I visit Staten Island once a year to see members of our family who still call it home. Every trip down there brings sadness to my heart, for it is not the island of my youth. I blame the city of New York for poor zoning regulations and a disregard for preservation of history. It comes down to the all mighty dollar and a big dose of corruption, I suppose.
The island was once hailed as a rural respite from the hectic pulse of the big city. There are still some beautiful areas, like the old sea captains homes of Sailors Snug Harbor and Clove Lake Park. Historic Richmond Town is a living history village and museum complex not unlike Sturbridge in Massachusetts, and as far as I can tell, the greenbelt is still “green”. It’s also considered an affordable community for people who fortify the city workforce, although I am shocked at the real estate listing prices.
Sailors Snug Harbor
Also known as
Snug Harbor Cultural Center and Botanical Garden or referenced informally as
Snug Harbor, is a collection of architecturally significant 19th century buildings set in a park located along the
Kill Van Kull on the north shore of
Staten Island in
New York City. It was once a home for aged
sailors and is now a 83-acre (340,000 m
2) city park. Some of the buildings and the grounds are used by arts organizations under the umbrella of the
Snug Harbor Cultural Center and Botanical Garden.
Unfortunately, in the 25 years that I have been “off-island”, it’s rapidly become a congested hub of traffic, pollution (both air and ground) overcrowding of housing – duplex after fourplex after sixplex of apartment and condo units with nary a hint of appealing architecture and barely a nod toward horticulture. Historic structures have been removed at an alarming rate and there doesn’t seem to be any sort of movement with momentum to stop the madness.
Years ago, most of the streets looked like this…
Today, many are turning into this…
Among the Casualties….
Clove Lake Stables
My grandmother, her youngest daughter and then my sister and I used to ride rented horses
through the park at one of the two big barns on the island, Clove Lake Stables.
The Stable was originally an ice house, and then converted to a Livery
by the Franzreb family when refrigeration made ice houses obsolete.
That’s me, second from left.
The horse was named Gaslight and I adored him.
I had a plan to someday rescue him when I had a farm of my own.
By the time that happened, Gaslight and the farm were gone.
Sister on pony
In it’s place is a large housing development.
Cedar Grove Beach
My cousin and I braving the waves at waters edge…
Mom with cousin Jay
Recent times…
Cedar Grove was a small cottage community on the water facing the city. Three generations of my family enjoyed summers there in rented bungalows. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was a safe, friendly beach where everyone knew their neighbor and pitched in to keep the place up. Many families had rented the same bungalow for fifty years or more. This year it all came to an end . The article below sums it up beautifully.
Cedar Grove Beach All Washed Up
By Matt Chaban
October 4, 2010
There was no eleventh hour rescue for Cedar Grove, no life preserver for the 99-year-old beach community on Staten Island’s South Shore, the last of its kind. Despite resident’s best hopes, the politicians and preservationists backing the Grovers could not reach a deal with the Bloomberg administration or the Parks Department to save the bungalows at least for another season, to say nothing of another century. Even Andrea Peyser — Andrea Peyser! — couldn’t woo them.
Grovers still maintain there is no reason to spend good money tearing down a good beach — it’s much cleaner than its city-owned neighbors — that pays $140,000 to the Park’s Department every year to exist. It will cost millions of dollars in capital money to tear down the houses and reopen the stretch next year, which is and has always been publicly accessible. At the same time, beaches across the city, including some just up the shore, have been closed due to lack of funds. Never mind that the city is so desperate for money that it is considering selling off its parking meters to fill the widening budget gap.
At midnight Saturday, Cedar Grove was no more. Parks police was on hand to see to that, according to the news -Parks Department officers guarded the club’s gate as members carried out their belongings. “It’s been tough because I’ve been finding a lot of old family memorabilia,” said John Murphy, 52. The Staten Island Advance has been covering the saga closely and has its own tale of woe:
The season at Cedar Grove Beach Club opened each year with the raising of American flags from each of the 41 bungalows. [Saturday], those same flags were flying upside down. “It signals a vessel in distress,” said Roy Wood, a retired Sandy Hook pilot. After nearly a century, time has run out for Cedar Grove. Its lease with the city expired yesterday, an occasion made even grayer by the rain.
Edith Holtermann pulled the remaining produce from her garden. side-note from Karen – (Mrs. Holtermann was my gym teacher in high school – she could throw a mean volley ball if you aggravated her in just the right way.) Mick Kenny took one last view from his back deck. Jennifer Fitzgerald-Young stood on her porch with her daughter, Elizabeth, who at 9 months is Cedar Grove’s youngest resident. Eric Lesnick hoisted his 5-year-old daughter, Lillianna, in his arms.
“We will miss you,” she scribbled on a bungalow wall.
The fate of this community and beach remains to be seen. Demolition of the cottages is on the agenda.
The Family Homestead
Then
We grew up in a century old farm house with a generous yard in the midst of an old family neighborhood. Big oak trees hung over our house and the streets were tree-lined too. When I drive down the old street now, it’s a heavy feeling. Not much is familiar. The house was taken down for a much more profitable four-family times two.
Now
The original front door knocker now mounted on my mother’s current door.
They don’t make them like they used to.
Some things that still exist
My grandmothers house of 42 years… though she moved away years ago
and has since passed on, this will always be Nana’s house to me.
Then
(we were all scared senseless in this photo, even though my cousin Ralph
was underneath the disguise. Santa’s just a scarey dude, why do we torture our kids this way?)
Now
My Aunt and Uncle still live in the house they built 50 years ago.
I used to feed the deer red berries off the bushes in their yard.
I thought I’de rescue them someday too…
and you know, that’s still a possibility.
I’m finding it ironic – the strong desire I had at 18 to get the heck out of Dodge and go find my life in the country….and this wish at midlife to be able to return, if only for a day, to that old familiar place where time was on my side, ambition ran high and all dreams were out there for the making. In those days, in that house, there was not yet the realization that all dreams cannot be met, all relationships will not work out as we would like, all things are not always possible, no matter how badly we work for, want or need them.
The meaning in the quote “You Can’t Go Home Again” as I see it..is this – Even if the old homestead were still intact with every tree still standing, I am changed. I am different. I am polluted and crowded with the experiences of my life. Standing on that very threshold would not bring me “home“, not as I knew it then. Home is the here and now…and really, what am I looking for back there anyway. It’s all good right here.
Well…. there’s the food. But I can bring that back with me.
And I did.
