B.B., A.B.

Today I spent most of the day inside, but I saw a great show on PBS - "A Walk Around Staten Island," with generic announcer man David Hartman and soft-spoken historian Barry Lewis. The historian is always in "let-me-bubble-over-with-nifty-factoids" mode, a state I often find myself in and to which I can relate. 

The show's very scenic, with comforting, soft synthesizer music and violin plucks. The relaxed, even-paced tone of the show reminds me of when Mr. Rogers would receive a videotape which he would watch, and it explained how pencils were made in a factory or something. Or you expect to see Big Bird appear from behind a tree and sing about touching your toes, or Bert to appear in Fresh Kills and sing about pigeons... and rats. But it is a concise explanation of Staten Island history, geography, neighborhoods, and local lore.

Watch the show's parts, or read below.

The show begins with the Staten Island Ferry, which was originally run by "The Commodore" Vanderbilt and which built up his fortune before he invested in railroads. Then they cover:

ST. GEORGE: the Staten Island Museum, Borough Hall, St. George Theater, Snug Harbor's Chinese Garden, the WTC Memorial, and the Staten Island Yankee Stadium - home of the "Baby Bombers" (yuk, yuk).

ROSEBANK: Alice Austin House, Garibaldi-Meucci Museum, Our Lady of Carmel Grotto.

THE NARROWS: Fort Wadsworth, Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.

SOUTH BEACH: Old Dorp, FDR Boardwalk.

GREAT KILLS: Monarch butterfly migration stop (not bad for a former landfill).

PORT RICHMOND: Denino's Pizza (est. 1937), Ralph's Ices (est. 1928), Bayonne Bridge, the Mexicans of Port Richmond Avenue.

TODT HILL: Seaview Hospital, Farm Colony, Moravian Cemetery, Moravian Pond.

RICHMONDTOWN: Historical Richmondtown, S.I.'s blacksmith (!), Voorlezer's House (built 1695).

GREENBELT: "Mt. Moses" (read below) and soon-to-be-a-park-in-a-couple-of-decades Fresh Kills.

EGBERTVILLE: Jacques Marchais Tibetan Museum.

NEW SPRINGVILLE: Decker Farm (NYC's last working farm). 

PRINCE'S BAY: Seguine House.

SANDY GROUND: Sandy Ground Historical Society.

TOTTENVILLE: Conference House (site of crucial British-Colonial peace talks on 9/11/1776, when Ben Franklin, John Adams, and Edward Rutledge told General Howe to shove it, and that the Continental Army would keep fighting - and the two sides would not meet again until 1783's Treaty of Paris).

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Unexpected residents of Staten Island: Robert E. Lee, Garibaldi, the early Vanderbilts, the USA's largest communities of Liberians and Sri Lankans, and one of the nation's oldest contiguous African-American communities. 

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In covering the various neighborhoods, they give a nice, precise history of Staten Island. The Dutch first settled on the South Shore (now on most maps, the right shore), then the English move the government to Richmondtown (to honor, remember, the Bastard Duke), which was at the center of the Island's main two roads. The Industrial Revolution and the infusion of Italian immigrant business brings the commerce to Port Richmond (the Island's "flat top") which had easy ferry access to Dirty Jerz. The Consolidation of NYC in 1898 dealt the death blow to Richmondtown, when the Manhattanites moved the borough government to St. George, for easy access and as little S.I. face time as possible. 

But what really changed the Island from being a land of farms and stately Victorian houses was the VERRAZANO-NARROWS BRIDGE. Locals apparently use the terminology "B.B." and "A.B." (before the bridge/after the bridge) to talk about the Island. The insular community became a veritable suburb. The center of the island picked up again - malls, housing developments. It was a *little* harder for the Mafia to hide. Population has boomed to more than a half-million, those people brought cars, and the borough's official game changed from bocce to gridlock.

And yet, a constant theme of Staten Island's history has been resistance to change. Like many vestigial limbs, the Island hangs on to so many remembrances of its past. The blacksmith in Richmondtown. The Victorian neighborhoods of St. George and New Brighton. And so many areas' reverting to overgrowth. Along with the Verrazano Bridge, über-urban planner Robert Moses had wanted a huge parkway to be built through the middle of Staten Island. It may have helped out with the traffic, but in its place is 3,000 acres of untouched, scraggly forest - hence the mocking name of one of the tree-topped hills, "Mount Moses." And apparently by 2030 or 2040, the former municipal landfill Fresh Kills, despite being the final resting ground for many World Trade Center victims, will be dolled up to become a park and will bring the Greenbelt's size to 5,200 acres of uninterrupted forest.

This was a very informative film. Watch it online, or see it this Saturday or Sunday afternoon at the S.I. Yankee Stadium as part of the SINY Film Festival!