Staten Island Greenbelt
Encyclopedia
The Staten Island Greenbelt is a system of contiguous public park
land and natural areas in the central hills of the New York City
borough of Staten Island
. It is the second largest component of the parks owned by the City of New York
and is maintained by the city's Department of Parks and Recreation
.
is the highest elevation south of Maine along the eastern U.S. sea coast This and other surface features are the result of glacial activity from the Pleistocene
epoch; the metamorphic
and igneous rocks below the surface – schist
, sandstone, serpentine, magnetite
, iron oxide – are the result of tectonic
activity from the much earlier Paleozoic
era and volcanic activity from subsequent geologic eras.
The native Lenni-Lenape
, who inhabited the island centuries before the arrival of the Dutch, reportedly dubbed Staten Island Aquehonga Monocknong or "the place of bad woods" perhaps because of the spirits they believed dwelled there. Then, as today, the boulder-littered moraine
s were covered with many species of trees: oak, hickory, maple, beech, as well as lesser quantities of birch, sweet gum, ash, black walnut, wild cherry, and tulip. Below the canopy of this sub-climax forest grew dogwood, ironwood, spicebush, blackberry, wild grape, Virginia creeper, and sassafras, along with royal and cinnamon ferns, skunk cabbage, lady slipper, and trout lilies in the wetter areas.
Within the oak-mulch enriched soil that has been laid down over millennia, arrowheads have been found. These finds attest to both the Leni-Lenape’s subsistence on and unsuccessful defense of their home, which contained the natural resources that made it so attractive to first Dutch and then British colonizers in the 17th and 18th centuries. Its forested hills, strategically located between and above the Raritan Bay
and the New York Harbor
, offered timber for ship building, iron ore for the production of cannonballs, and a staging ground for British troops during the War for Independence.
In the 1800’s, several centuries after European settlers had come to, named, deforested, and farmed large portions of Staten Island, travelers of a different sort arrived. Henry David Thoreau
- in his furthest journey from his native Massachusetts – came for one year in 1843 in order to tutor the nephews of his friend and fellow transcendentalist, Ralph Waldo Emerson
. Some years later, landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted
, famed for his design of urban parks throughout the U.S., settled for a time on a 130 acres (52.6 ha) experimental farm overlooking the Raritan Bay, which he called Tosomock Farm.
After 10 years, he and his new bride left the island only to return later in his life. (After Olmsted left Tosomock Farm, Erastus Winan bought it, renaming it "The Woods of Arden", which stands today at 4515 Hylan Blvd., near Woods of Arden.) It was in his capacity as consultant to the Staten Island Improvement Commission that in 1871 Olmsted made the following proposal for Staten Island:
Other proposals on behalf of preserving wilderness on Staten Island were put forward in subsequent years. William T. Davis
, a naturalist born on the island, believed that "“The best park is certainly a piece of woodland left as Nature arranged it, with a few path cut through it.”
When Davis, along with local historian Charles Leng
, coauthored a history of Staten Island in 1896, they wrote that:
"The crowning glory of Staten Island’s topography and scenery is the forest that springs from its rich, well-watered soil … Irregularity of contour and excessive wetness have saved such places from village development; and there is hope that some at least may ultimately become parklands, for which purpose they are eminently suited."
Just one year later, at an 1897 public hearing on the topic of land preservation in Albany, New York State’s capital, Staten Island farmer Erastus Winan stated that “a wilderness of such beauty pervaded this region that no expenditure could improve upon.”
It wasn’t until the first years of the 1960s, though, that then Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority
Chairman, Robert Moses
, revealed plans for a parkway that would connect Brooklyn with New Jersey, traversing the island from the soon to be opened Verrazano-Narrows Bridge
on the island’s north shore to the Outerbridge Crossing
on the southern shore of Staten Island. This original route of the proposed Richmond Parkway
would have bisected the swath of land on whose behalf Olmsted had pled including what is today Fresh Kills, William T. Davis Wildlife Refuge
, Reed’s Basket Willow Swamp, Willowbrook and High Rock Park. Conservation activists, given immediacy by the Federal Highway Act and hope in the person of President John F. Kennedy’s Secretary of the Interior, Stewart Udall
, mobilized in opposition to these plans.
