Category Archives: Backgrounder
Background on the East Shore of Staten Island
By: Teresa Roca
Staten Island is New York City’s most suburban and slow-paced borough. The most historic and tourist-friendly location on the island is the East Shore. The East Shore is home to the towns of Arrochar, Clifton, Concord, Dongan Hills, Egbertville, Fort Wadsworth, Grant City, Grasmere, Emerson Hill, Midland Beach, New Dorp, New Dorp Beach, Oakwood, Oakwood Beach, Ocean Breeze, Richmondtown, Rosebank, Shore Acres, South Beach and Todt Hill. Although the East Shore preserves its history through Historic Richmondtown, a majority of the neighborhood has modernized through school openings, local businesses and new construction.
Throughout the years, Staten Island’s population has increased. According to the Census Bureau, the estimated amount of people living on the island increased by .37 percent from 468,730 in 2010 to 470,467 in 2011. In regards to race, data from the 2011 census confirmed that 77.9 percent of Staten Island’s population was white, 11.7 percent was black, 7.9 percent was Asian, and 0.6 percent was American Indian and Alaskan. During 2006-2010, 20.8 percent of the population was foreign born and 29.6 percent spoke another language other than English.
After years of overcrowding in Staten Island schools, the city is finally addressing this problem. Public schools in Staten Island are managed by the New York City Department of Education, which is the largest public school system in the United States. According to greatschools.org, there are 154 preschools, 95 elementary schools, 57 middle schools and 35 high schools. In an effort to relieve overcrowding at PS 48, a new kindergarten through eighth grade school is under construction in the Concord area. This school will accommodate up to 844 students, and is one of three new schools that will open on Staten Island. The Census Bureau reported that from 2006-2010, 87.5 percent of Staten Islanders graduated high school and 28.5 percent of residents received a Bachelor’s degree or higher.
It is impossible to walk down a Staten Island street without seeing a pizzeria or bakery. Despite many pizzeria and bakery openings throughout the years, Denino’s Pizzeria and Holtermann’s Bakery have managed to stay in business. Denino’s Pizzeria and Tavern is not only a Staten Island favorite, but is also the oldest pizzeria on the island. The business has been passed down from generation to generation since 1937. Holtermann’s Bakery, established in 1930, is Staten Island’s oldest bakery. According to the Census Bureau, there were 37,844 firms in 2007. In regard to sales, merchant wholesalers sold $1,320,074, retail businesses sold $3,850,133, and accommodation and food services sold $401,558.
The real estate market in Staten Island has been doing well. According to the real estate website Trulia.com, the average listing for a Staten Island home is currently $482,793. This is a 0.6 percent increase from the week of September 5th, 2012. The average price per square foot is now $251, a 7.3 percent increase from last year. There are currently 3,162 homes on the market in Staten Island.
Like all boroughs, Staten Island has its share of problems, especially on the East Shore. Staten Island has only one railroad line, forcing commuters who live far from the train to commute to and from the city on overcrowded buses. Mayor Bloomberg addressed this problem by providing islanders with select-bus service on September 2nd, 2012. This 22-stop line replaced the old S79 line that made 75 stops. Although this is a blessing for many commuters because travel time will reduce by 20 percent, this new line may be causing more harm than good. The bus lane, which runs through most of the East Shore, has been causing traffic among drivers, especially during rush hour. This lane is also causing problems for parents at St. Dorothy’s School in Grasmere. With the bus lane directly in front of the school entrance, parents and yellow school buses are unable to pick-up and drop-off students. The Department of Transportation stated that parents and school buses could use the bus lane before 3 p.m. and after 7 p.m., when the select-buses are not in service. The entire lane, however, was recently roped off to allow only select-buses to enter the lane, forcing parents and school buses to pick up children from farther locations. Unfortunately, this isn’t the only issue. A recent accident in New Dorp at the intersection of Edison Street and Bache Avenue are causing residents and commuters to fight harder for stop signs or traffic lights on this dangerous road.
Although the East Shore of Staten Island can be peaceful and historically intriguing, it does have its problems like every other neighborhood.
