Staten Island, New York--continuing the search for Lin's roots

We drove over the old 1928 Goethals Bridge over the Arthur Kill onto Staten Island, one of the five boroughs of New York City, on June 24 for a 4 day visit. 

The traffic on I-95 was a nightmare!! 20 miles in 40 minutes!

Lin's maternal relatives all lived on Staten Island in the past and a few still do.  We had called the Staten Island Elks Lodge #841 earlier to request permission to park our little RV in the Lodge parking lot.  It was well into 80 degree temperatures and they very kindly offered us an electrical connection so we had air conditioning!  They even bought us a drink in the bar on arrival! Across from the Lodge is the bus terminal, very easy to catch the bus for the ferry!

Parked at the Staten Island Elks Lodge

Staten Island was permanently settled in 1661 by Dutch settlers, Huguenots (French Protestants) English and both slave and free African Americans.  Staten Island was renowned for superb oysters and cherries and peaches from its orchards in the past.  It became a popular beach resort and was known for its manufacture of Ivory soap and shipbuilding.  Today Staten Island is New York City's fastest growing borough and it is 2-1/2 times as large as Manhattan in area with a population of only 500,000.

 

Staten Island Borough Hall

A very patriotic wall on the old High School

We visited Lin's cousin, Judy and her husband Butch, one evening and had an excellent steak dinner and caught up.  A highlight was Judy going through photo albums and finding old photographs of Lin's Mom and Dad and several other Staten Island relatives that she gave us---priceless additions for our genealogy research!  Another day, we visited a couple cemeteries to find and photograph family graves that we hadn't been able to find previously.

And we did some touristy things too!  We visited the Staten Island Zoo, which opened in 1936, and is a small, specialized zoo on 8 acres without the large mammals—no lions, tigers or elephants! They only have a beautiful leopard.  What they do have is a great reptile house with many tropical snakes, lizards and alligators.  For many years, they have had one of the most complete displays of live rattlesnakes in the U.S.  They have a very nice rainforest exhibit that was a little bit like going back to Costa Rica for us with howler monkeys, many beautiful tropical birds and tropical plants too. 

Another neat area was a special house dedicated as a nursery for newborn animals of all kinds.  There was a tiny kangaroo and a baby sloth, both with baby blankets, rattles and other baby toys, like a human nursery!  The African Savannah exhibit is also very interesting and well done as is their aquarium display of many fish including some good sized sharks.

The Staten Island Zoo is also famous as the home of “Staten Island Chuck” a groundhog who is the official Groundhog Day predictor for all of New York City!   Chuck was asleep and we didn't see him!  There is also a carousel for the kids and a great playground with many large animal toys to crawl through or sit on.  Kids certainly seemed to have fun here.  And we did too, with no huge crowds and high prices like many big city zoos.  Two thumbs up!

We spent a couple hours exploring Historic Richmond Town, a large collection of historic houses and buildings in the original old Dutch settlement area of Staten Island.  This area was the government center for Staten Island aka Richmond County for two centuries!  When Staten Island became one of the 5 boroughs of New York City in 1898, the county offices moved to St. George, on the northern end of the island, near the Staten Island Ferry landing, bringing them closer to Manhattan.  Eventually all the government offices and related businesses left, leaving a semi-ghost town.  In 1935 the Staten Island Historical Society got permission to renovate the old County Clerk's office for a museum and in 1948 they began using the 3^rd County Courthouse on the site as offices.  In the early 1950s, New York City acquired the entire 100 acre Richmond Town site and made a preservation plan. 

The old Court House--now the Visitor Center

Today Historic Richmond Town contains over   30 historic structures including at least 15 houses of all ages and types, a tavern, the first county jail, the site of a Dutch Reformed Church, 2 railroad stations, a diner, a cemetery, Public School 28, St. Patrick's Church, a gas station, a general store, tinsmith shop, print shop, carpenter's shop, a water-powered sawmill, the town bridge, the Church of St. Andrew, a parsonage and the Dutch Voorlezer's House ca. 1695 (he was a schoolmaster and a lay Dutch Reform minister.) This is the oldest existing schoolhouse in North America. The Society runs guided tours daily and usually 4-5 buildings are entered on the visit.  The volunteer guides are excellent and especially good with kids, as we observed.  Many of the structures are still awaiting restoration but this is certainly one of the largest and most interesting open air type museums that we have visited. Also a good gift shop!   Is there such a thing as 3 thumbs up??

Inside the Voorlezer's House

 
The Conference House is a fascinating place all the way at the southernmost point of Staten Island less than a half mile across Raritan Bay from Perth Amboy, New Jersey.  This is the southernmost point of New York City as well as the state of New York.  The house itself was the manor house of Colonel Christopher Billopp built in 1680, set on his plantation which was a large grant of land given by the King.  It is a stone house similar to Dutch or Normandy farmhouses of that period.  The parlor on the first floor is the room where the Conference occurred. 

A Revolutionary War peace conference was held here on September 11, 1776 attended by Admiral Lord Richard Howe for the British side and John Adams, Edward Rutledge and Benjamin Franklin representing the American Continental Congress.  The goal was to try to end the war before Lord Howe had to commit more British troops and escalate the war.  But... Lord Howe was not allowed by the King to negotiate independence for the Colonies and the 3 Congressional representatives could not negotiate terms that did NOT allow independence from Britain!  Obviously, no agreement could be reached and both parties prepared for full scale war, which continued for 7 more costly years.  Eventually, the successful conclusion of this conflict gave Americans independence from Great Britain.  All the rooms are furnished in period pieces and the children's room was one of the most interesting with very old toys, dolls and a large stagecoach!  The kitchen is in the basement with a large hearth for cooking along with a root cellar.  The basement floor is made of imported Dutch bricks of a very old design!  We had an excellent tour guide who really brought the story to life!  We recommend visiting The Conference House and the nice waterfront park around it.

Staten Island is the unknown New York City borough, except of course, for the free Staten Island Ferry ride from Manhattan to Staten Island and back, including the great views of the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island and the Manhattan skyline!  But there are many other museums, libraries and dozens of parks on the island, as well as the beautiful Verrazano Bridge going to Brooklyn.  

One of the problems, we think, is that even the SI Chamber of Commerce has no tourist brochure listing the favorite tourist areas.  Anything we were interested in visiting, they went to a computer and printed out part of a website!  The Zoo doesn’t even have a map, they tell you to get the app on your smartphone! Driving into Staten Island or Manhattan on any of the bridges or tunnels is rather costly with the Goethals Bridge having a toll of $13 cash per car, but at least that's for a roundtrip!  Parts of Staten Island got hit hard by Hurricane Sandy, even worse than some parts of New Jersey, but it is all coming back.  We think Staten Island is a great place to visit and encourage you to check it out!