Old Staten Island

Best known for its vast parks and beach areas, Staten Island is a place where many generations of people have come to make a good life for their families. This borough has always been known for its family values and slower pace of living. Yet, we are just a boat ride away from the most exciting place in the world... "Manhattan" For residents of other boroughs, the Island's beaches and parks are a retreat from the crowded city streets. This is a borough, rich in history and I hope to share some of that history with fellow native Islanders and welcome all who have made Staten Island their home. Enjoy your tour, in text and photo and please visit often, as I try to update on a regular basis. Any photos or memories you can share will just make this website better for all. Please write to us and let us know what you think of our website

Below is a series of photos from the same shot, a visitor to my website asked me for help in identifying the location. The Atlantic Cafe is pictured to the left in the photo. If anyone has any clues as to where on the Island this photo was taken please write me at:
Mystery Photo

It says on the back STATEN ISLAND 310 -1922 SIRT crossing
So I guess we are looking at a 1922 photo

"God might have made a more beautiful spot than Staten Island, but He never did"
~ George William Curtis (famous Islander)

Our S.I. Memories Page has reached 800 entries
So go take a look and enjoy
&
Our Famous Islander Page is back up with a few new additions

Port Richmond Avenue & Richmond Terrace

Wolf Meat Market 3056 Richmond Terrace Mariners Harbor

South Beach Rides 1962
( Remember - Weds. was 1/2 price tickets with a soda cap )

1893 NSFD Castleton Fire Patrol

Story about Weissglass

Our drivers resorted to delivering milk by rowboats during one of the worst storms to hit the Oakwood and Midland Beach areas in years. The storm referred to was caused by the exact right combination of extremely high tides, hurricane winds and full moon. Many families in this area were evacuated and were taken to the Oakwood Heights Community Church on Guyon Avenue. We supplied them with their milk needs. Parts of the shore area, between the beaches and Hylan Blvd. were flooded for as much as one half mile from the beach

The Original Staten Island Hospital
(Samuel R. Smith's Infirmary)

Smith's Infirmary as it stands today

(Photo courtesy of Richard Nickel, Jr.)

Staten Island - not part of New York City until 1898 - had no private hospital until 1861, when the Richmond County Medical Society established the infirmary and named it after a local doctor (Dr. Samuel Russell Smith)''who devoted himself to the poor.'' It occupied a succession of buildings near the present Ferry Terminal, until in 1887 it acquired a hilly seven-acre site south and inland of the Terminal area on an irregular block bounded by Castleton, Webster and Brook Avenues and Pine Street.

Alfred E. Barlow, the architect, designed a rectangular red-brick chateau with four round corners topped by conical roofs. The castle imagery was reinforced by the high basement, mostly without windows, the small main entrance, and the projection of the upper floor out onto brick corbelling - as if the Infirmary's defenders were at the ready to pour boiling oil onto attacking Vikings.

The basic form of the Infirmary was apparently inspired by that of the New York Cancer Hospital (1885) in Manhattan, still standing at West 105th and Central Park West, where the ''cornerless'' rooms were thought to reduce the collection of germs.

Speeches at its opening in the summer of 1890 described the Infirmary as the ''pride of the island,'' the county's ''greatest charity,'' with a ''splendid site and stately proportions.''

Getting a Haircut on Greeley Avenue
Joseph Perrotta is the barber
His son Joseph is the boy in the back with the glasses

Old S.I. Newspapers

A few words from me . . .

Its been almost 4 years since I first published this website. There have been well over 100,000 visitors so far. Many thanks to all, for the positive feedback to my website. It has been a labor of love, though at times I wanted to give it all up, but then I receive an email from someone who was raised in Mt. Loretto and she thanks me for the help in finding her records from the old burnt out church, or from a lady whose husband has Alzheimer's but remembers the photos she showed him from this website. Whenever I
wanted to give up on this website, I received much encouragement from the visitors and that kept me going. The memories page grows more each day.
Please keep emailing me your memories of your
days on Staten Island. I promise to include them as
fast as possible. If anyone has old photos of Staten Island, I would love to include them on this website.
I really need some photos from the 1950's and the1960's

And would you believe it—right here on Staten Island witches were punished at the whipping-post. About 1710, a whipping-post was established at Cucklestown (Richmondtown), and was located on the elevation, between St. Andrew's Church and the roadway leading up the steep side of Richmond Hill Road, on or near the spot where the public school building now stands.Men and women were charged with " bargaining with the devil, and possessing power to torment whomsoever they pleased." Many believed that the devil was very much like a man in form, only that he had wings like a bat, a tail, cloven feet, and horns; that he was able to confer great power on witches, enabling them by infernal arts to raise storms, sink ships, afflict children with fits, kill cattle, and set chairs and tables to dancing; that they had power to make themselves invisible, creep through keyholes, ride on broomsticks through the air, and that it was a special delight to hold their orgies in thunderstorms.

This site was last updated 06/29/09

If you would like to tell us about your own Staten Island Memories and have them added to our Memories page for all to read,
just write to us at Memories of Staten Island
and tell us where you were raised and some of your childhood memories

DISCLAIMER

OldStatenIsland.com may not be the author of these photographs, ads and drawings
and does not claim to own any copyright privileges to them.
They are assumed to be in the public domain and a best effort is taken not to use copyrighted material.

If someone feels a photo is copyrighted, they should contact me with proof for immediate removal.

A History of Staten Island New York first Permanent Settlement 1661

Welcome to Staten Islands Past!

If you would like to tell us about your own Staten Island Memories and have them added to our Memories page for all to read, just write to us at Memories of Staten Island and tell us where you were raised and some of your childhood memories

DISCLAIMER

A History of
Staten Island
New York
first Permanent Settlement 1661

If you would like to tell us about your own Staten Island Memories and have them added to our Memories page for all to read,
just write to us at Memories of Staten Island
and tell us where you were raised and some of your childhood memories