STATEN ISLAND, FROM THE LENAPE TO DUTCH COLONISTS

Today, The Grandma has visited Staten Island. Meanwhile, The Grangers have been practising some English vocabulary about Other Countries and In The Classroom, and improving their Speaking. They have also studied Still, Already and Yet (Present Perfect).

More information: Still/Already/Yet

Download Other Countries Vocabulary

 More information: Other Countries

 

Download In The Classroom Vocabulary

 

More information: In The Classroom

 

Download Cambridge KET Exam Speaking Models (03)

 

Staten Island is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Richmond County, in the U.S. state of New York. 

Located in the city's southwest portion, the borough is separated from New Jersey by the Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull and from the rest of New York by New York Bay.

With a population of 495,747 in the 2020 Census, Staten Island is the least populated borough but the third largest in land area at 152 km2.

A home to the Lenape indigenous people, the island was settled by Dutch colonists in the 17th century. 

It was one of the 12 original counties of New York state.

Staten Island was consolidated with New York City in 1898. It was formally known as the Borough of Richmond until 1975, when its name was changed to Borough of Staten Island.

Staten Island has sometimes been called the forgotten borough by inhabitants who feel neglected by the city government.

The North Shore -especially the neighbourhoods of St. George, Tompkinsville, Clifton, and Stapleton- is the island's most urban area. It contains the designated St. George Historic District and the St. Paul's Avenue-Stapleton Heights Historic District, which feature large Victorian houses. 

The East Shore is home to the 4-kilometer F.D.R. Boardwalk, the world's fourth-longest boardwalk.

The South Shore, site of the 17th-century Dutch and French Huguenot settlement, developed rapidly beginning in the 1960s and 1970s and is now mostly suburban. 

The West Shore is the island's least populated and most industrial part.

Motor traffic can reach the borough from Brooklyn by the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge and from New Jersey by the Outerbridge Crossing, Goethals Bridge and Bayonne Bridge. 

Staten Island has Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) bus lines and an MTA rapid transit line, the Staten Island Railway, which runs from the ferry terminal at St. George to Tottenville.

More information: Silive

Staten Island is the only borough not connected to the New York City Subway system. 

The free Staten Island Ferry connects the borough to Manhattan across New York Harbor. It provides views of the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, and Lower Manhattan.

As in much of North America, human habitation appeared on the island fairly rapidly after the Wisconsin glaciation. Archaeologists have recovered tool evidence of Clovis culture activity dating from about 14,000 years ago. This evidence was first discovered in 1917 in the Charleston section of the island. Various Clovis artifacts have been discovered since then, on property owned by Mobil Oil.

The first recorded European contact on the island was in 1520 by Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano who sailed through The Narrows on the ship La Dauphine and anchored for one night.

The Dutch did not establish a permanent settlement on Staaten Eylandt for many decades. Its name derived from the Staten Generaal, the parliament of the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands. From 1639 to 1655, Cornelis Melyn and David de Vries made three separate attempts to establish one there, but each time the settlement was destroyed in conflicts between the Dutch and the local tribe.

In 1661, the first permanent Dutch settlement was established at Oude Dorp (Dutch for Old Village) by a small group of Dutch, Walloon, and French Huguenot families, just south of the Narrows near South Beach. Many French Huguenots had gone to the Netherlands as refugees from the religious wars in France, suffering persecution for their Protestant faith, and some joined the emigration to New Netherland. At one point nearly a third of the residents of the Island spoke French.

The last vestige of Oude Dorp is the name of the present-day neighborhood of Old Town adjacent to Old Town Road.

Staten Island was not spared the bloodshed that culminated in Kieft's War. In the summer of 1641 and in 1642, Native American tribes laid waste to Old Town.

In addition to the main island, the borough and county also include several small uninhabited islands:

-The Isle of Meadows (at the mouth of Fresh Kills).

-Prall's Island (in the Arthur Kill).

-Shooters Island (in Newark Bay; part of it is in New Jersey).

-Swinburne Island (in Lower New York Bay).

-Hoffman Island (in Lower New York Bay).

More information: Time Out

The geology of Staten Island 
is the most complex of the city's boroughs, 
containing the terminal moraine of the last ice age, 
a fault line from 470 million years ago, 
the southern tail of the Palisades formation, 
and sediments collected over the millennia.

Sergey Kadinsky

 

ENJOY 'SANT JORDI' IN SAINT GEORGE, STATEN ISLAND

Today is Saint George, one of the most venerated religious figures and patron of many places around the world, especially in European countries. Today, we also commemorate the death of William Shakespeare, one of the most universal writters in history, whose date of death has become a day to celebrate literature.

