120th Police Precinct Station House CLIENT: Richmond County Police Department; 66th Precinct ARCHITECT: James Whitford, Sr. DATE: 1920-23 STYLE: Neo-Renaissance The 120th Police Precinct Station House (former 66th Police Precinct Station House and Headquarters) is an impressive neo-Renaissance style building set on Richmond Terrace in Staten Island’s civic center. Designed by James Whitford, Sr., it was built in 1920-23 as the headquarters for the Police Department in Richmond County and as the 66th Precinct Station House serving the north shore communities of Stapleton, St. George, and New Brighton. In 1898, Richmond County was consolidated into the City of New York, and the old county center was moved to St. George. Between 1898 and 1919, the firm of Carrere & Hastings designed four buildings for the civic center. Whitford followed Carrere’s design precedents, siting his building in line with the other municipal buildings on Richmond Terrace. He treated the building as an Italian Renaissance palace clad in terra cotta treated to look like limestone to harmonize with Carrere & Hastings’ neighboring Richmond County Courthouse.

Staten Island Family Courthouse ARCHITECT: Sibley & Fetherston DATE: 1929-31 STYLE: Neo-Classical The Staten Island Family Courthouse, an integral part of Staten Island’s civic center in St. George, is an impressive neo-Classical building set on Richmond Terrace. In 1898, Richmond County was consolidated into the City of New York, and the old county center was moved to St. George. Between 1898 and 1919, the firm of Carrere & Hastings designed the first four buildings for the civic center. Sibley & Fetherston followed Carrere’ s design precedents, siting the family court building in line with other municipal buildings on Richmond Terrace. The neo-Classical building was clad in terra cotta treated to look like limestone to harmonize with Carrere & Hastings’ neighboring Richmond County Courthouse. Staten Island Family Courthouse exemplifies the “boom” in courthouse construction in the 1920s and 30s and is the city’s only extant family (children’s) courthouse still in use as a cour

Curtis High School ca. 1905 Curtis High School (1902-1904) was the first public building constructed on the Island after consolidation. The school was sited on a hill with Harbor views and was designed in the neo-Gothic style by Superintendent of School Buildings C.B.J. Snyder. The school was named after Staten Island resident George William Curtis, the editor of Putnam’s Magazine and Harper’s Weekly, and a colleague and friend of landscape architects Frederick Law Olmsted and Andrew Jackson Downing.

The building in the foreground was likely built prior to 1900 and by 1928 housed the Staten Island Women's Club. This institution was organized by the wives of Staten Island's most prominent citizens. For nearly 40 years ending in 2013, the structure was home to William Monica and Son, a violin seller and restoration company. The large building in the background is the former St. Peter's Catholic School, now The Harbor View School, P.S. 59.

The 19th century home that formerly occupied this plot of land was owned by a succession of prominent Staten Island citizens. It was supposedly owed, at one point, by William T. Davis, a naturalist, entomologist, and historian, who, along with fellow writers and scientists, established the Natural Science Association of Staten Island in 1881. That institution is the direct predecessor of the current Staten Island Museum. Though largely self-taught Davis wrote books on the natural history and people of Staten Island and was an internationally respected expert on cicadas.

The Castleton Hotel was constructed in 1889, the last in a series of grand hotels built on St. Marks Place. This hotel replaced another hotel on the plot called the St. Marks Hotel. Both businesses boomed, particularly during the summer months (though there was rampant speculation that even despite the popularity, the Hotel Castleton never turned a profit). On November 12, 1907, while closed for the winter months, the five and a half story wood-frame building caught fire. The New York Times wrote, "The hotel might have been built of paper from the rapidity with which the flames spread." Given the hotel's location high on a bluff overlooking the harbor, the conflagration was visible at a great distance. It is said that it could be seen as from "far uptown" (whatever that meant in 1907). After many hours, and a valiant but largely thwarted efforts by firefighters, the blaze burned itself out. Nothing was left of the hotel but the brick chimneys.

Curtis High School Hamilton Avenue & St. Mark’s Place, Staten Island 1904 As part of a plan to build a high school in each of the outlaying boroughs, Curtis High School was designed by C.B.J Snyder and built between 1902 and 1904. As the first high school on Staten Island, it is named in honor of prominent writer George W. Curtis, who settled on Staten Island circa 1850. The building is of buff colored brick, terra cotta, and limestone and its center square tower is an impressive example of neo-Gothic architecture. A notable alumnus is Amy Vanderbilt, author of the bests selling Complete Book of Etiquette (1952). Curtis High School was designated a New York City Landmark in 1982.

