NEW ST. GEORGE HISTORY A VISUAL FEAST

COME GORGE
ON ST. GEORGE

San Franciscans probably know more about North Brooklyn than Staten Islanders know about their own home borough. At least one of the reasons may be a relative lack of popular or scholarly writing on the subject compared to what's available on the other boroughs.

The books devoted to this borough that I've seen most often in Staten Island home libraries are the two-volume Leng and Davis history of 1930, a professional but dated effort; and two volumes by amateur historian Dorothy Valentine Smith, both of 1968. By now, these titles are more parts of history themselves than guides to it, at least where more recent history is concerned.

That's not a situation unique to Staten Island. Many communities have a detached, curiosity-cabinet view of their own histories; or an even drier statistical one. Or else they've ignored their histories outright. Mostly the failure has been to make history relevant by connecting the lives of those who walked these streets, lived in these houses and rode these trains, trolleys and buses with our own lives, here, today.

LETTING THE PICTURES TELL THE STORY

David Goldfarb and Jim Ferreri's new pictorial history, ST. GEORGE--one of eight titles on Staten Island history produced by Arcadia Publishing in its handsomely designed Images of America series––is a worthy attempt to fill in some of the blanks in our knowledge and awareness. It uses historic photographs to make our neighborhood's history more accessible to a wide audience.
  The caption at the top of this unpostmarked horizontal sepia postcard reads, Borough Hall and Bridge, new approach to St. George. Richmond Borough, N.Y. (D. Icolari postcard collection)

Some of the text has the ring of oft-told legend more than history--such as the (possibly tall) tale of how St. George got its name (see page 36). But there are many surprises as well, such as a sign-of-changing-times photo (see page 109) of a railroad engine sitting on tracks no one expected would be laid directly below the Richmond Terrace mansion that overlooks them.

I didn't know how much I didn't know.

The caption of this card
postmarked 'New Brighton, N.Y.'
in 1910 reads,
Borough Hall, St. George
Richmond Borough, N.Y.

(D. Icolari postcard collection)

In their approach to ST. GEORGE, Ferreri, an interior designer who is president of the Preservation League of Staten Island; and David Goldfarb, attorney, community activist and passionate preservationist, have let the pictures tell the story. Following a brief introduction, the authors have included a total of seven sections, each devoted to a particular aspect of the community's history and development, including Early Settlement, Houses of Worship, Resort Development, Planned Suburban Community, Civic Center, Staten Island Ferry and Transportation Hub, and Modern St. George.

\ Postmarked 1908, this postcard
is captioned, Stuyvesant Place
looking North from High [Hyatt?-ed.]
Street, St. George, Staten Island
(D. Icolari postcard collection)

While the bulk of the text is contained in photo captions, those captions are often quite meaty and informative. Historical background and archival images were provided by the Staten Island Historical Society and the Staten Island Institute of Arts and Sciences, with additional images from the Staten Island Advance. A number of the images were contributed by the authors themselves.

Several particularly revealing photos show us how Stuyvesant Place was transformed, perhaps inevitably, given its strategically important location near the ferry, from a rather elegant 19th century suburban residential street to a livelier but less interesting amalgam of shops and large residential and commercial structures. Seeing what we have lost underscores the precarious position of what remains.

This advertising postcard
for the Hotel St. George
was never sent and has no
postmark. To find out more
about the hotel, see pages
 42,43 and 117 of Jim Ferreri
and David Goldfarb's
ST. GEORGE.
(D. Icolari postcard collection)

A COMPLAINT . . .

One of the things that jumped out at me right away in Goldfarb and Ferreri's terrific new book was their use of the term 'town' to refer to what most people on Staten Island would refer to as a neighborhood or community or section, maybe.

Sure, when I arrived by ferry on these shores in 1977, there were people--usually older natives––who would use the term 'town,' a holdover from the days when Richmond County was a collection of town centers with scant residential development surrounding. That was still somewhat the case as late as 1950.

The handwritten caption of this undated, unpostmarked card reads, New York Public Library, St. George, Staten Island.
(D. Icolari postcard collection)

But these days, one hears West Brighton or Oakwood or Willowbrook referred to much less often as towns and much more often as neighborhoods.

The real dividing lines are not rigid 'town' boundaries, anyway--such as those arbitrarily established by the Advance. It's the words people use to refer to the places they live--not the preferences of newspaper editors and real estate developers--that determine those places' names.

. . . AND A SALUTE

I was heartened to see the authors engage the question of who decides what history is and whether that history is frozen or subject to review. That may not be Goldfarb and Ferreri's intent in referring to New Brighton as 'the town that would become St. George.' But that is the effect of those words.

Unpostmarked, undated
postcard's caption reads,
 Carnegie Library,
St. George, Staten Island, N.Y.
(D. Icolari postcard collection)

As they imply, place-names are not divinely set in stone; they are human creations, subject to human revision. By acknowledging that process of change, the authors of ST. GEORGE have set forth a view of history as something dynamic and evolutionary that is periodically reconsidered or revised. Just like our understanding of it.

But the question of what neighborhood we live in has been settled for quite some time. In a sense, the publication of David Goldfarb and Jim Ferreri's ST. GEORGE proves it.

_________________________________
ST. GEORGE by David Goldfarb and James G. Ferreri, Images of America Series, 128 pp., softcover. $21.99. Available after April 13 at the Every Thing Goes Book Café, 208 Bay Street, Tompkinsville (718-447-8256) and other bookstores; online; or through Arcadia Publishing, www.arcadiapublishing.com

Comments

[Dan Icolari]

I, Goldfarb and Ferreri thank you, Edward, for your obvious discernment and good taste, not to mention your speed-reading ability. :)

You will be pleased to hear what I've heard, I think, which is that David Goldfarb is hard at work on a similar book on Stapleton (and I hear someone else is doing a book on Port Richmond).

I haven't always been impressed with the quality of the writing in this series, but the Goldfarb/Ferreri text was straightforward, helpful, and didn't waste my time.

(I gave away my copy to two new arrivals in St. George--a housewarming present. Your comment here reminds me I need to get a replacement. Thanks, Edward.)

[Edward]

Bought the book upon your recommendation, and read the whole thing in one sitting while riding the subway home from the bookstore! What a treat--so much I didn't know about St. George, and TONS of pix and maps. Text is sparse but informative. Man, would I have loved to live in St. George 120 years ago! So lovely. And of course, it's a nice neighborhood today, too.