[Leica] Staten Island

[lrzeitlin at gmail.com (Lawrence Zeitlin)]

Vince,
My in-laws had a 100 year old farm house on 891 Woodrow Avenue about six
blocks west of the commuter train line. It was midway between the ocean and
the land fill. Actually the landfill didn't smell too bad but when the wind
was wrong the fumes from the New Jersey refineries could run your car. I had
an apartment on Grimes Hill next to Wagner College. This was considered an
elite living area. At 430 feet it was almost the tallest hill on the East
Coast waterfront.It was also near Clove Lake Park with a very good public
golf course. Because the island was isolated from New York, very few people
played on the course and it was easy to get a tee time. A brief slide down
the hill and I could take the bus to the Staten Island ferry for a 5 cent,
half hour, ocean excursion to Manhattan past the Statue of Liberty. My two
bedroom apartment with a garage cost me all of $138 per month. The boat
pictures at the beginning of my LUG Gallery album were all taken in the
Great Kills harbor, now a part of Gateway National Park.

But all good things come to an end. After the Verrazano Bridge opened, half
of Brooklyn migrated to Staten Island. Old houses were replaced by homes
that looked like Mafia Mansions from Long Island. Traffic exploded. Many
green areas disappeared. But by that time my new wife and I had moved to the
Hudson Valley and visited Staten Island only for weddings and funerals. The
downside is that we couldn't get decent bagels anymore.
Larry Z