Their first victory was the saving of High Rock Girl Scout Camp, the acreage of which had originally been a part of Pouch Boy Scout Camp, including Orbach Lake, to the north. With a $35,000 grant from the State of New York is was bought from the Boy Scouts and established as Camp High Rock for Girls. For thirteen years, the camp served girl scouts from throughout the five boroughs of New York City. But, in 1964, the Girl scout Council of Greater New York secretly decided to sell the camp to a developer for $1,000,000. Upon learning about this sale, the New York City Parks Department and the State of New York, with the help of the Open Lands Foundation, raised over $1,300,000 to buy back the land from the developer, thus creating High Rock Park.
Then, on November 22, 1965, the Staten Island Citizens Planning Committee (SICPC), which had begun in 1954 as an ad-hoc committee of the Unitarian Universalist Church
of Staten Island, issued the first of many position papers beginning by invoking Olmsted’s plea for a linear park; it concluded by presenting an alternate parkway plan that would spare what has come to be known as the Staten Island Greenbelt, a term proposed by landscape architect, Bradford Greene, one of the group’s founding members. Greene was familiar with this policy or land use designation from previous work he had been involved with in Maryland.
At the helm of the SICPC, an all-volunteer organization, were several “off-islanders" – young professionals who had moved to Staten Island’s North Shore area in the 1950’s largely because of the quality of life promised by the open space that still existed. In addition to Bradford Greene, there were Terrence Benbow and Frank Duffy, both attorneys practicing in Manhattan; Robert Hagenhofer, a graphic designer; George Pratt, director of the Staten Island Institute of Arts & Sciences, and New York Times staff writer, Alan Oser. Summoning their many and diverse talents, their strategy involved developing and advocating for an alternate route in the press, before public officials, and, when necessary, the courts.
One year into the SICPC’s legal fight against the original route of the Richmond Parkway, the Staten Island Greenbelt Natural Areas League (SIGNAL), spearheaded by another resident-journalist, John G. Mitchell
, formed as a vehicle for rallying community opposition to the highway construction. From 1966 until the early 1970’s, SIGNAL organized thousands of citizens and elected officials (including Planning Commissioner Eleanor Guggenheimer, Parks Commissioner Thomas Hoving
, Mayor John V. Lindsay, and U.S. Senator Jacob Javits) to participate in annual winter walks through the highland forests, tracing the route of the proposed (and already mapped) highway route. These two citizen organizations and their combined strategies of lobbying, public relations, and grassroots organizing challenged Robert Moses, who had been thwarted by community efforts only twice before: In 1956, mothers who frequented Manhattan’s Central Park with their young children successfully had stopped a proposed parking lot expansion by challenging Moses in court. Ten years later, when Robert Moses proposed the construction of a sunken boulevard which would have sped traffic through the middle of the famed Washington Square Park, the Joint Committee to Stop the Lower Manhattan Expressway led by Jane Jacobs, defeated him again.
In spite of brewing opposition, road work began in 1965 on what became known as “section 1”. When the work was halted by the city, excavations were used to construct what is now known as "Moses Mountain," a rise adjacent to the Manor Road - Rockland Avenue interchange. Other remnants of construction can be seen from the Staten Island Expressway between the Clove Road and Bradley Avenue exits, which are referred to as the abandoned bridges. They are a little west of the Petrides School Complex.
In 1966 Volmer Associates were hired by the city of New York to describe alternate routes to “section 1”. They were proposed, studied, and debated by New York state and city officials, creating contention and divisions even within these governmental units. While travel distance between the island’s bridges was on paramount concern to the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, the City Park Department, led by August Hecksher, commissioned the planning firm Wallace, McHarg, Roberts and Todd. Ian McHarg, a Glasgow born landscape architect, who had stated in his much studied book Design with Nature that engineer road builders were “gouging and scarring the landscape without remorse,” headed up the landmark study.
Having pointed out that a method for displaying and factoring social values into highway design and planning had not been developed, McHarg set about creating just that. Long before GIS technology
was available, McHarg used data rich maps and overlays which allowed planners to visually understand how social values – historic, residential, economic, recreational, scenic, ecological factors – synergistically interacted with and potentially impacted upon human activity, including road building. Using map transparencies he and his colleagues produced the commissioned report with a recommendation stating that the route to the west of what is today the Greenbelt, was the “least social cost corridor.”
