State officials say it all began when someone released nine turkeys on the grounds of the South Beach Psychiatric Center in 2000. Now there are dozens of the birds living at the psychiatric center and in nearby areas. While some locals love them, others think they're nothing but a bunch of pooping, garden-eating traffic hazards. Last year, the USDA began removing turkeys from the psychiatric center's property, sending a number of them off to slaughter and relocating 28 others upstate, but there are still plenty left wandering around.
I first learned about these turkeys when I encountered some a few years ago in late spring. I got a good shot of two males strutting their stuff for the ladies.
(We also ran into a couple of turkeys last year at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx.)
One of several plastic container-top messages on display at this house (as you'll see in the next few photos)
A container-top tribute to the Staten Islanders killed by Hurricane Sandy. I'd guess the "+" refers to a man who wasn't killed directly by the storm, but by falling in a dark, wet hallway after the power went out at his apartment building.
(It's worth zooming in to take a closer look around this place.)
A mock national park celebrating Staten Island's turkeys. It even has a website!
Remembering the two residents of Ocean Breeze killed by the storm
Buy Out Needed!
Buy Out Received!
Another one of the several signs posted outside "The Little House in the Gully" reads:
Sandy, Took More(Here's an aerial view of "the Bowl", the area spanning Naughton Avenue to Seaview Avenue and Quincy Avenue to Oceanside Avenue.)
Than Homes, And
Belongings, & Lives
She Took Our Souls
Please Gov. Cuomo
Buy The Bowl
There were once houses standing here. Now there's just that yellow band around the utility pole, marking Sandy's waterline.
They've all come running across the field (if you zoom in, you can see a few stragglers off in the background by the pine tree) because the guy standing next to me started throwing handfuls of corn kernels over the fence. He told me he doesn't live around here, but whenever he knows he'll be in the area, "I bring my corn."
This gap provides passage through the massive protective sand berm taking shape on the beach here in Staten Island.
by Scott LoBaido, this one on the side of the rebuilt Toto's restaurant. The painted water level denotes the height of floodwaters during Hurricane Sandy. (The mural is well above ground level; I had to climb up a bit to take this shot over the surrounding railing.)
