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| As Beatle Paul would often say, we'd like to carry on now with five more stations of Staten Island Rapid Transit, or Staten Island railway, as it's called now, as it dawned on the MTA after all these years that it isn't really all that rapid. Your webmaster has been fascinated with the line since I first started riding it sporadically in the late 1970s; for some inexplicable reason, there were a few years there where I made an annual pilgrimage on New Year's Eve or new Year's Day. (I lived in Bay Ridge then, the line was nearby and there were some years I had naught better to do.) I was heartened when the line's stations were mostly reconstructed beginning in the late 1980s, but I do regret having not photographed them at their nadir. Dave Pirmann and the gang at nycsubway.org, however, were on the case then and have hundreds of pictures limning the changes the line has undergone over the years, from its Baltimore and Ohio days till now. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Bay Terrace is one of two stations on the SIRT named for a local street (Jefferson Avenue is the other), one of five with center platform(s), and one of two that doesn't boast a central business district in the streets surrounding the station. | |||
Formerly known as Whitlock, the community's main thoroughfare was originally named Bay Terrace Avenue; however, by the late 1940s the word "Avenue" had been dropped and the street's name became simply Bay Terrace. The vicinity around the street was largely undeveloped until the late 1950s, when single-family home construction began there; the area itself then acquired the name of Bay Terrace, which may refer to its flat, ramplike terrain, which gradually slopes downward to the east until reaching the Lower New York Bay in Great Kills Park.
In the 1970s many Jewish families from Brooklyn and Queens settled in Bay Terrace, providing a significant demographic contrast with the surrounding communities, whose populations are largely Italian-American. In recent years, many new commercial establishments — most notably a large shopping center built on the site of a former swim club — have sprung up to serve the area's growing population. Part of Oceanview Cemetery, originally established by the Lutheran Church but open to those of all faiths, is considered to be in Bay Terrace, which is regarded by many Staten Island geographers as the southernmost neighborhood of the East Shore, the South Shore beginning with Great Kills, which lies immediately to the south. wikipedia
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| View of S. Railroad Avenue from the platform | View from S. Railroad Avenue | ||||
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Bay Terrace probably has a center platform because it serves two distinct halves of its neighborhood; on the south, a thin strip of homes about 6-7 blocks reaching south to Hylan Boulevard and the massive Great Kills Gateway National Recreation Area, and on the north, an exit to Amboy Road and a thicket of shopping centers, new housing developments, and Oceanview Cemetery. The center platform provides the SIRT with a rare pedestrian crossunder. Access to the center platform is through the opening you see midway through on the right. As we progress we'll see more and more light, because I shot the images for this page walking northeast from Huguenot so I wouldn't have to deal with sun glare. |
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The SIRT pretty much parallels Amboy Road from here until we reach Tottenville. Amboy Road is one of the longest and oldest roads in Staten Island, branching from Richmond Road in New Dorp on southwest to the Arthur Kill opposite the city of Perth Amboy in Middlesex County in New Jersey. A ferry likely ran from Amboy Road across the Arthur Kill at one time. The walk along Amboy Road to out next station at first appears to be fairly mundane, but there are some Easter eggs along the way...
I’m Alright Jack
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| A narrow path called Adrienne Place trails off southeeast from Amboy Road, meeting a tangle of other small roads (Ramble Road, Clovis Road) lined with handsome frame houses... | |||
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| For your webmaster, though, the real discovery was Jack's Pond, named, the story goes, in 1878 when Jack's Ice House opened for business in Great Kills. Ice, of course, was delivered to houses before the age of widespread refrigeration and Staten Island, with its numerous small ponds, also had several ice houses.
When winters were colder than now, Jack's must have been a natural for ice skating and hockey. |
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I'm something of an 'innocent abroad' in Staten Island, since its natural attributes are pretty much unknown to me while locals, of course, are quite used to seeing small ponds and streams. The reason for this lies in mapmaking techniques. It's always been assumed, by the big mapmakers like Rand Mcnally and Hagstrom, that local streams and lakes' days were numbered until they were filled in and built over, so they weren't bothered with; in fact, roadways were shown in their place, as developers speculated building on them. In the 2000s though, many of these dreams of paving over Staten Island didn't pan out -- and there the old creeks stay, just as they always have, in some cases run through pipes and sewers. Hagstrom, till recently, showed a Clinton Road running though Jack's Pond. Google still won't admit its existence.
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| Returning to Amboy Road, we pass the Richmond County Savings Bank in a passable 1960s or 1970s-style brick building, and a gift shop complete with what looks like the late great "Grandpa" Al Lewis, who used to do this very thing outside his Greenwich Village restaurant in the 1980s. | |||
Great Kills
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| Apartment building, Amboy Road and Brown Avenue opposite Giffords Lane | ||
As we approach Great Kills, the next SIRT stop, we see businesses on Amboy Road gradually increase, until we're in the business area clustered on the road and the major north-south throrfare, Giffords Lane.
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| Post offices are often found along the tracks...many passenger lines doubled as feight delivery and often carried mail...but you will also inevitably find dancing schools clustered next to RR stations, for some reason.
