Roman Polanski

It's funny how in the days of Obama where the rich are routinely singled out and excoriated it's OK that Polanski bought off his victim and tried to escape the legal ramifications of what he did and the Hollywood community is fine with that. But you know what? I'm alright with all this because now Woody Allen's come out in support of Polanski. Actually, now I have to go wash after reading that sentence back to myself.

The Other Lutherans

St. John's Lutheran - 216 Jewett Avenue - Port Richmond


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St. John's Lutheran, an old German congregation in an old Episcopal church in Port Richmond, is a member of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. Of the two major Lutheran bodies, it is the more conservative and smaller. I've mentioned before that it's relationship with the larger, liberal Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is like the Sharks and the Jets. The only time I've been in the church was at the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. P. back in 1988. It's got a very cool little cemetery out back.







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More Lutherans

St. Paul's - St. Luke's Lutheran Church (formerly Wasa Lutheran) - 186 Decker Ave - Port Richmond


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Originally founded as Vasa Lutheran by Swedes in 1908, this was the church of my mother's family. One of her sisters is still very active in the congregation.
In 1971, the renamed St. Luke's Church merged with the dwindling St. Paul's Church (originally a German congregation) from over on Cary Avenue in West New Brighton creating the new and improved St. Paul's - St. Luke's Lutheran Church.

The old, sold, and condemned St. Paul's Lutheran Church - Cary Ave. and Caroline St. - West New Brighton

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Our Savior Lutheran Church - 557 Bard Avenue - West New Brighton


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My mother always told me how Our Savior existed only as a basement through the early sixties. It had relocated from that old Scandinavian stronghold, Port Richmond, to Forest and Bard Avenues and could only afford to excavate the present basement of the church and throw a flat roof over that. Eventually the congregation raised enough money and built the present modern and, inside at least, surprisingly beautiful sanctuary and chapel. Not surprisingly, the Norwegian heritage of the congregation is reflected in the clean Scandinavian modern wood work throughout the church.
The church parsonage (not pictured) is one of the several remaining stone houses in the area built by the opthamologist Samuel MacKenzie Elliot in the mid 19th century.




The original Our Savior Lutheran was located on Nicholas and Hatfield Avenues. Now it's a Moose Lodge.

The Church Project Lite

So I'm too lazy/too overwhelmed/too tired, or just too something indefinable to carry out the Church Project the way I originally intended to. So...
So, what I'll do is just get googlemap shots and the occasional old timey picture of the North Shore churches and some information about them.
I'll do it by denomination, starting with my home court, the Lutheran churches.

DAY ONE

Trinity Evangelical Lutheran - 309 Saint Pauls Ave - Stapleton


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My old church and elementary school. Founded by Germans back in the nineteenth century, Trinity really took off in the early twentieth century under the stewardship of Pastor Fredrick Sutter. In the google picture you can see the damage to the steeple caused by the tornado that ravaged the North Shore 2 years ago.


Zion Lutheran - 505 Watchogue Road, Westerleigh


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The group that founded Zion Lutheran started as an adult Norwegian Sunday school class in a no longer standing building in Port Richmond. At some point they collected enough money and built a beautiful neo-Gothic church on Bennett Street alongside Port Richmond Park. In the sixties they relocated to Westerleigh and built the kind of ugly modern church they still occupy on Watchogue and Willowbrook Roads.










I started with Trinity and Zion because they represent the two most active and vibrant Lutheran congregations remaining on Staten Island. They also still have a strong sense of their initial ethnic origins. Trinity was still holding German services in the early eighties.

They also represent two distinct wings of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Trinity came from money (particularly the Stapleton beer barons of the nineteenth century) and Zion from working class poverty. Today Trinity maintains a much more ritual filled worship service and Zion's is more stripped down.

The great wave of Lutheranism that once represented Germans, Norwegians and Swedes in numerous churches has receded with the demographic changes across the Island as well as the general collapse of the mainline denominations.

I want one. That's all.

THIS is what I want for Christmas.

Some google shots of churches.

I'm in a lousy mood (someone I haven't spoken to in a while and didn't know was sick died) and doing this makes me feel a little better. I went for the grand old style churches for this one. Give me a house of worship that doesn't make me feel like I'm in a warehouse or convention center anytime. I like my churches to be special and extraordinary and NOT make me feel like I could physically be anywhere other than a church.



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St. Peter's R.C. - New Brighton



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Trinity Evangelical Lutheran - Stapleton



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Christ Church (Epsicopalian) - New Brighton



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Church of the Immaculate Conception R.C. - Stapleton



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St. Paul's Episcopal Church - Stapleton

It's just like the Acropolis. Really.

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Definitely one of my favorite homes on Staten Island. While the house itself is nothing extraordinary, the sculpture collection makes this place special.

Port Richmond - land of opportunities

In honor of Mr. and Mrs. Lawgiver's Port Richmond real estate undertaking, here's some shots of Port Richmond and its surrounding areas. It really is still a beautiful neighborhood, despite the economic and white flight that hammered it in the seventies and eighties. Sure parts of the area are pretty sketchy but even those spots have some wonderful buildings.






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Trantor and Hooker




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Richmond Terrace and Heberton Railroad Depot




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The Ritz Theater




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Again - The Ritz





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Sharpe and Grove Train Station






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Faber and Richmond Terrace





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Dr. Johnson's House - Albion and Heberton

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