The West Brighton Projects Project: Part Two - west side of Broadway between Market and West Union Streets

Moving right along, I've got another West Brighton Projects post. It was a little more complicated to assemble than I thought it would be. If you look at the annotated map you can see most of the property lots in Block 191 have buildings facing both Broadway and State Street. I'm pretty sure the buildings with the actual lot numbers are the ones facing Broadway.

Unfortunately, that leaves me with a batch of buildings with lot numbers that aren't shown on the map. I feel safe in assuming they're the buildings on State Street, but determining the order is proving troublesome. In a case like this, I have to look for clues in the backgrounds and street fixtures to give me a sense of where they should go. In the next post, I'll make my best guess at where they were. 

A

B

C

D

I've always been torn about the City's claim that the neighborhoods it destroyed were blighted, but doing these posts have revealed a significant number of run down buildings as far back as the early forties. I can only imagine what their state was twenty years later when the condemnation proceedings began.

E

F

The West Brighton Projects Project: Part One - west side of State Street between Market and West Union Streets

While I haven't finished the Stapleton Projects Project yet, I was inspired to start this second Projects Project by a picture posted on Facebook the other day. It was of mass being celebrated in the old St. Benedicta Roman Catholic Church, one of the casualties of the construction of the West Brighton Projects in the early sixties.

I'm swiping the picture, but I highly recommend following this link to the original posting at FB. The poster and several commenters provide some valuable information about the lost neighborhood and the church.

Mass at St. Benedicta

original St. Benedicata ca. 1940 - corner of State and Market Streets

The part of West New Brighton destroyed was smaller than that which was razed in Stapleton. The residences were smaller, and so far, I haven't come across too many big multi-family buildings like in Stapleton. There isn't the commercial-residential mix here either as in Stapleton. The stores appear to have been mostly found out on Castleton Avenue and Broadway.

Kite Hill and Ward Hill

this is a repost from the site's facebook group, North Shore Staten Island History.



   I don't know where it originated, but the name the kids I grew up with on Cebra and Ward Avenues called the outcrop of rock that rises up above Homer Street and looking out over St. Paul's Avenue is Kite Hill. It was one of those things you did on a summer day, you'd hike up to Nixon Avenue, cut through the empty lot and climb down into the hillside, work your way thru the brambles (which were filled with pheasants), and then climb up Kite Hill. After hanging out for a little while and looking out at the SIRT, the harbor, and Stapleton, you'd go home. A couple of months later you'd do it all over again. 

   Today, just tooling about the net, looking for Statpleton stuff, I found this painting. It wasn't done from Kite Hill, but it's definitely from somewhere on Pavilion Hill (Tompkins Circle). 

   It's described as being painted from Brighton Heights, but I'd stake my Stapleton credibility on that mansion on the left being the Caleb Ward House. 

Hermann Fuechsel (http://hrs-art.com/hudson-river-school-ar…/hermann-fuechsel/) was a German-American painter and part of the Hudson River School.

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 

  

               

The Stapleton Projects Project - Part Five

Time has passed far too quickly, and I've done nothing but accumulate stacks and stacks of electronic pictures and done nothing with them. So here goes, I'm going to try to get a post or two up each week and jumpstart this whole thing.

Broad Street between Tompkins Avenue and Cedar Street

 Here's another example of the typical Broad Street mix of commercial and residential units. So there's a shoe repair shop, a fish market, billiards, a deli, and a beauty parlor. #15 (B) is listed on the 1917 map as the Central Hotel. I can't tell if it's still a hotel or just an apartment building in the photo above, but either ways, it's a pretty large residence for Stapleton.

Broad Street between Canal and Wright

This was never a block I went down much. There was really no reason too. There was an animal hospital but we had our own vet somewhere in Rosebank. Just no reason at all.

What I like about the pictures (ca. 1940), are how they show the block alive. My favorite is Lot 23 with both car and horse drawn wagon. Though already decades old, the automobile hasn't displaced every old fashioned transport.

Today, many of several of these buildings are gone. D is the parking lot for the old Virginia Funeral Home. J is an open lot. The old PS 14 is long gone. Where it once towered (keep you eye open when looking at the various Stapleton photos I post. Like the R&H clock tower, the school's tower once dominated the town's sky) remained a vacant lot for decades.

Canal Street along Tappen Park

When I was a kid in the early seventies, Canal Street along the park was still an active business strip. There was an Army & Navy store, several shoe stores, and, of course, the Store of a Million Items. There were others but I can't remember them.

Now, it's a sort of run down patch. Many of the original buildings have been torn down. Sure, there's a new building but businesswise, Canal's a bit of a bust these days.

Looking for something else the other day in the CSI SI Archives, I came across a picture of the Store of a Million Items. Taking a few extra minutes, I looked at the rest of the block and couldn't really believe what I saw. Clearly Canal Street along Tappen Park had been more than just a commercial strip, but an incredibly busy and successful one.

Gordon Street between Hudson and Gray Streets

The Staten Island Archive at CSI recently replaced its malfunctioning and obsolete equipment with functioning and more obsolete equipment. But it does get the job done and I'm getting the hang out of wringing the most out of it. I complain, but the Archive and the folks who work there are tremendous,if sadly underutilized, resources.

Never having had any reason to walk on the residential blocks between Broad and Van Duzer Streets, I never realized that they were part of the real hear of Stapleton. This was (and still is) where people actually live. Broad and Bay are lined with stores. Like the backstreets demolished for the Projects, these are the streets of one and two-family houses. Here's what one blocked looked liked circa 1940.

The Stapleton Projects Project - Part Four

After a lengthy delay caused by 1)second eye surgery, 2)busted equipment at the Archive, and that ol' standby, 3)laziness, here's the return of the Stapleton Projects Project.

As in the last two posts, today's continues along Broad Street. Specifically, it's Broad between the vanished street, Clarke Street and the vanished, southern portion of Cedar Street.

As with the other buildings of lost Broad Street, it's a interesting mix of commercial and residential. Notice that Building F says Salvation Army on side. I think that's their original location (the present building at 15 Broad was the Veteran Fireman's Association).