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| Older mansard-roof building at Giffords Lane and Brower Court, with unfortunate street level addition. | Retro-style Type G T-Pole masts have been installed along Amboy Road in downtown Great Kills, complete with Bell-style replica luminaires. | |||
"Kill" is an archaic Dutch word with various popular translations, including "creek" and "channel;" indeed, many small streams dot the neighborhood, and the name can be interpreted as meaning that a great number of such streams can be found there.
The eastern half of what is today known as Great Kills was originally named Cairedon, while the western half was referred to as Newtown. Later, both came to be known by the single name of Giffords, after Daniel Gifford, a local commissioner and road surveyor — this name surviving in Giffords Lane, the main north-south thoroughfare in what was formerly called Newtown; the Great Kills station on the Staten Island Railway is at the southern end of this street, in the heart of the community's business district. The present name of Great Kills was informally adopted in 1865. Another former place name associated with the area is Honeywood; its precise origin is uncertain, but it was the name of the telephone exchange that served Great Kills and many other upper South Shore communities from the 1920s through the late 1950s.
At the southeastern corner of the neighborhood is the Staten Island Unit of the Gateway National Recreation Area, which was formerly known as Great Kills Park, and is often still referred to as such by Staten Islanders today. Immediately to the west of this is a harbor and marina, home of the Great Kills Yacht Club. wikipedia
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| Prior to the grade crossing elimination of the early 1930s Great Kills boasted a handome Queen Anne-style stationhouse, as did New Dorp. | |||||
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| The 1933 brick stationhouse on Giffords Lane contains now-closed ticket windows. Great Kills is a semi-terminal: in rush hours, some SIRT trains begin and end their runs here (and some originate at Huguenot). Photo right taken 9/8/01. | |||||
Heading west toward the next SIRT stop we find some interesting sights and anomalies along Amboy Road...
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| At Amboy and Lindenwood Roads the Coptic Church of Sts. Michael and Mena occupies a newer and older building. 90% of Egypt's Christians belong to the Coptic Orthodox Church, which originated in Egypt within a couple of decades after Christ's death. | |||
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| Older house, Colon Ave. and Amboy Road | "Forest View," Amboy Road near Acacia Avenue. The back of the house faces Wood Duck Pond, seen in FNY on this page. | |||
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| Welcome to Sherwood. Sherwood Place, on Amboy just west of Colon, has a pair of brick gateposts of indeterminate age complete with stenciled street names. These are likely at least a few decades old. | |||
The road to Eltingville
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--At Armstrong Avenue we find a former staple of Brooklyn, Queens and staten Island roadsides: the art of the billboard. As more and more property is built upon billboards are more and more rare.
--The SIRT runs on an embankment from Great Kills south for most of its route to Tottenville and is elevated over most of the major routes from here on out. --Old maps show that Amboy Road made considerably more twists and turns in this area than it does now. Old Amboy Road, the former route, still makes an S curve at Amboy and Armstrong, crossing its straightened modern-day compatriot twice. --Why do so many major routes in Staten Island begin with A? On this page we have Amboy Road, Armstrong Avenue, Annadale Road, Arden Avenue, Albee Avenue, Alvine Avenue, Arbutus Avenue... |
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| Between Armstrong and Richmond Avenues Amboy Road is lined on both sides with massive shoppingcenters and malls dating, from the looks of things, to the early 70s. There's a 1950s-era post office on the north side of the road and, in June 2005 I located a dead taco Bell here; it's since been paved over. We might as well be in Nassau County or northern Jersey here, it's that kind of suburban. | |||
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| Auto repair shop on Amboy featuring my kind of street art. We have finally arrived in... | |||
Eltingville is the name of a neighborhood on Staten Island, one of the five boroughs of New York City, USA. It is on the island's South Shore, immediately to the south of Great Kills and north of Annadale.
Originally called South Side, and later Seaside, the neighborhood owes its present name to a prominent family by the name of Elting which settled there in the late 19th Century. It was the southern terminus of the Staten Island Railway until 1860, when the line was extended to Tottenville. The community's main business district sprang up around the railroad station, which is located a short distance west of the intersection of Amboy Road and Richmond Avenue. It is probably with the neighborhoods of Eltingville and Great Kills collectively in mind that New York Telephone named a telephone exchange "Honeywood" in the 1920s; this exchange, which also served Annadale and Huguenot, was retired from service in 1959, but a local business establishment — Honeywood Liquors on Hylan Boulevard — remained for decades as a reminder of the exchange's existence.
Beginning in the mid-1960s, Eltingville, like many other Staten Island neighborhoods, was the scene of massive new home construction, replacing the farmland that had heretofore predominated. This caused some logistical problems, chief among them the lack of existing sewer lines in the region, which then needed to be built. As a result, local traffic frequently had to be detoured from many main thoroughfares, including a large section of Hylan Boulevard in the early 1990s.
Actor Steven Seagal once lived in Eltingville, the western portion of which is sometimes reckoned as a separate neighborhood called Greenridge. One other Notable celebrity from Eltingville is fashion model Patti Hansen, wife of Rolling Stones' Keith Richards. wikipedia
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| Richmond Avenue as seen from the Eltingville platform. | The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, from the north end of the platform. | |||
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| LEFT: station entrance from White Court on north side. | |||
Eltingville is unique among SIRT stations in that it preserves more of its past than most of the others do.
