Van Duzers Visit Van Duzer Street

This is a cute video created by two brothers, Ethan and Ryan, whose last name is Van Duzer. I have always loved to say this street name: VAN DUZER. I only wish that they had walker further down the block as the street gets cooler once you hit Martini Red, The Muddy Cup, and the antique stores. The street is a bit homely and dull closer to the ferry where they were walking. The funny thing about Staten Island is that when you are walking around you discover wonderful little pockets of coolness and beauty.

Japion Newspaper Staten Island Cover Feature

New York's top Japanese newspaper did a cover feature about St. George, Staten Island. The photos here are from their website.
-To read Tomoko Inoue's article and interviews (in Japanese) with the Staten Islanders below go HERE.

Staten Islanders: John Leo and Shawn Bishop-Leo with Tomoko Inoue.

Staten Islanders: Cynthia von Buhler (her dog Miss Jenny Poodles) and Tevah Platt in front of Cynthia's house.

SHOW gallery presents: Lost & Found, An Exploration of Earnestness in Art

Art above by unknown artists

Under-appreciated works by recently discovered masters of sincerity
Curated by Theo Dorian

OPENING FRIDAY MARCH 20, 2008, 6 to 9 pm

Exhibition and Silent Auction
March 20 to May 23, 2009

Including works on loan from the collections of Roxanne Storms, Victoria Munro, Matt Jacobs, Kathy Osborn, Ed Atkeson, Cynthia von Buhler and Philip Rosen.

SHOW
Gallery, Studio & Performance Space

156 Stuyvesant Place
St. George, Staten Island
right across the street and up the steps from the Staten Island Ferry!
718-524-0855
Open Wednesday to Sunday, Noon to Seven

In April:
Lost&Found Films
at The Movie SHOW
Saturday Nights at 7:30pm

Staten Island Barbershop Against Da' Grain Has Teamed Up With Rappers Method Man and Redman To Give Free Haircuts To Kids

Against Da' Grain is a wildly popular St. George barbershop. The atmosphere there is more like a neighborhood party than a barbershop.

From The Hip Hop Cosign (click the headline to visit their web page):

AGAINST DA’ GRAIN AND GRAMMY AWARD WINNING RAPPERS METHOD MAN & REDMAN PROVIDE LOCAL KIDS FREE HAIR CUTS
The stylish team of ADG barbers at the 821 Castleton Avenue location in the West Brighten section of Staten Island will be on hand on a first come, first served basis to provide free hair cuts to children under 12 years of age, on Saturday April 11, 2009 between the hours of 10:00am to 6:00pm. Special guest appearances by Megatron, celebrated DJ and host of 106 & Park’s “What’s Good On The Streets” segment and other talented Staten Island artists will be will be on hand speaking to kids and learning how they prepare to look their Sunday best!

“We have wonderfully loyal customers and felt this was just another way of rewarding them during these unusually hard economic times. A single mother of three boys spends a weekly average of $33.00 on their hair cuts making it difficult to keep her kids hair freshly trimmed, explained Tariq, barber at Against Da’ Grain. With Easter Sunday the following day, we felt it was the perfect time to team up with our celebrity friends and create a unique solution based on old traditional values while helping our community.”

Against Da’ Grain encourages kids to get a good night’s sleep so they can wake up early and be one of the first to get their free shape up. Parents, stop by! Bring your boys, nephews and grandsons down for a seat on the big leather chair for their fresh Easter Sunday haircut.

For more information regarding Against Da’ Grain please log into www.adgsinyc.com or call 718.981.3597.

Billy Joel Explains His Lyric "Between you and me and the Staten Island Ferry"

Maureen Seaberg, a Staten Island based writer, is working on a book about famous synesthetes. According to Seaberg, "Synesthetes are people who blend senses - such as seeing color when listening to or playing music. Billy Joel is one; so are Pharrell Williams, John Mayer, Tori Amos and even Aristotle and physicist Richard Feymann. It is tentatively titled, "Kaleidoscope Minds." Ms. Seaberg is herself a synesthete."

While interviewing Billy Joel, Seaberg asked him about his 1981 lyric from the song "Everybody Loves You Now," which says...."between you and me and the Staten Island Ferry......"