Protected: Backgrounder – Flushing by Patrick Chiang
A Message from Prof. Stephen Francoeur: On Using Census Data
I had a little discussion with Prof. Francoeur after our workshop and he followed up with this email for you:
I’m not sure it may be worth the trouble for your students to get too hung up on finding Census data for the exact neighborhoods they are researching. I think the Census data for something that roughly approximates or includes the neighborhood is probably good enough to give you rough portrait of who lives there. If some part of the story you are researching turns on key demographic changes, then it might be worth doing a little extra digging. Let me give an example.
In my presentation, I mentioned that on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, I had heard that the number of children aged 0-5 had gone up dramatically in the past decade and that increase was one of the reasons why the elementary schools were so overcrowded. If I were in your class and decided to make my story tied to the crowded schools (or about the charter schools elbowing their way into public school spaces and how that was affecting the flow of new students into the district), then I probably would want to do the hard work of seeing exactly how the Census numbers had changed from 2000 to 2010. And I might also want to make sure that the numbers reflected the exact geographical area that I had in mind.
But I suspect that many of your students’ stories won’t require such detailed use of Census data. The “Community District Profiles” that can be found on the NYC.gov site that detail Census numbers for each of the 59 community board districts may be good enough for your class. While each community board might encompass two or more neighborhoods, they may provide a good enough yardstick for the needs of your class.
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/lucds/cdstart.shtml
If anyone does want to dig deeper, though, I suggest that they schedule a research consultation with a librarian, which can be done with this form:
http://newman.baruch.cuny.edu/help/forms/consultations.php
Stephen Francoeur
User Experience Librarian
Newman Library
Room 516
Baruch College
151 E. 25th Street
New York, NY 10010
Protected: Upper West Side: Neighborhood Choice
Flushing, Queens : Neighborhood Choice by Patrick Chiang
The neighborhood I plan on writing about is my hometown Flushing, Queens. Flushing is known as the “China Town” of Queens due to its heavy Asian population. There are plenty of restaurants and stores in the area and it’s also a big transportation hub. Located right under Main Street is the number 7 train which students, tourists, and workers need to take to travel to Manhattan. Aside from the train there are also multiple MTA bus lines running from Flushing, which is why the streets are often crowded.
The people, stores, and cars there stir up quite a commotion leaving Flushing quite noisy. Around the outer edges of the more gentrified zone lie multiple car repair shops, small factories, as well as large warehouses. Recently new malls have sprung up around the area drawing in even more people as well as traffic. Having lived here for my whole life I’ve seen Flushing go through some changes. It still changes every day from the ongoing construction sites to the closed down stores.
But Flushing is not anywhere near perfect. Just this past July, a patrol officer pulled over the Flushing high school principal and spotted a Ziploc bag of meth in plain sight in his car. Even prominent figures in the Asian Flushing community such as John Liu and Grace Meng have had their equal share in conflicts. Overall Flushing is filled with conflict and stories to be told which is why I think it would be a great neighborhood for me to write about.
-Patrick Chiang
Morris Park; Neighborhood Choice
Everyday at about 8:00 pm, the street lights turn on, the neighborhood kids abandon the chalk littered sidewalks, and parents attempt to get them settled down for their approaching bedtimes. It seems almost picturesque, with the litter free streets and meticulously manicured lawns. However, just one block over, there is a lively avenue filled with 24-hour delis, a New York City subway station, liquor store, and nightclub all within a block of each other. This among other things, are the reasons as to why I feel my neighborhood would be the best choice for me to discuss this semester.
I have lived on the same street in the Bronx, Morris Park area since I was about 6 years old. So, within these 15 years, I’ve seen the demographic change from the majority being Italian, to the present day majority being no majority at all, just a mix of everything imaginable. I wouldn’t say that it is a neighborhood, where everyone knows everyone, but most of the people seem cordial, especially with their immediate neighbors. People who have been familiar faces to the neighborhood for years run the nearest stores.
Although, I have lived here pretty much my whole life, I have never really taken the opportunity to get involved in any community service within my area. From time to time, you’ll see postings for local garage sales, missing dog reports, and council meetings. In all, my hope is to become more in tune with my own neighborhood; so as to acquire the talent to tell the stories no one knew existed.