Under duress from developers who were eager to begin building homes adjacent to the roadway, the Greenbelt's erstwhile supporters, Mayor John Lindsay and Governor John D. Rockefeller
, publicly backed a compromise route. In response, the two citizen organizations were willing to stop at nothing to preserve what John Mitchell, in one of his writings, referred to as “a fine patch of wild". With their combined memberships behind them, the officers of the SICPC and SIGNAL sought injunctive relief in New York State Supreme Court, which meant suing both Lindsay and Rockefeller. The court decision found for the plaintiffs. The citizen planners and conservationists were victorious. The area was earmarked as one of two Special Natural Features Districts in the City of New York, and between 1972 and 1974 the urbanist Peter Verity (now of PDRc) prepared for the New York City Planning Commission the strategic and detailed documentation to support this designation.
In 1982, 25 acres (10.1 ha) of city-owned land, which heretofore had belonged to the New York City Farm Colony
, were added to the Greenbelt; this tract is located on the north side of Rockland Avenue, from Brielle Avenue almost to Forest Hill Road.
In 1984, the Staten Island Greenbelt became one of the largest natural areas within the five boroughs of New York City and the second largest component of the parks owned by the City of New York, maintained in a natural state by the city’s Department of Parks and Recreation.
neighborhood; in June 2004 a second facility, known as the Greenbelt Nature Center, was opened approximately ¾ mile (1.2 km) away, at 700 Rockland Avenue. The Greenbelt Conservancy, which works in partnership with the NYC Parks Department, is a membership organization offering year-round nature-themed events for young people and adults.
The 4.8 mile parkway route, originally proposed by Robert Moses, has been de-mapped despite occasional proposals for its revival due to steadily increasing highway congestion on Staten Island. None of these proposals, however, have received any significant support from either the island’s elected officials or residents.
The Protectors of Pine Oak Woodshttp://www.siprotectors.org, a citizen organization committed to the conservation and preservation of remaining natural area on Staten Island has, since the early 1970’s, carried on the mission of its predecessor, SIGNAL. Today the “protectors" continue the tradition of organizing people concerned about the island’s fragile and threatened wilderness via lobbying and naturalist led hikes.
A researchable archive of planning, legal, public relations, and other documents related to the Staten Island Greenbelt, its ecology and history, is housed at the library of the College of Staten Island
, a campus of the City University of New York.
Park
A park is a protected area, in its natural or semi-natural state, or planted, and set aside for human recreation and enjoyment, or for the protection of wildlife or natural habitats. It may consist of rocks, soil, water, flora and fauna and grass areas. Many parks are legally protected by...
land and natural areas in the central hills of the New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
borough of Staten Island
Staten Island
Staten Island is a borough of New York City, New York, United States, located in the southwest part of the city. Staten Island is separated from New Jersey by the Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull, and from the rest of New York by New York Bay...
. It is the second largest component of the parks owned by the City of New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
and is maintained by the city's Department of Parks and Recreation
New York City Department of Parks and Recreation
The City of New York Department of Parks & Recreation is the department of government of the City of New York responsible for maintaining the city's parks system, preserving and maintaining the ecological diversity of the city's natural areas, and furnishing recreational opportunities for city's...
.
History
Containing an extensive system of connected trails and covering 2800 acres (1,133.1 ha), its forested hills run the length of Staten Island's mid section while wetlands and kettle ponds fill much of the low-lying areas. Four hundred and ten feet above sea level, Todt HillTodt Hill
Todt Hill [elevation 410 ft ] is a hill formed of serpentine rock on Staten Island, New York. It is the highest natural point in the five boroughs of New York City and the highest elevation on the entire Atlantic Coastal Plain from Florida to Cape Cod., The summit of the ridge is largely covered...
is the highest elevation south of Maine along the eastern U.S. sea coast This and other surface features are the result of glacial activity from the Pleistocene
Pleistocene
The Pleistocene is the epoch from 2,588,000 to 11,700 years BP that spans the world's recent period of repeated glaciations. The name pleistocene is derived from the Greek and ....
epoch; the metamorphic
Metamorphic rock
Metamorphic rock is the transformation of an existing rock type, the protolith, in a process called metamorphism, which means "change in form". The protolith is subjected to heat and pressure causing profound physical and/or chemical change...
and igneous rocks below the surface – schist
Schist
The schists constitute a group of medium-grade metamorphic rocks, chiefly notable for the preponderance of lamellar minerals such as micas, chlorite, talc, hornblende, graphite, and others. Quartz often occurs in drawn-out grains to such an extent that a particular form called quartz schist is...
