Paramount Theater, ca. 1995. The Paramount Theatre opened in October in 1930 and was second only to the St. George Theatre in grandeur and reputation on Staten Island. The Art Deco theatre, which sat 2,300 patrons, was actually constructed on land that had once been the childhood home of the famed railroad and shipping magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt. A major selling point for the theatre was its double console Wurlitzer theatre organ, one of only ten in the whole country when it was installed. The movie house was extensively renovated in the 1960s but suffered the same loss of patronage as many other movie theaters in the city and closed in 1977. The next decade saw the space serving briefly as a multi-purpose event hall, a nightclub, and, most notably, as a rock venue. Acts who performed here include the B-52’s, Squeeze, and the Ramones. Despite some success, the venue was short-lived and closed sometime in the1980s. The space has been largely abandoned since then, its future uncertain. Various plans have included demolition for high-rise apartments and restoration and creation of an event space and live performance venue. Work towards this type of conversion began in 2009 but was halted in 2010. In recent years, a number of TV productions have been filmed here including Gotham and Marvel’s The Defenders.

Bayley Seton Hospital, entrance detail, ca. 1995.

Edgewater Village Hall CLIENT: Village of Edgewater ARCHITECT: Unknown DATE: 1889 STYLE: Romanesque Revival Edgewater Village Hall was built at the end of the nineteenth century as a municipal and city magistrate’s courthouse. Originally serving the village of Edgewater, the Romanesque Revival hall stands on a small, landscaped public square called Tappan Park.

Marine Hospital, 1931. The very first hospital on Staten Island was established in 1831. Named the Seaman's Retreat, it was a facility that served retired naval and commercial sailors. The building seen here, which remains extant, was the main structure of the hospital, built between 1834 and 1853 to the designs of Abraham P. Maybie. The Greek Revival building was home to the Laboratory of Hygiene for Bacteriological Investigation (later called the National Institute of Health) between 1887 and 1891 and in 1903 it taken over by the federal government, becoming the U.S Marine Hospital. The building was designated a landmark in 1985, four years after the government terminated their ownership of the building. Today this historic building and its more modern neighbors are largely empty as the medical operations have been condensed into only a few structures on the site. Plans have been proposed to create a Salvation Army community center on the property, but as of late 2017 work had not commenced.

Harrison Street, an enclave of diverse residential architecture, lies within the Stapleton neighborhood of Staten Island. Stapleton was established in 1835 when State Senator Minthorne Tompkins and New York businessman William J. Staples (after whom the neighborhood is named) purchased two farms. In 1836, the men arranged for the establishment of streets and 395 building lots on the large parcel, and that same year several houses and a hotel were constructed. In 1831, the Seaman’s Retreat and Hospital Fund, devoted to the care of merchant sailors, was established on a 40-acre site on Bay Street and Vanderbilt Avenue. Its main building, a large Greek Revival structure built by Abraham Maybie in 1834–53, and the Physician-in-Chief’s Residence of 1842 are designated landmarks, though today much of the campus is in disrepair. Staples and Tompkins also founded a steam ferry service to Manhattan to attract development. By the mid to late 19th century, Stapleton had a thriving commercial district. While some of Harrison Street’s early residents worked in Manhattan, the majority worked in Stapleton as shopkeepers, contractors, developers, carpenters, lawyers and politicians. Harrison Street, often referred to as “The Nook,” was developed roughly between 1840 and 1900. It was named for Dr. John Talbot Harrison, one-term State Assemblyman and Chief Health Officer of the Quarantine Station in the nearby neighborhood of Tompkinsville, which was developed by Minthorne Tompkins’s father, Daniel D. Tompkins, the United States Vice President under James Monroe. The street is unusual for its densely built 19th-century residential architecture, as during this period, much of Staten Island remained farmland or was developed with the suburban ideal in mind. Architectural styles include Colonial Revival, Gothic Revival, Greek Revival, Italianate, Queen Anne and Second Empire. The north side of the street is more uniform in its scale, with a majority of the structures being one-and-one-half story houses. At the west end of the street are two apartment houses constructed in 1883. The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission is considering the designation of Harrison Street as Staten Island’s fourth historic district. Nearby, the St. Paul’s Avenue–Stapleton Heights Historic District was designated in 2004, and boasts mansions once belonging to Manhattan-based businessmen and top officials of local breweries. Harrison Street was home to more modest, but no less special, houses belonging to the neighborhood’s merchants and profes- sionals. Thanks to the efforts of dedicated homeowners, many of these houses now rival their neighbors up the hill. It is interesting to compare the architecture of these two neighborhoods in order to put Harrison Street in context. If you are inclined to visit, the St. Paul’s Avenue– Stapleton Heights Historic District is a short distance north of Harrison Street.

Stapleton Branch, NYPL, date unknown. The near identical twin to the Port Richmond Branch, Stapleton Library was completed in 1907 to the designs of Carrère and Hastings.