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| Eltingville Station, 1932, a few years before the grade crossing was elevated. RIGHT, approx. same location today. | |||
On the exterior of this stationhouse, under the overpass on Richmond Avenue, is a plaque noting the Great Kills to Huguenot grade separation project was done under the auspices of the Works Progress Administration. Note the date: 1939; the southern stretch of the SIRT wasn't grade-eliminated till then.
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| What are probably original elements from the 1939 elevation are still here, including a pair of Doric columns that once held a canopy. The stationhouse one time featured a signal lamp that alerted those waiting that a train was arriving. | ||||
Richmond Avenue is an integral north-south thoroughfare on Staten Island. Measuring approximately 7.2 miles (11.59 km), the road runs from the community of Graniteville to the south shore community of Eltingville.
The road is one of the older ones on Staten Island, presumably dating back to the early to mid-1800s. Prior to its being named Richmond Avenue, it was known as Church Road, Port Richmond Plank Road and the Old Stone Road. Originally, the roadway extended further north to Richmond Terrace, at Port Richmond. However, the construction of the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Expressway divided Richmond Avenue into two sections, the northern segment being later renamed Port Richmond Avenue.
Early writings and periodicals refer to Richmond Avenue as the road from Port Richmond to New Springville, just north of the Fresh Kills. Indeed the Fresh Kills Bridge, which carries Richmond Avenue over the Fresh Kills to Arthur Kill Road and beyond, wasn't constructed until the late 1920s and was completed in 1930. However, maps from the 1890s indicate that Richmond Avenue not only crossed the Fresh Kills, but extended to its current terminus just beyond Hylan Boulevard, albeit prior to the creation of said boulevard. Ergo, there exists some ambiguity as to Richmond Avenue's history.
The completion of the Fresh Kills Bridge was extolled by many for it reduced travel time considerably, particularly for those driving from the north shore to the Outerbridge Crossing.
In the 1920s and 1930s, most of Richmond Avenue, particularly south of Victory Boulevard, was predominantly farmland. The road itself was merely one-lane wide. However, indicative of the economic transformation the Richmond Avenue corridor of Staten Island experienced, specifically with the opening of the Staten Island Mall, the roadway was widened. The roadway from Rockland Avenue to Forest Hill Road has been widened to an eight-lane thoroughfare (four lanes each way), while other sections are two and three lanes wide.
Prior to the construction of any expressway on Staten Island, Richmond Avenue, north of Drumgoole Boulevard, was designated New York Route 440, which it held until the West Shore Expressway was completed in 1976. wikipedia
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| 1940s-era neon signs on Richmond Avenue north of the SIRT. The traditional railroad dancing school at left. | |||
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| From the works of William Shakespeare we get the name of one of Staten Island's older roads, Arden Avenue; 19th-century developer Erastus Wiman, who also had a hand in the development of the SIRT, named a region in the southern end of Eltingville for the Forest of Arden, the woodland setting of "As You Like It", and Woods of Arden Road and Arden Heights, near the junction of Arden Avenue and Woodrow Road, are named for it as well. Arden Avenue was called Washington Avenue until about the turn of the 20th Century.
The house with the gorgeous wraparound porch was likely there before Arden Avenue was bridged by the SIRT in 1939, ruining the view. There really isn't anything substantially different in this scene as it was in 1939. |
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There may or may not be a genuine artifact on Arden Avenue just north of the RR trestle.
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| It has to do with a small hunk of concrete embedded in the turf at the side of the road. Forgotten Fan R. Orlando posits that this may be a remnant of a gate crossing or warning sign from the pre-1939 era when the SIRT ran at grade here. It's quite a reach. But this is a city where I found a RR crossing X sign on Hancock Street in Ridgewood, warning of a railroad crossing on the Evergreen Branch that hadn't seen a train for several decades. You never say no. | |||
Cracker Box on a Raft
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Pressing on to our next SIRT station, you pass a strangely open triangle of curated lawn on Amboy Road and May Place. In an era where every available piece of property is snapped up for architecto-junk, I wondered what this was about, but the "Holy Child Church" metal sign answered the question, and it wasn't long before I spied the church itself, a piece of modern architecture dating to 1969. To me, it resembled the U.S.S. Monitor, the ironclad vessel built by John Ericsson in the Greenpoint, Brooklyn Continental Iron Works that battled the Confederate Merrimac to a standoff at the Battle of Hampton Roads, March 9, 1862.
An intentional resemblance? Who knows? |
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| Yeah, yeah, where do the smart kids play etc. etc. But the sign on the left, likely from the 50s, is a true artifact. What kid would be caught dead in that costume: wool hat, shorts, knee socks. But 50 years from now, they'll roar with laughter at what the kids were wearing in 2007. What anyone was wearing, for that matter. Maybe they're talking about the real Slow Children. | |||
ON TO PAGE 2: ANNADALE and HUGUENOT
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