, sandstone, serpentine, magnetite
Magnetite
Magnetite is a ferrimagnetic mineral with chemical formula Fe3O4, one of several iron oxides and a member of the spinel group. The chemical IUPAC name is iron oxide and the common chemical name is ferrous-ferric oxide. The formula for magnetite may also be written as FeO·Fe2O3, which is one part...
, iron oxide – are the result of tectonic
Tectonics
Tectonics is a field of study within geology concerned generally with the structures within the lithosphere of the Earth and particularly with the forces and movements that have operated in a region to create these structures.Tectonics is concerned with the orogenies and tectonic development of...
activity from the much earlier Paleozoic
Paleozoic
The Paleozoic era is the earliest of three geologic eras of the Phanerozoic eon, spanning from roughly...
era and volcanic activity from subsequent geologic eras.
The native Lenni-Lenape
Lenape
The Lenape are an Algonquian group of Native Americans of the Northeastern Woodlands. They are also called Delaware Indians. As a result of the American Revolutionary War and later Indian removals from the eastern United States, today the main groups live in Canada, where they are enrolled in the...
, who inhabited the island centuries before the arrival of the Dutch, reportedly dubbed Staten Island Aquehonga Monocknong or "the place of bad woods" perhaps because of the spirits they believed dwelled there. Then, as today, the boulder-littered moraine
Moraine
A moraine is any glacially formed accumulation of unconsolidated glacial debris which can occur in currently glaciated and formerly glaciated regions, such as those areas acted upon by a past glacial maximum. This debris may have been plucked off a valley floor as a glacier advanced or it may have...
s were covered with many species of trees: oak, hickory, maple, beech, as well as lesser quantities of birch, sweet gum, ash, black walnut, wild cherry, and tulip. Below the canopy of this sub-climax forest grew dogwood, ironwood, spicebush, blackberry, wild grape, Virginia creeper, and sassafras, along with royal and cinnamon ferns, skunk cabbage, lady slipper, and trout lilies in the wetter areas.
Within the oak-mulch enriched soil that has been laid down over millennia, arrowheads have been found. These finds attest to both the Leni-Lenape’s subsistence on and unsuccessful defense of their home, which contained the natural resources that made it so attractive to first Dutch and then British colonizers in the 17th and 18th centuries. Its forested hills, strategically located between and above the Raritan Bay
Raritan Bay
Raritan Bay is a bay located at the southern portion of Lower New York Bay between the U.S. states of New York and New Jersey and is part of the New York Bight. The bay is bounded on the northwest by New York's Staten Island, on the west by Perth Amboy, New Jersey, on the south by the Raritan...
and the New York Harbor
New York Harbor
New York Harbor refers to the waterways of the estuary near the mouth of the Hudson River that empty into New York Bay. It is one of the largest natural harbors in the world. Although the U.S. Board of Geographic Names does not use the term, New York Harbor has important historical, governmental,...
, offered timber for ship building, iron ore for the production of cannonballs, and a staging ground for British troops during the War for Independence.
In the 1800’s, several centuries after European settlers had come to, named, deforested, and farmed large portions of Staten Island, travelers of a different sort arrived. Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau was an American author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, and leading transcendentalist...
- in his furthest journey from his native Massachusetts – came for one year in 1843 in order to tutor the nephews of his friend and fellow transcendentalist, Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century...
. Some years later, landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted
Frederick Law Olmsted
Frederick Law Olmsted was an American journalist, social critic, public administrator, and landscape designer. He is popularly considered to be the father of American landscape architecture, although many scholars have bestowed that title upon Andrew Jackson Downing...
, famed for his design of urban parks throughout the U.S., settled for a time on a 130 acres (52.6 ha) experimental farm overlooking the Raritan Bay, which he called Tosomock Farm.
After 10 years, he and his new bride left the island only to return later in his life. (After Olmsted left Tosomock Farm, Erastus Winan bought it, renaming it "The Woods of Arden", which stands today at 4515 Hylan Blvd., near Woods of Arden.) It was in his capacity as consultant to the Staten Island Improvement Commission that in 1871 Olmsted made the following proposal for Staten Island:
Park proposed
- "....it would be a simple plan to form a park … four miles in length … It would occupy a moderately central position and turn to good use a large extent of land … This ridge extends from the Fresh KillsFresh KillsFresh Kills is a stream and freshwater estuary in the western portion of the New York City borough of Staten Island...
near Richmondtown to StapletonStapleton, Staten IslandStapleton is a neighborhood in northeastern Staten Island in New York City in the United States. It is located along the waterfront of Upper New York Bay, bounded on the north by Tompkinsville at Grant Street, on the south by Clifton at Vanderbilt Avenue, and on the west by St. Paul's Avenue and...
