It's said that Ulysses S. Grant was once interested in making this estate his post-presidency retirement home, but his wife vetoed the move after being attacked by a swarm of mosquitoes during a visit. Years later, in 1903, it became the new Staten Island branch of St. Vincent's Hospital; it's now part of Richmond University Medical Center.

They used to have standards!

That's what Mr. Lawnmower told me, anyway; this is just inside the woods at the edge of the cemetery.

Known as Monkey Hill (you'll see the hill in two upcoming photos), this is the final resting place of more than 9,000 "aged, decrepit and worn-out" seaman who once called Snug Harbor home.

But where are all the graves? The guy cutting the grass told me the brass nameplates that once served as grave markers were removed after people starting stealing them to sell as scrap metal.

Until the 1930s, this pond was part of the water supply for the nearby Sailors' Snug Harbor.

Taking advantage of locally produced greenhouse gases?

1 Pendleton Place ain't too shabby either.

From the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission's 1969 landmark designation report: "One would sooner expect to read a description of such a house in an historical novel, rather than come upon such an actual structure still standing within the confines of New York City."

The large brick building off in the distance was part of the old Staten Island Hospital until 1979, when the medical center relocated to a larger campus. Just to its left stood a "spectacular Neo-medieval style brick structure" known as the Castle, which was was also part of the hospital complex and which was demolished just six months ago after being deemed an "accident waiting to happen" by the city.

(Just above the treeline in the center of the photo, you can faintly make out the top of one tower of the Verrazano Bridge, the longest suspension bridge in the Americas.)