(The flagpole, along with a couple of benches, is out of frame to the left.)
Here in Silver Mount Cemetery stands the mausoleum of the Bechtel family, who ran a major Staten Island brewery (photos) in the decades before Prohibition.
Built in 1893-95, this house, along with its next-door neighbor (the John King Vanderbilt House, also owned by Ms. Smith, a Staten Island historian), was almost torn down in 1987, but the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the two structures as landmarks with lightning speed (relatively speaking; the process took less than a month) after finding out that the executors of Ms. Smith's estate had applied for a permit to demolish them. In the late 1990s, this house was relocated away from the Clove Road side of the property to create more developable area on the lot. It was also restored and reoriented at that time; the front porch now faces the dead end of Waldron Avenue. (Compare this 1996 aerial image to one from 2012.) A Walgreens opened on the corner of the property last year, and there's apparently more development in store on the site of the neighboring house.
This memorial, placed here at Silver Lake Golf Course thanks to the multi-year efforts of a local high school student, offers some sobering thoughts to anyone whose spirits haven't already been sufficiently dampened by a lousy tee shot or missed putt:
"THE FORGOTTEN BURIAL GROUND"
1849 - 1858
HERE LIE THE UNMARKED GRAVES OF IRISH IMMIGRANTS
WHO FLED THE GREAT FAMINE IN SEARCH OF FREEDOM.
THOSE WHO ARE BURIED HERE DIED FROM DISEASE, ALONE
AND ISOLATED, IN THE TOMPKINSVILLE QUARANTINE BEFORE
EVER TASTING FREEDOM. THE 7,000 DEAD, MOST OF WHOM
HAD NO SURVIVORS WHO COULD AFFORD MARKERS,
WERE BURIED ANONYMOUSLY.
THEY WILL NOT BE FORGOTTEN.
2002
The guy who runs Silver Lake Golf Course has planted a vineyard on the grounds and named it after his border collie, who works as the course's goose chaser. And he apparently exploits the free foot-labor of local children in the wine-making process, under the guise of an annual pork-laced "Octoberfest Grape Stomp" competition.
Originally a spring-fed body of water, Silver Lake had by 1917 been expanded and transformed into a reservoir, connected across the Narrows to the city's new Catskill Aqueduct system. The lake is no longer used to store drinking water, however, having been supplanted in that role by a massive underground tank system around 1970.
Built in 1917 as a divider between the reservoir's two basins
Prescription drug abuse on Staten Island has become a major problem in its own right, and it has also fueled the island's heroin epidemic.
This original part of this house, at far left, was built in 1722 as a one-room cottage. The subsequent additions date to about 1770 and 1836.
Built around 1837, this former country manor was once the home of Julia Gardiner Tyler, President John Tyler's widow and "one of New York's most conspicuous rebel sympathizers". Her mother had purchased the place in 1852, and Mrs. Tyler crossed Civil War battle lines to move here from Virginia after her husband's death in 1862. In 1878, the house was acquired (though not necessarily ever lived in) by William M. Evarts, the US secretary of state, who had previously served as US attorney general and would go on to become a US senator, and it was also occupied for a time by the Russian consul general, who "lived there in great style".
Speaking of John Tyler, he was the first person to become president without being elected to the position. Dubbed "His Accidency" by his foes, he ascended from the vice presidency in 1841 when William Henry Harrison kicked the bucket a mere month after being sworn in. His first wife died in 1842 and he married Miss Gardiner in 1844, making him the first president to be widowed, and the first to get hitched, while in office. As the father of 15 children with his two wives, he was the most genetically prolific of all our presidents (as far as we know, anyway; politicians/slaveholders have occasionally been known to sleep around). And thanks to old widowers marrying much younger women, two of his grandchildren, remarkably, are still alive! (Or at least they were as of last fall.)