His answer was as follows:

"The lyric, 'between you and me and The Staten Island Ferry' - that was actually a colloquialism...when somebody would pull someone aside and say, 'Hey, listen, between you and me and the Staten Island Ferry.' Like between you, me and the lamp post. When I was a little kid, my grandfather took me to Staten Island on the ferry and I had heard the expression the Staten Island Ferry and I remember being on the ferry going, 'So this is the Staten Island Ferry that everybody talks about. As if it was some great secret, 'Hey, between you and me and the Staten Island Ferry.' That's where that lyric came from; it's just a colloquialism."

"I'm from an island and you know sometimes when we go to Manhattan island, people tend to look down their noses at people from other islands, which I think is hysterical because New York is actually an archipelago. There are thousands of islands in the New York Bight. It's an exploded archipelago. You've got Fire Island, Staten Island, Long Island, Manhattan island, Randall's Island, Ellis Island, Bedloe Island, Liberty Island, Block Island... There are thousands of islands. When I'm in New York sometimes if I'm at a snooty party and someone says, 'Oh, you're from Long Island," I'll say, "Well, yeh, you're from an island too, except mine's bigger!"

Forgotten NY St. George Tour

Our favorite NYC website Forgotten NY takes us on a house tour...with a little help from Prodigal Borough blogger Cynthia von Buhler. Click HERE to go to Forgotten NY to read the article.

Postcard From The Rails: Artist Mary Bullock Travels The Staten Island Railroad

Excerpt from The Staten Island Advance by Virginia Sherry, December 18, 2008:

Who would ever think to explore all 22 stops along the Staten Island Railway, and transform the experience into a creative project?

Tompkinsville artist Mary Bullock did.

For weeks earlier this year, she rode the railway line, disembarked at every station, and took thousands of photographs of anything within walking distance that struck her discerning eye.

"It was an overwhelming thing - I had to keep reminding myself that I was in New York City," she said.

The culmination of her work is "Postcards from the Rails: Journey Along a Path Apart," which premiered last Sunday at the SHOW Gallery at 156 Stuyvesant Pl. in St. George. The subtitle is recognition that the railway does not connect to any other line, and traveling it "reveals strong local identities along its length."

Ms. Bullock designed 23 postcards - one for each neighborhood along the railway's stops on the North, East and South shores, from St. George to Tottenville, and a wry card that introduces the project. The 22 neighborhood cards feature color photos on one side, and text on the reverse, filled with facts and personal impressions gathered during the eyes-wide-open journeys.

"It was very revealing - I was amazed that no two stops were alike," she told the Advance. She was also surprised that from the platforms of each station there was "not a chain store in sight," with only one exception.

This project is made possible (in part) by a Premier Grant from the Council on the Arts & Humanities for Staten Island, with public funding from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.

Click on the headline to visit postcardsfromtherails.com

Here is a sampling of what she found along her journey:

GRASMERE

This bucolic lakeside scene is just a few minutes’ walk from the Railway Station. Staten Island has a large number of surprisingly “rural” spots. The owners of the houses around this lake, and another one nearby, are members of a long-standing private community.

Also near the Station are various storefronts and a small shopping center.

OLD TOWN

Southeast of the Railway Station, just one block off busy, commercial, Hylan Boulevard is a low beige brick building. It’s Sunday. Under an American flag, multicolored triangles flutter over a courtyard. In the enclosed patio a sign asks, “Please take off shoes.”

Through the doorway is another world, a Sikh Temple. You are greeted by men in turbans and women in brightly colored saris and veils. They invite you to stay for the ceremony, hear musicians play beautiful ragas, and share a meal.

DONGAN HILLS

The area surrounding the Dongan Hills Station boasts two other barber shops/salons in addition to Frank’s, pictured here. The saying goes: You find the good in church, the bad in prison, and the real in the barber shop.

There is also a corner business with two huge plate glass windows but no external signage. If you peer in you see “Lee’s Tavern” in gold letters over the bar mirror. Some say their thin-crust pizza is the best in the Borough.

ELTINGVILLE

DeRosa & Sons Pastosa Ravoli is a Staten Island institution. The store signs on Richmond Avenue may list every version of pasta known to man. Pasta is made fresh on the premises and they offer a gluten-free product line.

Next door is Joyce’s Tavern, an Irish Pub. Though 64 languages are spoken by Staten Island’s burgeoning ethnic population, Italian-Americans and Irish-Americans remain major groups.