. But while its altitude is melted away in gentle slopes to the northward…permitting it that quarter the greatest freedom in the location of roads, it descends toward the sea on the south in steep and broken declivities, totally unsuited, not to say impracticable, for roads for rapid travel.”
Other proposals on behalf of preserving wilderness on Staten Island were put forward in subsequent years. William T. Davis
William T. Davis
William Thompson Davis was an American naturalist, entomologist, and historian especially associated with Staten Island in New York City. He was prominent in the borough's affairs throughout his life....
, a naturalist born on the island, believed that "“The best park is certainly a piece of woodland left as Nature arranged it, with a few path cut through it.”
When Davis, along with local historian Charles Leng
Charles W. Leng
Charles William Leng was an American naturalist and historian especially associated with Staten Island, New York, where he was the borough historian from 1923 until the 1930s....
, coauthored a history of Staten Island in 1896, they wrote that:
"The crowning glory of Staten Island’s topography and scenery is the forest that springs from its rich, well-watered soil … Irregularity of contour and excessive wetness have saved such places from village development; and there is hope that some at least may ultimately become parklands, for which purpose they are eminently suited."
Just one year later, at an 1897 public hearing on the topic of land preservation in Albany, New York State’s capital, Staten Island farmer Erastus Winan stated that “a wilderness of such beauty pervaded this region that no expenditure could improve upon.”
Parkway
Nonetheless, during the first fifty years of the 20th century, several proposals for Staten Island parks and parkways were drafted first by the Borough of Richmond and then by the City of New York.It wasn’t until the first years of the 1960s, though, that then Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority
Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority
MTA Bridges and Tunnels, legal name Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, is a division of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, that operates seven intrastate toll bridges and two tunnels in New York City...
Chairman, Robert Moses
Robert Moses
Robert Moses was the "master builder" of mid-20th century New York City, Long Island, Rockland County, and Westchester County, New York. As the shaper of a modern city, he is sometimes compared to Baron Haussmann of Second Empire Paris, and is one of the most polarizing figures in the history of...
, revealed plans for a parkway that would connect Brooklyn with New Jersey, traversing the island from the soon to be opened Verrazano-Narrows Bridge
Verrazano-Narrows Bridge
The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge is a double-decked suspension bridge that connects the boroughs of Staten Island and Brooklyn in New York City at the Narrows, the reach connecting the relatively protected upper bay with the larger lower bay....
on the island’s north shore to the Outerbridge Crossing
Outerbridge Crossing
The Outerbridge Crossing is a cantilever bridge which spans the Arthur Kill. The "Outerbridge", as it is commonly known, connects Perth Amboy, New Jersey, with the New York City borough of Staten Island and carries NY-440 and NJ-440, each road ending at the respective state border.The bridge was...
on the southern shore of Staten Island. This original route of the proposed Richmond Parkway
Richmond Parkway
The name Richmond Parkway may refer to:*In California:**Richmond Parkway in Richmond, California, planned as State Route 93**Richmond Parkway Transit Center, a bus hub in Richmond, California*In New York:...
would have bisected the swath of land on whose behalf Olmsted had pled including what is today Fresh Kills, William T. Davis Wildlife Refuge
William T. Davis Wildlife Refuge
The William T. Davis Wildlife Refuge is an wildlife refuge straddling the New Springville and Travis sections of Staten Island. The park was named in honor of Staten Island native William T. Davis, a renowned naturalist and entomologist who along with the Audubon Society started the refuge with...
, Reed’s Basket Willow Swamp, Willowbrook and High Rock Park. Conservation activists, given immediacy by the Federal Highway Act and hope in the person of President John F. Kennedy’s Secretary of the Interior, Stewart Udall
Stewart Udall
Stewart Lee Udall was an American politician. After serving three terms as a congressman from Arizona, he served as Secretary of the Interior from 1961 to 1969, under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B...
, mobilized in opposition to these plans.
