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Saint George is the patron of England, but also Catalonia, where people give roses and books as a symbol of friendship, love and culture.
The Grangers and The Grandma have decided to visit St. George, a beautiful neighbourhood on the northeastern tip of Staten Island to commemorate this event and spend a great day together.
More information: April 23-Saint George, Books & Roses in Catalonia
More information: Sant Jordi, Unknown Origins & Venerated Patron
St. George is a neighbourhood on the northeastern tip of Staten Island in New York City, along the waterfront where the Kill Van Kull enters Upper New York Bay.
It is the most densely developed neighbourhood on Staten Island, and the location of the administrative center for the borough and for the coterminous Richmond County.
The St. George Terminal, serving the Staten Island Ferry and the Staten Island Railway, is also located here. St. George is bordered on the south by the neighbourhood of Tompkinsville and on the west by the neighbourhood of New Brighton.
What is now St. George was initially occupied by the Lenape Native Americans, then colonized by the Dutch and the British. The first residential developments arose in the 1830s, and through the late 19th century, the area was a summer resort. Until the construction of the ferry-railroad terminal in 1886, present-day St. George was considered to be part of New Brighton.
The section around the current ferry and railroad terminal was renamed after developer George Law, whom Erastus Wiman promised to canonize in exchange for relinquishing the land rights for the terminal. Several government buildings and landmarks were constructed in St. George in the early 20th century, and further developments on the waterfront commenced in the early 21st century.
More information: Generation NYC
St. George is part of Staten Island Community District 1. St. George is patrolled by the 120th Precinct of the New York City Police Department.
Originally, Staten Island was inhabited by the Munsee-speaking Lenape Native Americans. The Lenape relocated during different seasons, moving toward the shore to fish during the summers, and moving inland to hunt and grow crops during the fall and winter.
The present-day area of New York City was inhabited in 1624 by Dutch settlers as part of New Netherland.
In 1664, the Dutch gave New Netherland to the British, and six years later the British finalized a purchase agreement with the Lenape.
At the time of British handover, several British, Dutch, and French settlers occupied the area, but did not have an established title to the land. A series of surveys were conducted through 1677, and several parcels were distributed to different landowners.
Among them were the 140 ha Duxbury Glebe, given to Ellis Duxbury in 1708, bequeathed to the Protestant Episcopal Church of St. Andrew's ten years later, and then leased for 54 years by John Bard in 1765.
Another tract was granted to Lambert Jansen Dorlant in 1680, whose western boundary was a brook on present-day Jersey Street.
By 1748, it had been purchased by Salmon Comes, who ran a ferry to Manhattan.
By 1765, part of the Dorlant tract was owned by John Wandel, a molasses distiller who operated a plant at the Kill Van Kull near Richmond Terrace and Westervelt Avenue, taking advantage of the Jersey Street brook. Two Native American roads intersected near the distiller: Shore Road (today's Richmond Terrace) on the North Shore, and a road that winded southward on St. Marks Place and then Hamilton and Westervelt Avenues.
Fort Hill, one of the hills overlooking the harbor, was the location on Duxbury's Point or Ducksberry Point, fortified by the British during the American Revolutionary War. Hessian troops, contracted by the British, were stationed near the Jersey Street brook, which then became known as Hessian Springs.
After the end of the war, the area remained primarily rural through the early 19th century. The area became part of the town of Castleton upon the town's incorporation in 1788.
The New York state government took 12 ha of Duxbury Glebe in 1799, upon which it established the New York Marine Hospital, also The Quarantine, a contagious disease hospital. The state then gave 2.0 ha to the federal government for the U.S. Light-House Depot Complex, a lighthouse facility.
Among the first people to promote the widespread development of Staten Island was former U.S. vice president Daniel D. Tompkins, who purchased land in the northern part of Staten Island in the early 1810s. Tompkins purchased Abraham Crocheron's farm, located on present-day Jersey Street south of Richmond Terrace, in 1814.
The next year, he acquired 280 ha from St. Andrew's Church, and two years after that, he bought Philip Van Buskirk's land claim, located between the two disconnected pieces of land. Tompkins also incorporated the Richmond Turnpike Company to build present-day Victory Boulevard in 1816, started operating a ferry to Manhattan in 1817, and laid out the adjacent village of Tompkinsville for development between 1819 and 1821. Tompkins then expanded the Van Buskirks' old farmhouse, using it as his primary residence. He died in 1825.
Tompkins's property within present-day St. George was sold in April 1834 to Manhattan developer Thomas E. Davis, who continued to buy land through the following year.
More information: NYC Gov
In the years after unification, the North Shore became quickly urbanized, and the political and economic center of Staten Island shifted to the region. Development of St. George turned mostly to residential and commercial uses by the 1900s.
As early as 1919, St. George was used to describe the northeastern waterfront of Staten Island as well as the hills immediately adjacent to the ferry terminal.
The community underwent a revival starting in the late 1980s, when a group of developers proposed the St. George Seaport at Brighton, a $750 million retail and commercial complex based on Manhattan's South Street Seaport. Redevelopment of the area continued through the 1990s.
In 1994, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the St. George Historic District, which includes 78 houses and St. Peter's Church. The Brighton Heights Reformed Church, a city and national landmark in St. George, burned down in 1996 and was rebuilt three years later.
By the late 1990s and early 2000s, younger families were starting to move to St. George, since housing in the neighbourhood was cheaper compared to in the rest of the city.
In the first decade of the 21st century, several prominent structures in St. George were renovated or opened.
More information: Silive
-it’s slow to change,
They’re just set in their ways.
After all, it’s an island. It has its own evolution.
Colin Jost
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