picture dates from 1932


So ends our incredibly edited and short trip along Van Duzer Street. There are some great pictures I left out. Maybe later.

The Beautiful Houses of Harrison Street

Between Water Street and Vanderbilt Avenue (think between Tappen Park and Bayley Seton Hospital) and between Bay Street and Tompkins Avenue, is a beautiful pocket of houses. Some are old and tumbling down while others are downright magnificent and stunningly maintained. The are was anchored once by the previously shown First Presbyterian Church (now owned by Mt. Sinai Baptist Church).



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This grand brick building is on the corner of Harrison and Quinn.



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Harrison between Quinn and Brownell, west side


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Harrison between Quinn and Brownell - east side


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Harrison and corner of Brownell, northeast side

Arlington

Facing east on Richmond Terrace about 400 feet from Holland Ave - 9/25/31


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Today

The houses are described as being next to the property of the Downey Shipbuilding Firm. They'd started in 1903 on Shooters Island and moved to Howland Hook in 1910. Most famously they built a yacht for the Kaiser and the three masted schooner Atlantic

A Series of Very Old Houses

Finding that little house on Port Richmond Avenue the other day was great. It reminded me that I've noticed several similar houses around the North Shore over the life of this site. So here are some of them. I can't tell you anything about them in most cases. There aren't CofO's online for most of them and the tax information on really old homes just says they were built in 1899, not the actual year of construction.



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Jackson Street, Stapleton


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Targee Street, Stapleton





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Tompkins Street, Stapleton

William Street

63 William Street - 1932 - The NYPL description states this home was owned by G.W. Rathburn in 1874.


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Today - In deepest Stapleton there remain beautiful 19th century homes maintained with loving care by their owners. I'd give my eyeteeth to be able to live in a house like this.

Port Richmond Avenue and Orange Avenue

620 Port Richmond Avenue - seems to have been built in 1899 (though I suspect before then)


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Today

Mariners Harbor Day

Mariner's Harbor (I haven't linked to wikipedia here because the entry seems racist and I suspect contains and urban legend) presents the best neighborhood to look around at for cool old pictures and surviving old buildings. It's been a heavy industrial area, was and remains a working class neighborhood with an always diverse populations, and at one time was the heart of the Island's wealthy oystering community.

Because of various economic and demographic prejudices the Harbor stayed fairly intact (in regards to its older housing stock) till fairly recently. The beautiful big Victorian houses on along the north end of South Avenue were only demolished in the last decade or so (and even now one or two survive, crowded all around by the townhouses wedged onto the lots of their now lost compatriots). Even a few of the old captains' mansions along Richmond Terrace have stumbled along into the 21st Century.

Whenever I'm stuck for something to put up on the site I've been able to just troll through the Mariner's Harbor pictures on the NYPL site and just post away. I hope you enjoy the pictures.

St. Clement's Church

St. Clement's Church - 1932


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Today - The original wooden church has been covered with stucco and it's Catholic congregation has been merged with that of St. Michael's over on Harbor Road. I'm not sure what's in the building at present.

47 Union Avenue

47 Union Avenue - 1932 - The NYPL information says a plaque over the door read "Horse Shoer and Blacksmith"


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Today

St. Michael's Church - Harbor Road and Brabant Street

Looking at St. Michael's Church at Harbor and Brabant from the west along Lockman Avenue - In the distance you can see PS 44.



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Today - Now called St. Clement's and St. Michael's. It's a poor quality googlemaps pictures but it's what I've got to work with at work.

The Post House

The Post House - 1900 - located on the south side of Richmond Terrace several hundred yards west of Holland Avenue. According to the NYPL it was built in 1691.


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Fernic Aircraft Corporation

3493 Richmond Terrace (northside) - 1931



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The Fernic Aircraft Corporation was founded by Romanian aviator George Fenric in 1929. He died in 1930 when he crashed at an air show on Curtiss Reynolds airfield in Chicago, Illinois, on October 22, 1930.

Mariner's Harbor - remants of a oysteriffic past

2846 Richmond Terrace - from 1924 - the homes of George and John Thompson, both in the oyster business


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18 South Avenue - at these times it belonged to M.A. Sinn. Prior to that it belonged to G. Hart

1924


1932


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c. 2007

C'mon. This is creepy

Be sure to go to the publisher's home page and check out some of their other books. I know there's got to be a Republican version of this sort of stuff and I'd find it just as creepy and wrongheaded.