THE VERTICAL LIFE, or Hill-Walking on Staten Island, Part 9

PRECARIOUSLY PERCHED

. . . Or so these hillside houses on Van Duzer Street in Stapleton Heights--just south of the point at which it meets the last stretch of St. Paul's Avenue--seemed to me when I photographed them not long ago on one of my first extended walks of the 2008 spring/summer season.

About a 15-minute bus ride from the ferry and about an hour from downtown Manhattan, this group of houses appears to have been assembled randomly during the mid- to late 19th century and into the early 20th. The question is why, at the turn of the last century, when there was hardly a shortage of buildable land in Richmond County, a group of families chose to settle in this steep hillside cluster, some of which was accessible only via a steep and irregular hillside stair.

Several among this group of modest hillside are well cared for, as here:

While the appearance of this sorry hillside hanger-on gives new meaning to the term 'deferred maintenance.'

Comments

[Staten Island]

Thanks for showing a vertical life of staten island.....

[Dan Icolari]

Thank you, Staten Island, for your comment. I hope you also viewed the earlier posts--numbers 1 to 8--in THE VERTICAL LIFE series on Walking is Transportation.com. If you haven't, I hope you will, and that you enjoy them.