[Leica] Staten Island

[passaro.vince at gmail.com (Vince Passaro)]

yes I recollect it was very nice over by Wagner (John Gotti lived on Todt
Hill isn't that nearby?) and also that Silver Lake and Clove Lake parks
(that first one right? ) were both beautiful.

But every old S.I.er will look at you and at some point utter the phrase
you've used: "before the bridge."  It ruined everything. It wasn't just half
of Brooklyn: it was the worst half, ie Italians who thought they were
getting away from "The element."  A more foul culture cannot be imagined.

On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 8:20 PM, Lawrence Zeitlin <lrzeitlin at 
gmail.com>wrote:

> 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
>
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