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Following are useful, informative,
intriguing, eccentric and flat-out weird sites (aside
from this one, that is) generated by the supposedly
xenophobic natives in their ongoing efforts at global
outreach.
Useful
& informative
Council on the Arts and Humanities for Staten Island
Indeed, there's not only life on Staten Island, but
even something approximating cultural life. Many of
those involved in it gather under the umbrella of
the Council
on the Arts & Humanities for Staten Island (COAHSI), whose home page provides links to a number of Island sites of interest.
Downtown Staten Island Council
Can they do it? Can they actually persuade the outside world — not to mention Islanders themselves — that the island's North Shore constitutes an urban "downtown"? The Downtown Staten Island Council, thinks it can, and I won't bet against them. Their website says, "Remember Park Slope, Hoboken, and Williamsburg? Downtown Staten Island is next." The newest hot place to live in NYC? You gotta believe.
Staten Island on the Web
The New York Public Library's Staten Island on the Web offers all kinds of information, such as Staten Island Films -- movies that contain scenes set on the Island.
Flint Gennari's Map of Staten Island
With his Map of Staten Island, Flint Gennari enables you to click on any of the Island's neighborhoods and take a "walking tour" thereof, via images by this Island-based photographer. Click on Stapleton and see if you can identify the one of this author playing guitar in his living room.
Preservation League of Staten Island
If other important Island landmarks do survive,
it'll certainly be due in large part to the ongoing
efforts of the folks at the Preservation
League of Staten Island, who've long and loudly
called for designating Spanish Camp and many other
Island buildings and districts as historically significant.
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Snug Harbor Cultural Center
One of those, certainly, is the Snug
Harbor Cultural Center, a marvelous set of buildings
that have slowly (due to gaps and delays in city and
state budgeting) but steadily undergone restoration
and conversion into a terrific complex of indoor/outdoor
venues for visual art, sculpture, performance in all
media, and much more.
Staten Island Bus Schedules
Speaking of which, here, in pdf format, are the
MTA's official Staten
Island Bus Schedules -- you best bring a lunch,
and don't hold your breath.
Staten Island Elevated Railway/Rapid Transit
While I'm at it, here are the MTA's official Staten
Island Rapid Transit (elevated railway) and Staten
Island Ferry schedules. Plus what seems to be an alternative
site for the ferry that works well also: Staten
Island Ferry
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Staten Island Web
Clearly, they aspire to become the website that
ate Staten Island. And everything there comes out
homogenized. But The
Staten Island Web hosts a number of important
Island organizations and institutions, has a good
Links section of its own, a Chat Room -- and, of course,
tons of ads and local-business sites. Nonetheless,
worth a visit, definitely.
Staten Island Webcams
I know of only five Island webcams: one at the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, the other four at NYC Dept. of Transportation traffic cams. All five show primarily auto traffic on main arteries.
SILive.com
SILive.com bills itself as "everything Staten Island" -- a bit grandiose. But there's lots here: News and classifieds from the Staten Island Advance (out here that's pronounced AD-vance). weblogs, restaurant reviews, for example.
Staten Island Zoo
The island has a small but first-rate zoo, known internationally
for its herpetology collection (that's snakes to you,
buster). They've posted a fairly frenetic Website,
Staten
Island Zoo, that's full of information -- but
there's still nothing like being there at feeding
time.
Young Democrats of Richmond County
Yes, dear, there is a Staten Island Democratic Association.
Would it surprise you even more to learn that it went
on-line on June 26, 1995 -- making it the first political
club anywhere in New York City to land on the Web?
You betcha! How does that foresight and daring translate
at the polls out here? Don't ask . . . except on the
North Shore, where I live, which dependably goes to
the Dems while the rest of the place turns elephantine.
However, their website seems to have disappeared --
the previous URL now leads to a site featuring young
women from India performing assorted sex acts. If
you really want to learn about our local Democrats,
try the home page of the Young
Democrats of Richmond County.
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Intriguing
and Eccentric
Daniel Convissor's Transportation Page
Daniel
Convissor's Staten Island Transportation Page
has all sorts of curious lore and contentious argument
over that subject close to the hearts of most Islanders:
the borough's inefficient, undependable transportation
network. Yes, the ferry's now free; and yes, you now
get a free bus-to-subway (or vice versa) transfer
whenever you cross the Great Water. Inarguably, however,
those of us who've spent months of our lives waiting
for the S78 have done our time in purgatory. But I
digress . . . check out Convisser's material on the
ill-fated Staten Island to Brooklyn tunnel from the
early years of this century.
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Victorian Manor Inn
Need a pleasant place to stay for awhile when doing business in New York City, or vacationing here, or scouting for a place to live among us? Try our neighbor Louisa DePaola's b&b, the Victorian Manor Inn, a renovated Victorian
just a block and half from Villa Florentine (my house).
Tell her I sent you.
