Statenistan

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

By Maureen Seaberg


I know what you've heard about Staten Island - I've heard it, too - from the L.A. publicist who told me "there's no there there" to the tourists from Madrid who saw me reading the papers on the ferry one day and declared me "como la esposa de Antonio Banderas" (like Melanie Griffith) - a real-life Working Girl. They never guessed I not only read them but help write them nor that a Staten Island woman may have once lived in Madrid and understood them perfectly.

There's a grain of truth to every stereotype you've heard - (insert stereotype here so I don't have to perpetuate them myself). But increasingly, there's a newer, more interesting Staten Island emerging as immigrants from every quarter find our green spaces, historic architecture and relatively good schools a draw. We've got mango lassi on Staten Island now and how are you going to keep them down at the Mall after they've tasted that?

I'm a native - God help me. But I'm not one of "those" people - and you know who I mean - the ones who call the Verrazano Bridge "the guinea gangplank" and who lament the fact that Staten Island hasn't remained farmland. I've never known a Staten Island without that amazing span completed by the genius of a Swedish immigrant named Othmar Amann. One of my parents' first dates was to cross it. I've never known Staten Island was NOT diverse, having grown up next to a Syrian-Nicaraguan family in Castleton Corners....

Not only does Staten Island have a bright future - it has a vibrant past. We have legacies that rival any of the other boroughs. It is shameful that more people, for example, know that Mafia Godfather Paul Castellano once lived in Dongan Hills and don't know that a good American-Italian, Leon Panetta, once lived on Ward Hill.

How many people know that Anna Leonowens landed here after learning from the King in the Court of Siam and ran a private school? Or that Mexican General Santa Ana holed up here after The Alamo? Other famous figures include revolutionaries Gorki, Kossuth and Garibaldi. This is where the Vanderbilts played during the Age of Innocence and where Bobby Darin and the family of Carolyn Bessette Kennedy summered in the 1950s.

Country legend Roy Clark told me he got his start playing aboard the Staten Island Ferry while his dad worked the old B & O Railroad. George Burns also practiced his vaudeville act aboard the floating orange boat with its captive audience.

Martin Sheen told me that he worked in the St. George Car Wash before theater legend Joe Papp (buried in Baron Hirsch Cemetery) gave him his break. Eric Bogosian, Meryl Streep, Sheen and others would return this borough to bury him. While living here, Sheen said his son, Emilio Estevez, was born on the living room floor of their apartment in the Ambassador building in St. George.

Chris Noth ("Mr. Big") said he lied about his age and went to work at the Willowbrook State School at 15. He still has nightmares about the horrible conditions there. Walter Cronkite said that he used to love to put his yacht in at Great Kills Harbor. Donald Trump did his own apprenticeship here in the borough, shadowing his dad, Fred Trump, around the Grymes Hill and New Dorp properties they once owned.

Dentist John Lavinio can tell you about the recent day King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia showed up for care at his South Shore office. Movie producer Julius Nasso talks about hosting everyone from Dodi Fayed, to Steven Seagal, Kelly LeBrock and Gianni Versace here. Mandolin Brothers on Forest Avenue has served two of four Beatles in their amazing music sales and repairs business. Dr. Gil Lederman treated not only George Harrison but Kennedy cousin Anthony Radziwill here and hosts parties that include Dan Meridor of the Israeli Knesset and Golda Maier's grandson.

Staten Island has an image problem - and like many cities around the nation, it actually needs a public relations specialist to get the word out about the many positives of life here - and the many interesting people who continue to pass through. It also needs many writers from many perspectives actively observing and documenting it, warts and all, so that progress may be achieved. Blog on!

Ms. Seaberg, of Ward Hill, has done work for the Daily News, the New York Times and ESPN the Magazine. She was a researcher and source for the upcoming JFK Jr. biography by C. David Heymann, "Triumph and Tragedy" due out July 2007 (Simon & Schuster). She is the former editor-in-chief of http://www.virtualindia.com/