The Richmond County Courthouse (center) is a civic court house next to the Staten Island Borough Hall. Construction on the building began in 1913 but was halted during World War I. The court house was completed in 1919, and replaced the former courthouse (the 1837 building at 302 Center Street, which is still standing). The large L-shaped building faced the street with an entryway of six large Corinthian columns. The building was designed by Carrère and Hastings, the architects of the nearby Borough Hall, as well as, most famously, the Main Branch of the New York Public Library.

In its early history, New York City was home to an array of small burial sites. In the early 19th century, Manhattan was rapidly transforming into a bustling city, leading to the 1830 passage of an ordinance forbidding burials south of Canal Street. Small churchyard, private and non-sectarian cemeteries continued to be built north of Canal Street until 1847, when the New York State Rural Cemeteries Act was passed to encourage the construction of suburban cemeteries. These Romantic-style cemeteries were fashionable in the mid-19th century as retreats from city life, with pleasant landscaping and air- purifying trees. These cemeteries functioned not only as places of burial, but also as the precursor to major public parks. Two of New York City’s grandest cemeteries were designed and built in this style in what were then rural sections of the city: Green-Wood in Brooklyn (established in 1838) and Woodlawn in The Bronx (established in 1865). After the Rural Cemeteries Act was passed, the greatest concentration of suburban cemeteries was built on the border of Brooklyn and Queens in Newtown Township, dubbed the “city of the dead.” In fact, by 1893, roughly 1.5 million people had been buried in 24 cemeteries of varying religious and non-religious affiliations, covering 2,000 acres of land there. In addition to being on the outskirts of the city, Newtown and the surrounding area were also attractive for the development of cemeteries since a provision of the Rural Cemeteries Act mandated that individual cemetery organizations be limited to no more than 250 acres in one county. Thus, this rule was circumvented through the purchase of larger parcels that stood within both Brooklyn (Kings County) and Queens (Queens County). While much of the city was rapidly expanding and many of its small burial grounds were transformed for other uses, especially in Manhattan, Staten Island remained largely rural. This relative lack of development pressure allowed Staten Island’s small burial grounds to remain. From the 17th century well into the 19th century, family farms occupied much of Staten Island, especially in the south. Within the confines of these farms, “Homestead Graves” or family burial grounds were established. These were some of the first community cemeteries on Staten Island, and many of today’s cemeteries are still named after the families whose homestead burial grounds were sold for public use. In Staten Island, cemeteries did not discriminate against different races and cultures. At Fountain Cemetery, for example, members of many prosperous African American families, some born into slavery on Staten Island and subsequently freed, are buried there. Another unique aspect of many Staten Island cemeteries is the large amount of granite grave stones, which were quarried in the aptly named Graniteville neighborhood. Many of the 13 accessible and four inaccessible cemeteries covered in this story became abandoned, vandalized or used as dumping grounds in the 20th century. Founded in 1981, the Friends of Abandoned Cemeteries of Staten Island (FACSI) has restored and maintained 11 of these hallowed spaces throughout the borough to date. This vital work includes landscaping and tree work, restoration and placement of grave markers and the production and installation of signage to identify the cemeteries. The organization also keeps archives of photographs, burial lists and cemetery documents, as well as transcribes obscure burial records and makes them available to the public via the Richmond County Genealogy website. In addition to respecting the lives of those buried at these sites, FACSI’s important work allows these cemeteries to reclaim and maintain their rightful place as a unique, beautiful and historically significant part of Staten Island’s physical fabric.

Staten Island Academy, ca. 1910. The Staten Island Academy (and Latin School, as it was originally called) was chartered in 1884. In the mid 1890s the school, which educated using a progressive curriculum for the era, moved into the new building seen here at Wall Street and Academy Place, so named for the school. The high school remained in this building through 1970, while the grammar and middle schools moved into new accommodations in the 1940s. Today the entire Academy is housed in a campus completed in 1970 in the Todt Hill section of Staten Island, while this building has been demolished.

The C.B.J. Snyder-designed Curtis High School was completed in 1904 and was the first high school on the island, as well as the first civic building completed after Staten Island became part of the consolidated New York City in 1898. Famous alumni include children's book author Lois Lowry (The Giver) and Wu-Tang Clan member RZA who referenced the school in the song "Sunshower"-- "Old Earth got nervous, walked me to Shaolin, sent me to Curtis."