You are currently browsing the stories about the Staten Island neighborhood

Larry Bird Walks into a Bar

by 02/25/2023
Neighborhood: Staten Island

The Buffalo Bills kicker Scott Norwood, missed a field goal on the last play of Super Bowl XXV, clinching the 20-19 victory for the NY Giants. The door to Cherry Lane opens with the barely perceptible “beep-beep” of the unarmed alarm, which makes the bartender look up as a man in his sixties, hair cropped […]

A Box of Slides: Staten Island at Home and Abroad

by 09/19/2021
Neighborhood: Staten Island

Early in the pandemic, I started posting photographs from my wanderings in Staten Island. Old storefronts, tugboats on the Kill, old signs from long extinct businesses…whatever caught my eye.  In response to one post, I got a DM from a guy called Richie. He said he liked my posts, recognized a lot of the buildings, […]

Encounter in Graniteville

by 03/28/2021
Neighborhood: Staten Island

My Covid-19 project has been to drive to one of the many Staten Island parks that I haven’t previously visited and walk around, usually alone, and take pictures on my phone. I try not to think about the future too much. A few months ago, I drove to Graniteville Quarry Park—not to be confused with […]

In a Pandemic, Reflecting on my Race with Mortality

by 05/24/2020
Neighborhood: Bay Ridge, Park Slope, Staten Island

Lately I’ve been working the elliptical hard, pumping the pedals like I have something to prove. As a cancer survivor, maybe I do. Staying strong could help protect me against COVID-19. Because of my condition, I make it my priority. Sometimes during my workout an old memory drifts up, of a time I had even […]

Manhattan Mirage

by 08/02/2014
Neighborhood: Financial District, On the Waterfront, Staten Island

I am a New York City booster. And I travel its streets with all its positives and negatives crammed into my head, coloring everything I do, everything I see, everything I feel.  I am very familiar with the city. And I love the sheer unpredictability of it, the Mad-Hatter kinetic energy. The zany atmosphere, the […]

Winners of an Illicit Race

by 07/27/2014
Neighborhood: Staten Island

When the ramp to the Staten Island Ferry was razed, I happened to be passing, and stopped to watch, feeling a sense of loss as the crane took out the span that dangling across from Borough Hall, repeatedly smashing it, and sending large sections crumbling to the ground below. Hurrying to catch a boat on […]

Vesuvius Ave.

by 05/08/2014
Neighborhood: All Over, Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, Staten Island

May and the city rejoices in spring, in light and color, in the sheer goodness of life and its improvements. Spring shows us that things do indeed get better; it’s not all decline — old buildings sparkle, trees quiver in green, mundane streets are remade as pageants. However, let’s not get carried away. Sure, it’s […]

Flat Fixed

by 02/13/2014
Neighborhood: Staten Island

The strip of Bay Street that runs through Stapleton is an example of conspicuous gentrification. There’s a Spanish tapas bar, and a Japanese Bistro, and a Sri Lankan clay pots restaurant, all opened in the last few years. In counterpoint, the old Paramount Theater has failed at numerous incarnations, and a White Castle sits stripped […]

Body English

by 05/25/2013
Neighborhood: Clifton, Staten Island

In the summer of ’77, I met Mark Roth in Pathmark on Hylan Boulevard. Heading home from a Sunday drive, my parents stopped to pick up groceries for dinner, and waiting in the Express Lane, he got behind us with a bottle of Mott’s Apple Juice. I was sure it was him, but then, what […]

Zone A

by 02/27/2013
Neighborhood: Staten Island

Hurricane Irene bared down on the East Coast, while my mother was in the Vent Unit of Staten Island University Hospital, on a respirator and recovering from her second abdominal surgery. Located in South Beach, designated Zone A, the hospital faced mandatory evacuation. A team of medical personnel, including her surgeon, the Director of the […]

Pizza at the End of the World

by 01/15/2013
Neighborhood: Staten Island

My apartment building, across from the ferry, in the St. George neighborhood of Staten Island, fared well against Sandy. From my window, I saw the water rise above the seawall, and swallow the municipal parking lot, but situated on the hill, I never felt threatened. When the power went out, I was watching a DVD […]

The Wild Turkeys Of Staten Island University Hospital

by 04/17/2012
Neighborhood: Staten Island

Wild turkeys roam the grounds of Staten Island University Hospital. When my mother was hospitalized in April 2011 with a respiratory infection, I had the opportunity to observe them in detail. Turkeys stand around a lot, sort of like escaped mental patients who suddenly find themselves free, but then what. One day, they might be […]