Here at United Hebrew Cemetery, there's a large section of graves covered with horizontal slabs of granite, which happen to provide an ideal surface for the accumulation of stones left behind by visitors (a Jewish custom). For whatever reason, this cemetery sports a much wider variety of stones, including some flattened glass marbles, than I've seen elsewhere.
United Hebrew Cemetery was the first cemetery I visited on this walk, all the way back on Day 1. It's had quite a bit more money embezzled from its coffers since then!
Staten Island's deer population has exploded over the past several years, rising from 24 in 2008 to 763 in the winter of 2013-14.
Above: the most photogenic of the dozens of piles of deer droppings I saw in United Hebrew Cemetery today.
at United Hebrew Cemetery. If you want some real excitement, watch the chunk of ice wash in about 29 seconds into the video.
I'm standing at the northwestern corner of Colonial Square, a townhouse development, gazing out over a vast expanse of phragmites. The hill at left is part of the old Brookfield landfill, which, like its neighbor Fresh Kills, is currently being turned into a park.
Mounted on the fence surrounding United Hebrew Cemetery. I have no idea what its purpose is.
Here at Holtermann's Bakery, founded in 1878 and said to be Staten Island's oldest family business, the baking takes place "in a living museum, a cavernous, cement-floored workroom with huge, overbuilt machines whose sturdy cast-metal fittings are worn smooth from decades of hard use."
This stylized profile of a belted kingfisher can be found on a gate at King Fisher Park.
The Parks Department's website refers to this park as both "King Fisher Park" and "Kingfisher Park". I'm not sure which name is correct. While the native belted kingfisher is the park's true eponym, it's not hard to picture former Parks Commissioner Henry Stern playfully deciding to insert a space into the name to evoke images in parkgoers' minds of a fictitious monarch whose vast domain included this prized portion of central Staten Island.
over the swollen waters of Islington Pond in King Fisher Park. It looks like the same model we saw suspended above Beach 148th Street in the Rockaways last year.
Remembering the six graduates and four immediate family members of staff and students of Public School 32 who were killed on 9/11. Here's a closer look.
It's not the size of the moose in the fight; it's the size of the fight in the moose.
I had forgotten about this series of posts from the early days of this walk.