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

The reality is: 

Staten Island is like 90 percent of the country
-it’s slow to change, 

but most of the people are fundamentally good people.
They’re just set in their ways.
After all, it’s an island. It has its own evolution.

Colin Jost

STATEN ISLAND, FROM THE LENAPE TO DUTCH COLONISTS

Today, The Grandma has visited Staten Island. Meanwhile, The Newtons have continued preparing their Cambridge Exam. They have studied some vocabulary about Personal Details and Family Matters.

More info: Personal Details & Family Matters

 

Staten Island is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Richmond County, in the U.S. state of New York. 

Located in the city's southwest portion, the borough is separated from New Jersey by the Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull and from the rest of New York by New York Bay.

With a population of 495,747 in the 2020 Census, Staten Island is the least populated borough but the third largest in land area at 152 km2.

A home to the Lenape indigenous people, the island was settled by Dutch colonists in the 17th century. 

It was one of the 12 original counties of New York state.

Staten Island was consolidated with New York City in 1898. It was formally known as the Borough of Richmond until 1975, when its name was changed to Borough of Staten Island.

Staten Island has sometimes been called the forgotten borough by inhabitants who feel neglected by the city government.

The North Shore -especially the neighbourhoods of St. George, Tompkinsville, Clifton, and Stapleton- is the island's most urban area. It contains the designated St. George Historic District and the St. Paul's Avenue-Stapleton Heights Historic District, which feature large Victorian houses. 

The East Shore is home to the 4-kilometer F.D.R. Boardwalk, the world's fourth-longest boardwalk.

The South Shore, site of the 17th-century Dutch and French Huguenot settlement, developed rapidly beginning in the 1960s and 1970s and is now mostly suburban. 

The West Shore is the island's least populated and most industrial part.

Motor traffic can reach the borough from Brooklyn by the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge and from New Jersey by the Outerbridge Crossing, Goethals Bridge and Bayonne Bridge. 

Staten Island has Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) bus lines and an MTA rapid transit line, the Staten Island Railway, which runs from the ferry terminal at St. George to Tottenville.

More information: Silive

Staten Island is the only borough not connected to the New York City Subway system. 

The free Staten Island Ferry connects the borough to Manhattan across New York Harbor. It provides views of the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, and Lower Manhattan.

As in much of North America, human habitation appeared on the island fairly rapidly after the Wisconsin glaciation. Archaeologists have recovered tool evidence of Clovis culture activity dating from about 14,000 years ago. This evidence was first discovered in 1917 in the Charleston section of the island. Various Clovis artifacts have been discovered since then, on property owned by Mobil Oil.

The first recorded European contact on the island was in 1520 by Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano who sailed through The Narrows on the ship La Dauphine and anchored for one night.

The Dutch did not establish a permanent settlement on Staaten Eylandt for many decades. Its name derived from the Staten Generaal, the parliament of the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands. From 1639 to 1655, Cornelis Melyn and David de Vries made three separate attempts to establish one there, but each time the settlement was destroyed in conflicts between the Dutch and the local tribe.

In 1661, the first permanent Dutch settlement was established at Oude Dorp (Dutch for Old Village) by a small group of Dutch, Walloon, and French Huguenot families, just south of the Narrows near South Beach. Many French Huguenots had gone to the Netherlands as refugees from the religious wars in France, suffering persecution for their Protestant faith, and some joined the emigration to New Netherland. At one point nearly a third of the residents of the Island spoke French.

The last vestige of Oude Dorp is the name of the present-day neighborhood of Old Town adjacent to Old Town Road.

Staten Island was not spared the bloodshed that culminated in Kieft's War. In the summer of 1641 and in 1642, Native American tribes laid waste to Old Town.

In addition to the main island, the borough and county also include several small uninhabited islands:

-The Isle of Meadows (at the mouth of Fresh Kills).

-Prall's Island (in the Arthur Kill).

-Shooters Island (in Newark Bay; part of it is in New Jersey).

-Swinburne Island (in Lower New York Bay).

-Hoffman Island (in Lower New York Bay).

More information: Time Out

The geology of Staten Island 
is the most complex of the city's boroughs, 
containing the terminal moraine of the last ice age, 
a fault line from 470 million years ago, 
the southern tail of the Palisades formation, 
and sediments collected over the millennia.

Sergey Kadinsky