Of the city's five zoos and one aquarium, this is the only one that's independently operated (i.e., not run by the Wildlife Conservation Society). It once had the world's most complete collection of rattlesnakes, and it's currently home to Staten Island Chuck (a.k.a. Charles G. Hogg), New York's weather-prognosticating groundhog guru, who supposedly has a much better track record than his more celebrated Pennsylvanian counterpart, Punxsutawney Phil. The role of Chuck has been played by different groundhogs over the years, and two of them have been involved in notorious Groundhog Day incidents in recent memory. One bit Mayor Bloomberg during the festivities in 2009, and the most recent Chuck — a female, actually — died a week after wriggling out of the arms of 6-foot-6 Mayor de Blasio and tumbling to the ground, although it's unclear if the fall contributed to her death.
This structure is quite reminiscent of the Staten Island Criminal Courthouse we saw on Targee Street; it turns out they were designed by the same architects. And as was the case with the criminal courthouse, it was surprising to come across this imposing government building in a quiet outlying neighborhood.
of the old North Shore branch of the Staten Island Railway
Bayonne's sewage-pumping wind turbine is visible across the Kill van Kull in New Jersey.
along the old North Shore branch of the Staten Island Railway toward where I was standing when I took this shot
Since 1885, this park has been home to the Staten Island Cricket Club, the nation's oldest continuously active cricket club, which was founded as the Staten Island Cricket and Baseball Club in 1872. It was at the club's original home in St. George that, according to many, modern tennis was introduced to the US in 1874 by Mary Ewing Outerbridge (sister of the Outerbridge Crossing's eponym), who had seen the sport being played while on vacation in Bermuda.
According to the Staten Island Advance, Quinlan has been in business for some 125 years, and its building is even older, dating back to the early 1800s.
Washing machines and nectarines under one roof. Take a look inside.
Looking into the woods behind the track at the edge of Corporal Thompson Park, you can see a bunch of tombstones in the distance. They're part of an agglomeration of five old cemeteries — including a Native American burial ground — that were long abandoned before being cleaned up in recent years by an organization called Friends of Abandoned Cemeteries of Staten Island. (I later got a much closer look at some of the stones from a narrow little street that loops down from Richmond Terrace.)
This plaque in Corporal Thompson Park announces the presence of an artwork that's no longer here: Broadway Starship, a 1985 "playsculpture" dedicated to the children of West Brighton. The piece was created by Elizabeth Egbert, the former head of the Staten Island Museum, who passed away in the time since I took this photo.
Recently opened on the former site of the old Blissenbach Marina, a contaminated boatyard owned by the now-defunct Marine Power and Light Corporation (whose adjacent building we saw in the previous photo), this is the city's "first post-Hurricane Sandy resilient waterfront park". You can see some not terribly impressive photos of the place here.
This is the western edge of the Caddell Dry Dock and Repair Company's facilities, which stretch for more than half a mile along Richmond Terrace.
Day 15 of this year's Self-Transcendence 3,100 Mile Race begins in five minutes. The runners have to leave the course each day for six hours starting at midnight, so each new day begins at 6 AM. As you can see, Sarvagata has already covered nearly 1,000 miles in a mere two weeks.
Sopan arrives two minutes before today's start. In addition to the 3,100 miles they must cover on foot, the runners also generally bike to and from their (relatively nearby) temporary residences each day.
The runners gather at the starting line each morning for a few moments of silent reflection before the day begins. Vasu, with the backpack, just arrived and is rushing to get ready.
On the first day of this year's race, several hours in, Vasu stopped mid-block to speak to me just as I was leaving. In Russian-tinged English, he started saying something about my mother, and I thought he must have had me confused with someone else, because how would he know my mother? Then I remembered that my parents had visited New York last summer and we had stopped by the race, although it was only for a few minutes. But it was apparently long enough to make an impression. Vasu went on to tell me that my mom has a beautiful smile, and that he still remembers it all this time later. He just wanted to let me know, and then he kept running.
Sarvagata heads into the light of the early-morning sun on yet another trip around the block.
Speaking of green, I came across 16 dollars (a ten, a five, and a one) lying on the ground shortly after I took this photo — the most money I've found on this walk. I pick up a lot of pennies and occasionally other coins, but I very rarely find paper money.
is the name of this fortress-like house, according to that plaque by the gate.
Classic Queens. This ridiculous intersection is marked by rare survivors from the days when NYC streets signs were color-coded by borough.