Their first victory was the saving of High Rock Girl Scout Camp, the acreage of which had originally been a part of Pouch Boy Scout Camp, including Orbach Lake, to the north. With a $35,000 grant from the State of New York is was bought from the Boy Scouts and established as Camp High Rock for Girls. For thirteen years, the camp served girl scouts from throughout the five boroughs of New York City. But, in 1964, the Girl scout Council of Greater New York secretly decided to sell the camp to a developer for $1,000,000. Upon learning about this sale, the New York City Parks Department and the State of New York, with the help of the Open Lands Foundation, raised over $1,300,000 to buy back the land from the developer, thus creating High Rock Park.
Then, on November 22, 1965, the Staten Island Citizens Planning Committee (SICPC), which had begun in 1954 as an ad-hoc committee of the Unitarian Universalist Church
Unitarian Universalism
Unitarian Universalism is a religion characterized by support for a "free and responsible search for truth and meaning". Unitarian Universalists do not share a creed; rather, they are unified by their shared search for spiritual growth and by the understanding that an individual's theology is a...
of Staten Island, issued the first of many position papers beginning by invoking Olmsted’s plea for a linear park; it concluded by presenting an alternate parkway plan that would spare what has come to be known as the Staten Island Greenbelt, a term proposed by landscape architect, Bradford Greene, one of the group’s founding members. Greene was familiar with this policy or land use designation from previous work he had been involved with in Maryland.
At the helm of the SICPC, an all-volunteer organization, were several “off-islanders" – young professionals who had moved to Staten Island’s North Shore area in the 1950’s largely because of the quality of life promised by the open space that still existed. In addition to Bradford Greene, there were Terrence Benbow and Frank Duffy, both attorneys practicing in Manhattan; Robert Hagenhofer, a graphic designer; George Pratt, director of the Staten Island Institute of Arts & Sciences, and New York Times staff writer, Alan Oser. Summoning their many and diverse talents, their strategy involved developing and advocating for an alternate route in the press, before public officials, and, when necessary, the courts.
One year into the SICPC’s legal fight against the original route of the Richmond Parkway, the Staten Island Greenbelt Natural Areas League (SIGNAL), spearheaded by another resident-journalist, John G. Mitchell
John G. Mitchell
John G. Mitchell was an American environmentalist and former editor of National Geographic Magazine from 1994 until 2004. -External links:*, Washington Post...
, formed as a vehicle for rallying community opposition to the highway construction. From 1966 until the early 1970’s, SIGNAL organized thousands of citizens and elected officials (including Planning Commissioner Eleanor Guggenheimer, Parks Commissioner Thomas Hoving
Thomas Hoving
Thomas Pearsall Field Hoving was an American museum executive and consultant and the former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.-Biography:...
, Mayor John V. Lindsay, and U.S. Senator Jacob Javits) to participate in annual winter walks through the highland forests, tracing the route of the proposed (and already mapped) highway route. These two citizen organizations and their combined strategies of lobbying, public relations, and grassroots organizing challenged Robert Moses, who had been thwarted by community efforts only twice before: In 1956, mothers who frequented Manhattan’s Central Park with their young children successfully had stopped a proposed parking lot expansion by challenging Moses in court. Ten years later, when Robert Moses proposed the construction of a sunken boulevard which would have sped traffic through the middle of the famed Washington Square Park, the Joint Committee to Stop the Lower Manhattan Expressway led by Jane Jacobs, defeated him again.
In spite of brewing opposition, road work began in 1965 on what became known as “section 1”. When the work was halted by the city, excavations were used to construct what is now known as "Moses Mountain," a rise adjacent to the Manor Road - Rockland Avenue interchange. Other remnants of construction can be seen from the Staten Island Expressway between the Clove Road and Bradley Avenue exits, which are referred to as the abandoned bridges. They are a little west of the Petrides School Complex.
In 1966 Volmer Associates were hired by the city of New York to describe alternate routes to “section 1”. They were proposed, studied, and debated by New York state and city officials, creating contention and divisions even within these governmental units. While travel distance between the island’s bridges was on paramount concern to the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, the City Park Department, led by August Hecksher, commissioned the planning firm Wallace, McHarg, Roberts and Todd. Ian McHarg, a Glasgow born landscape architect, who had stated in his much studied book Design with Nature that engineer road builders were “gouging and scarring the landscape without remorse,” headed up the landmark study.