The Muddy Cup Coffee House
Just a few doors down from the Manor, you'll find this recent and most welcome addition to the 'hood -- the Muddy
Cup Coffee House, a world-class café, talent showcase, and inviting hangout. Regularly featured on the now-expired TV series The Education of Max Bickford, with Richard Dreyfuss. I made of point of waking early on opening day in early September of 2001 to become their very first customer; the aloe plant I brought as a housewarming gift for original proprietors Jimmy and Robb still survives in the front window.
Martini Red
And stop by Martini Red, a refurbished bar and eatery, a block away. Live music and/or dj every night. We heartily recommend the sultry, sexy keyboardist/singer Ingrid Michaelson on the first Tuesday of every month -- definitely slated for the big time.
Hakim Talbi
One Hakim Talbi, otherwise unknown to us, offers
a page of photographs he calls Gometry & Forms from the Staten Island Ferry. The
images are better than the spelling, but they take
a long time to load -- the dude has stacked about
36 color and b&w images on a single page.
Homebrewers of Staten Island
This site hasn't been updated in years; perhaps
they've sampled the product a bit too much. But there's
good information about making your own brewski at
Homebrewers
of Staten Island.
New York State Comptroller's Office
The question you have to be asking yourself right
about now is, "Do I feel lucky today?" Well,
do you -- punk? Because if you do, you might want
to check into the New
York State Comptroller's Office to see if they
have any unclaimed funds with your name on it sitting
around. Who knows? Even the Feds might owe you some
moolah; check out the HUD Home Page for any mortgage-loan
leftovers in your account. Feel free to pass along
a finder's fee to us; in any case, like Texas Guinan,
tell 'em where you got it and how easy it was.
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On secession
That's right: Not since the Civil War was a secession
issue so hotly contested. There are many Staten islanders
who wouldn't mind parting company with what they perceive
as Sodom across the harbor. And they have some persuasive
reasons for anyone who lives here. Temporarily, this
idea has been shelved. Here's why: On
secession: the 1990 State Supreme Court Decision.
Our Haunted Island
The Ghost Lady, our own Laura Brosé, has researched
the spooky legends of Staten Island, published her
first book on the subject, and posted a first-rate
website -- Our
Haunted Island -- with that material and more.
Excellent graphics, solid prose; she doesn't disappoint.
Wu-Tang Clan
The Island has a long and respectable history of contribution to music. One set of Islanders to achieve fame is the rap posse Wu Tang Clan, which group gave the Island its (to my knowledge) first nickname: "The Rock." These native Islanders are just about the biggest thing, musically, to spring from here. Mos def.
Raekwon
Homeboy Lou Harris, a/k/a/ Raekwon, of Wu Tang Clan, has got his own eponymous homepage where you can download a soundbite from his first solo venture, among other goodies.
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Spanish Camp
Dorothy Day and many of her radical Christian
colleagues in the Catholic Workers movement lived
out here, in a place called Spanish
Camp, founded in the 1920s by Socialist vets of
the Spanish Civil War. It went up for redevelopment
as a spread of ritzy, high-priced homes, and some
folks weren't at all happy about that; a move to declare
it a landmark got underway. Nonetheless, a sleazy
developer razed it illegally. Read about the indictment
of Staten Island's own Flory Henao, 38, of 99 Darcey
Avenue, Willowbrook, and her company, Amazon Contracting
Corp., located at 242 Nevins Street, Brooklyn, on
charges of forgery and other crimes, related to Ms.
Henao's work as an expediter for the developer of
the Spanish Camp property on Staten Island.
Staten Island Chuck
Yes, we have what Virginia Woolf recommended for every community, "A Groundhog of Our Own" -- Staten
Island Chuck, our mascot, who resides at the excellent
Staten Island Zoo and "has been accurate in predicting
the weather 16 out of 19 years - an 84.21% success
rate!
WSIA FM 88.9
Not a non sequitur: Located on the campus of the College of Staten Island, part of the City University of New York (CUNY) system, radio station WSIA
FM 88.9 provides the Island with a distinctive mix of alternative music. And we don't mean Mantovani. You can listen to them online, via streaming audio, and watch Live
DJ Cam at the same time — in color. Pretty hip for the boonies.
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Flat-out
weird
Cures Not Wars
Also not a non sequitur: When they wanted to test
Ibogaine, an "addiction interruptor" for
addicts, where did they come for their pool of test
subjects? Why, Staten Island, of course. Read "The
Ibogaine Project: The Staten Island Report" at
the website of Cures
Not Wars, one of the more sensible voices in the
debate over drug use in this country.
Escape From Staten Island
I truly don't know what to make of this one. Here's an account — supposedly from a broadside delivered anonymously to a WFMU deejay — detailing one Ed Porter's childhood abuse by devil worshippers (including the Kennedy clain and the Mormons, together again for the very first time) and eventual Escape
from Staten Island. Shocking truth, total lunacy,
or creative non-fiction? YOU DECIDE!
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Unless
otherwise credited, all text and images in this newsletter
are © copyright 1997-2006
by A. D. Coleman. All rights reserved.
By permission of the author and
Image/World
Syndication Services,
P.O.B. 040078,
Staten Island, New York 10304-0002 USA.
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