The view from the top of the seven-story building at 30 Bay Street gave a full view of the large wooden residences that lined Central Avenue in 1929. The homes on this street were demolished at some unknown time during the 20th century. The new building now located at 26 Central Avenue, opened in 2014, is the Richmond County Supreme Court. Its construction took more than a decade with problems and delays, including the 2001 discovery of 19th century human remains, originally interred in a cemetery that once occupied the land.

360 Bay Street, ca. 1927. At the corner of Bay and Grant Streets once stood the Planters Hotel, a Federal style brick townhouse that dated back to 1821. Built by Georgia businessman Robert Grant, the hotel was a popular resort for Southerner plantation owners who, before the Civil War, visited New York frequently to sell cotton. When the war broke out, many of these clients moved their families to the area surrounding the hotel to live in safety. After the Civil War, one of Staten Island's earliest photographers, H. Hoyer, rented out a studio in the space for a year. While his stay was short, in the years that followed, Hoyer's photography business was taken over by the notable photographer, John Loefflers. The photography business remained in operation for more than 50 years. In 1975, the old hotel building was demolished to make way for a car dealership.

Joseph H. Lyons Pool CLIENT: City of New York, Department of Parks and Recreation ARCHITECT: Joseph L. Hautman DATE: 1934-36 STYLE: Art Moderne, Swimming Pool The Tompkinsville (Joseph H. Lyons) Pool is one of a group of eleven immense outdoor swimming pools opened in the summer of 1936 in a series of grand ceremonies presided over by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia and Park Commissioner Robert Moses. All of the pools were constructed largely with funding provided by the Works Progress Administration (WPA), one of many New Deal agencies created in the 1930s to address the Great Depression. Designed by Joseph L. Hautman, the Tompkinsville Pool is set on a small swath of land on the east shore of Staten Island between the Staten Island Railway track and the waterfront. The streamlined and curvilinear form of the Art Moderne-style bath house met the low-cost material criteria stipulated by the WPA while still presenting an attractive design.

Public School 15, September 9, 1937. Completed in 1898 as the Middletown Township District School No. 1, the stately building with prominent clock tower was constructed on a plot occupied by a school since 1855. Designed by Staten Island resident and architect Edward Alfred Sargent, the later named Public School 15 is rendered in a rough-textured red brick with terra cotta and stone trim. Though Sargent is best known for his Queen Anne, Shingle, and Colonial Revival home design, he completed three schools on Staten Island. With two of the other schools lost, Public School 15 remains Sargent's educational legacy in the borough. The school building was designated a New York City landmark in 1996 and after a number of decades as administrative offices (the school functions ceased in 1965) the building has returned to education use as Public School 65.

340-348 St. Marks Place, 1937. These two lovely Victorian wood homes were part of a grouping of such buildings on St. Marks Place in St. George. Only a few of the larger homes remain (including the home at no. 362).

Joseph H. Lyons Pool, August 28, 1937. The only WPA pool on Staten Island and the fourth pool to open in the summer of 1936, the Joseph H. Lyons Pool (also called the Tompkinsville Pool) sits on a plot of land on the waterfront. The location of space directly impacted the Joseph L. Hautman-designed facilities. The long L-shaped structures attempted to block out the sounds of the nearby railroad, while creating excellent views out towards New York Harbor. Unlike most of the other pools, these facilities occupy nearly the entirety of the lot and are not surrounded by additional park land. Beginning in 1982 a $6.7 million renovation was undertaken and the pool was rededicated in the summer of 1986, 50 years after it was first opened.

The Corn Exchange Bank and the New York Trust & Mortgage buildings, 1930. Designed by Horace Luckman, and completed in 1928, the building first housed the American Trust Company and the New York Title and Mortgage Company. The building was designed to include a large illuminated sign on the roof which featured eight foot high letters and a metal framing that spanned 30 by 50 feet.

199 St. Pauls Avenue, October 22, 1926. According to the photographer's notes for this photograph, this home was, for a time, the residence of Richard Adams Locke. Locke, a British journalist who wrote for the New York newspaper The Sun, was said to be the author of a newspaper hoax in 1835. Called the "Great Moon Hoax," a series of articles which described the discovery of an animal civilization on the moon by astronomer Sir John Herschel. Herschel supposedly observed bison, goats, unicorns, bipedal tail-less beavers, bat-like winged humanoids, and the structures they had built. Herschal was not involved in the hoax and in fact did not know until longer after the fact that these discoveries were attributed to him. Likely undertaken to boost the circulation of the newspaper, the hoax was an undeniable success, eclipsing a similar hoax story published by Edgar Allan Poe a few months earlier, and launching The Sun into dramatically increased distribution and reputation.

St. George Branch, NYPL, date unknown. The St. George Library was designed by Carrère and Hastings and completed in 1907. It is the largest of the four Staten Island Carnegie libraries, reflecting the importance and vibrancy of the surrounding neighborhood which is home to the Staten Island Borough Hall and the ferry terminal. While the original design was a rectangular floor plan (as seen in this undated image), a large addition perpendicular to the original building was constructed in 1952.