Having pointed out that a method for displaying and factoring social values into highway design and planning had not been developed, McHarg set about creating just that. Long before GIS technology
Geographic Information System
A geographic information system, geographical information science, or geospatial information studies is a system designed to capture, store, manipulate, analyze, manage, and present all types of geographically referenced data...
was available, McHarg used data rich maps and overlays which allowed planners to visually understand how social values – historic, residential, economic, recreational, scenic, ecological factors – synergistically interacted with and potentially impacted upon human activity, including road building. Using map transparencies he and his colleagues produced the commissioned report with a recommendation stating that the route to the west of what is today the Greenbelt, was the “least social cost corridor.”
Under duress from developers who were eager to begin building homes adjacent to the roadway, the Greenbelt's erstwhile supporters, Mayor John Lindsay and Governor John D. Rockefeller
John D. Rockefeller
John Davison Rockefeller was an American oil industrialist, investor, and philanthropist. He was the founder of the Standard Oil Company, which dominated the oil industry and was the first great U.S. business trust. Rockefeller revolutionized the petroleum industry and defined the structure of...
, publicly backed a compromise route. In response, the two citizen organizations were willing to stop at nothing to preserve what John Mitchell, in one of his writings, referred to as “a fine patch of wild". With their combined memberships behind them, the officers of the SICPC and SIGNAL sought injunctive relief in New York State Supreme Court, which meant suing both Lindsay and Rockefeller. The court decision found for the plaintiffs. The citizen planners and conservationists were victorious. The area was earmarked as one of two Special Natural Features Districts in the City of New York, and between 1972 and 1974 the urbanist Peter Verity (now of PDRc) prepared for the New York City Planning Commission the strategic and detailed documentation to support this designation.
In 1982, 25 acres (10.1 ha) of city-owned land, which heretofore had belonged to the New York City Farm Colony
New York City Farm Colony
The New York City Farm Colony was a poorhouse on the New York City borough of Staten Island, one of the city's five boroughs. It was located across Brielle Avenue from , on the edge of the Staten Island Greenbelt....
, were added to the Greenbelt; this tract is located on the north side of Rockland Avenue, from Brielle Avenue almost to Forest Hill Road.
In 1984, the Staten Island Greenbelt became one of the largest natural areas within the five boroughs of New York City and the second largest component of the parks owned by the City of New York, maintained in a natural state by the city’s Department of Parks and Recreation.
Parks today
The administrative headquarters of the Greenbelt are located at the entrance to High Rock Park (one of the many parks within the system) with a street address of 200 Nevada Avenue in the EgbertvilleEgbertville, Staten Island
Egbertville is the name of a neighborhood located immediately inland from, but classifiable within, the East Shore of Staten Island. The island forms one of the five boroughs of the USA's largest city, New York....
neighborhood; in June 2004 a second facility, known as the Greenbelt Nature Center, was opened approximately ¾ mile (1.2 km) away, at 700 Rockland Avenue. The Greenbelt Conservancy, which works in partnership with the NYC Parks Department, is a membership organization offering year-round nature-themed events for young people and adults.
The 4.8 mile parkway route, originally proposed by Robert Moses, has been de-mapped despite occasional proposals for its revival due to steadily increasing highway congestion on Staten Island. None of these proposals, however, have received any significant support from either the island’s elected officials or residents.
The Protectors of Pine Oak Woodshttp://www.siprotectors.org, a citizen organization committed to the conservation and preservation of remaining natural area on Staten Island has, since the early 1970’s, carried on the mission of its predecessor, SIGNAL. Today the “protectors" continue the tradition of organizing people concerned about the island’s fragile and threatened wilderness via lobbying and naturalist led hikes.
A researchable archive of planning, legal, public relations, and other documents related to the Staten Island Greenbelt, its ecology and history, is housed at the library of the College of Staten Island
College of Staten Island
The College of Staten Island is a four-year, senior college of and is one of the 11 senior colleges in the City University of New York. Programs in the liberal arts and sciences and professional studies lead to bachelor's and associate's degrees. The master's degree is awarded in 13 professional...
, a campus of the City University of New York.
External links
- The Greenbelt Nature Center is at 700 Rockland Avenue near Brielle Avenue at coordinates 40.58846°N 74.139073°W
- NY-NJTC: Staten Island Greenbelt Trail Details and Info