in Fox Beach

(That's the same house as this.)

This walled channel at the mouth of Oakwood Creek, along with a tide gate and the wooden seawall visible in the background at left (bird's-eye view), once protected Oakwood Beach from seawater flooding. A 1992 nor'easter caused substantial damage to the already aging seawall, leaving the low-lying neighborhood vulnerable to flooding and leading the Army Corps of Engineers to construct the newer levee and tide gate we saw two posts ago.

A boarded-up house in Fox Beach overlooks the east branch of Oakwood Creek.

Built by the Army Corps of Engineers in 2000 (along with the 730-foot-long levee that it cuts through), this floodgate (or tide gate) is designed to be open during normal conditions to allow the east branch of Oakwood Creek to flow out of Fox Beach/Oakwood Beach toward Lower New York Bay, and closed during storm conditions to prevent rising seawater from entering and inundating the low-lying neighborhood. But the gate proved no match for Hurricane Sandy's 14-foot storm tide, which both overtopped it and caused significant damage to it. Here's an aerial view of the gate. Zoom out and pan around to get a sense of how the area is laid out.

STUDENT DRIVER

In light of the destruction wreaked by Hurricane Sandy, the state offered to buy out homeowners (at higher than pre-storm prices) in three hard-hit, low-lying Staten Island neighborhoods, with the idea that the houses would then be torn down and the flood-prone areas ultimately depopulated and returned to nature. As is the case with the other neighborhoods, the vast majority of homeowners here in Fox Beach, a section of Oakwood Beach, have decided to take the buyout and head to higher ground. Most of the houses still standing here are vacant, boarded up, and awaiting their date with the wrecking ball (or perhaps the Caterpillar 320B L hydraulic excavator).

This sign is the only remaining trace of St. John's Malankara Syrian Orthodox Church, which was swept off its foundation by Hurricane Sandy and later demolished.

on Kissam Avenue

The second such creature we've seen

Take a look at the grounds (post-Sandy Street View).

This LoBaido-painted trailer is (or at least was) the main center of operations of Guyon Rescue, a grassroots relief organization that grew out of two people showing up here in Oakwood Beach after Hurricane Sandy to distribute donated items to the community. The group became a neighborhood fixture in the months following the storm, but some neighbors have now grown tired of the trailer still being parked here after all this time. Two women who live across the street were complaining to me about this "eyesore" quite bitterly — but I guess it's a good sign of the neighborhood's recovery that people's lives are stable and settled enough for something like an ugly trailer sitting across the street to be worth worrying about.

Here at the SSG Michael Ollis VFW post, a LoBaido flag surrounds a plaque memorializing the Staten Islanders killed by Hurricane Sandy: 24 individuals plus "all unidentified victims".

For three blocks, this little drainage channel takes the place of Adelaide Avenue, severing Medina Street and Tarrytown Avenue in the process.