Les 4 Etoiles, "Adama Coly," 1996

Spoke too soon about the arrival of spring in my April 9 post. Must have seen its own shadow and scared itself back into its hole. Despite the sounding of the dependable harbinger around these parts — the “Lickety Split” ice-cream truck circling the neighborhood — it got chilly and damp and often overcast shortly thereafter, and stayed that way for two more weeks. (Note: This “Lickety Split” truck isn’t the one busted recently as the cover for a major supplier of illegal oxycodone. That one operated in a much more upscale part of the Island.)

Only today, Easter Sunday, has it finally felt warm enough to go for a walk with only a sweater on, sit in the park to watch the squirrels and bicycling children, enjoy a soft ice-cream cone on the way back, and feel secure in the conviction that it won’t get substantially cold again until fall.

It gets hard to stay comfortable in our house during such a stretch. The weather’s just mild enough that the heater doesn’t kick on (we have no heat zones; it’s an old house, well-insulated but with 100-year-old hot-water radiators and a single thermostat). So it’s either turn the heat up, which seems counterintuitive as the weather grows milder, or bundle up indoors and ride it out. Which is how we handled it.

Anyhow, it’s nice out now. I’m inside, listening to some Afro-Pop (the 4 Etoiles’ Adama Coly CD from 1996) while writing this. Anna and Jacky are cleaning up the back garden. We have tomatoes, peppers, and herbs ready to plant.

"Stapleton Courthouse, view from Targee Street." Copyright © 2011 by A. D. Coleman.

During our post-lunch stroll Anna and I walked down to the Stapleton waterfront, about the imminent redevelopment of which I wrote last time. Still no visible change there, but according to reports things are happening in preparation for some serious construction efforts starting in June.

For one thing, they’ve started to move various government offices out of the complex of former U.S. Navy buildings there. Five State Supreme Court courtrooms were recently re-located from the former Stapleton homeport to St. George (a few blocks from the ferry terminal). There, bounded by Central Avenue, St. Marks Place, and Hyatt Street, a long-anticipated New York State Supreme Court of Staten Island facility has moved forward, presently due for completion in 2013 (a mere nine years after its original target date of 2004). Representing the borough’s first new courthouse in 80 years, the pending complex will house both the civil and criminal terms of State Supreme Court.

"Stapleton Courthouse, view from Targee Street." Copyright © 2011 by A. D. Coleman.

This will result in the relocation to St. George of Staten Island’s Criminal Court, which will move from 67 Targee Street in Stapleton between Purroy Place and Frean Street — the first stop in the criminal justice system, just one block away from us. (And just two blocks away from our local projects, the Stapleton Houses, discussed in my previous post, for whose residents the courthouse is conveniently around the corner.)

That in itself will improve the neighborhood greatly, by reducing the local presence of substantial numbers of convicted and accused perps. Basically, anyone arrested for anything anywhere who goes into the court system in this borough of 468,730 (according to the recently released 2010 U.S. Census), even just for bail or a preliminary hearing on a misdemeanor, ends up spending some time around the corner from our house.

So while the Island boasts the lowest crime rate of all five boroughs, we’ll gladly let St. George take over the role of Action Central for The Rock’s actual and alleged miscreants. Good riddance to bad rubbish. No indication yet of exactly when the move will take place, and no discussion so far of how the building and/or the site will get repurposed. Perhaps, with long-neglected Stapleton getting some careful scrutiny, on the cusp of upscaling and gentrifying, thoughtful and imaginative ideas will emerge and prevail.

"Stapleton Courthouse, view from Targee Street." Copyright © 2011 by A. D. Coleman.

It’s a handsome structure, with attractive grounds, ample space for both indoor and outdoor events. According to the website of the city’s Dept. of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS), “The building was originally designed to house the Municipal and Magistrate’s Courts and was known as the Stapleton Courthouse. It was completed in 1930 at a cost of $325,000. The two-story brick Georgian Revival-style courthouse has a grand entrance with a flight of steps that leads to a large pedimented portico supported by six Ionic columns. The tall first-floor windows have arched pediments while the smaller second floor windows have molded enframements. A parapet pierced by balustrades rises above the dentilled cornice which has a wide blank frieze.

“The architects were Sibley & Fetherston,” the DCAS description continues. “This building is one of three handsome, classically-inspired courthouses designed by the firm on Staten Island (See also Staten Island Civil and Family Courthouses.) Inside, the lobby has a Georgian Revival-style cornice with supporting pilasters and wood wainscoting. The courtrooms have similar details, including wood paneling, molded doorways and a coved ceiling.” From the outside it looks well-maintained, and I’ve no reason to think the interior has fared badly. It’s about a 5-block walk from the waterfront development.

"Stapleton Courthouse, rear view from Gordon Street." Copyright © 2011 by A. D. Coleman.

The Bay Street side of the Island’s North Shore (east or left of the St. George Ferry Terminal as you depart the terminal) has a few small cultural sites, such as the Garibaldi-Meucci Museum and the Alice Austen House. But it can boast no cultural center: no museum or display space for visual art, no city-sponsored or borough-funded performance space, no venue for the arts. With all the private and government monies now earmarked for the overdue redevelopment of this community, it would seem a no-brainer to transform this structure into a new space for the creative arts. That would support the existing creative community residing in this stretch of the Island, while helping to draw creative professionals from elsewhere to what might, at long last, fulfill its promise by turning into a Little Bohemia.

However, getting people to come to this particular part of Stapleton will take some doing. Specifically, it will take transformation of Stapleton Houses, and control or elimination of the thug-life element that rules there: Bloods, Crips, and the lunacy related thereto. (These problems get amplified by the location not far away of the Park Hill Apartments. The Island has a growing Mexican population and a Latin Kings contingent also — but that’s another discussion.)

"Stapleton Courthouse, rear view from Gordon Street." Copyright © 2011 by A. D. Coleman.

It’s possible to get to the courthouse without walking along Broad Street past by the projects; depending on where you’re coming from, that doesn’t necessarily even involve a detour. At the moment, however, and intermittently, the four-block area bordered by the courthouse on this end  functions as a war zone. There’s periodic gunfire, occasional murder, continuous police surveillance and regular police presence. Will people — even local residents, long-time or newcomers moving into the forthcoming apartment complexes on or near the waterfront — want to go there by foot, by bus, or by car? Or does this remain a quadrant of Stapleton off limits to anyone not wearing a do-rag and pants-on-the-ground?

So what happens when gentrification meets gangsta? That’s the question no one talks about in discussing the revitalization of this area. At some point we’ll have to put it on the table; it’s the elephant in the room.