Excerpt from The Staten Island Advance by Virginia Sherry, December 18, 2008:

TRIBUTES

Some of the postcards are tributes to the individualistic small businesses that are clustered around the stations: Sudsy's Bagels in Pleasant Plains; DeRosa & Sons Pastosa Ravioli in Eltingville; Sports Heroes and Legends in Great Kills; the Net Cost Russian Market in Oakwood Heights; the Grant City Tavern, and Frank's Barber Shop in Dongan Hills.

Exploring near the New Dorp station, the artist saw New Dorp Lane as an "upscale shopping street with plenty of glitz and glamour: "Staten Island's Rodeo Drive."

Her postcard for Tompkinsville is a montage of storefront signs along Victory Boulevard, the major commercial artery, with its rich mix of Sri Lankan, African, Polish, Caribbean, and Central American businesses. She found the street "arguably Staten Island's most ethnically diverse shopping area."

Ms. Bullock hopes that her project "will encourage pride and preservation," particularly because "the economic downturn has given us a reprieve from development, a chance perhaps to once more rethink our destiny.

"There is a way of life here on Staten Island that is worth preserving - New York City as it used to be, a city of small neighborhoods, before the obscene real estate boom transformed so many thriving communities into high-priced ghettos and the big chains eviscerated local small businesses," she observed.


INSPIRATION

As a North Shore resident, Ms. Bullock rarely traveled on the railway. Her project fell into place last year, when she went by rail to Dongan Hills for a routine test at Staten Island University Hospital.

For her return trip, she decided to walk to the next station in Old Town and get on the train there. As she approached the station, she smelled "a wonderful spicy aroma," and saw a woman in a colorful sari stirring a large pot on the grounds of a one-story beige brick building. The artist asked if she could buy lunch. A man wearing a turban replied: "You can't buy it, but we'll give you lunch."

The artist removed her shoes, entered "another world" and found herself enjoying the hospitality of a Sikh temple. She discovered that the building was formerly an American Legion hall, with the elaborate logo still prominently intact on the spotlessly clean terrazzo floor.

Stumbling across something as interesting as the temple, in such close proximity to the railway station, got Ms. Bullock thinking about "what I would find near other stops."


DETAILS

Mary Bullock was born in Detroit, Michigan, first lived on Staten Island in 1980-81, and returned permanently seven years ago.

"I'm still an outsider," she told the Advance, affording her an advantage in exploring the 22 stations with "fresh eyes." She was attentive to details that others, more familiar with the territory, might easily overlook.

Richmond Valley station, the 19th stop from St. George, "has a house so close to the tracks the resident could lean out a put cream in a rider's morning coffee," she wrote on the back of this postcard. "There is no accommodation for pedestrians on either side, just 'country' roads with stands of native plants growing aside small streams."

Atlantic station, the 21st stop, has a platform so short that "only the last car in both directions will open," she noted.

The Pleasant Plains postcard includes an observation that the railway "is embedded in neighborhood life all along its length. Young people often meet in the last car of a particular train and get off at an agreed-to station."

Other postcards highlight architecture in Tottenville and Prince's Bay; natural vistas in Bay Terrace and Grasmere, and waterfront views in St. George, Stapleton, and Clifton.


WEB SITE TOO

As part of the project, Ms. Bullock also developed a Web site that includes a gallery of additional photos and succinct, informative commentary. For current and former Islanders, it is well worth a visit to enjoy what the artist calls her "outsider's view" of the 22 communities along the railway. The address is: www.postcardsfromtherails.com.

"When people look at the postcards and the Web site, I hope they realize what we have here," she said. "It's a small town feeling, and it's very precious. I hope that we don't lose it."

Ms. Bullock's project was funded in part by a Premier Grant from the Council on the Arts & Humanities for Staten Island, with public funding from the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs.

Ms. Bullock views the postcards and accompanying Web site as a "work in progress." The project "got me addicted, and I've just started to scratch the surface," she said.

Just in time for last-minute holiday gifts, boxed sets of the 23 postcards are $10 each, available at SHOW Gallery 718-524-0855. They can also be ordered over the Internet: log on to www.paypal.com; click on Send Money; and send payment to info@showhownyc.com.

Virginia Sherry is a freelance reporter. She can be reached through the Advance at shores@siadvance.com.