New York Daily News: Borough Bloggers Reveal Secret Gems of NYC Neighborhoods

BY WENDY MITCHELL
Thursday, June 11th 2009, 4:00 AM

Read the whole article HERE.

Think you know everything cool to see in your city? These boro bloggers comb the streets of their nabes every day for new finds to chat about. And not surprisingly, they've got plenty of secret gems that, well, aren't a secret anymore!

STATEN ISLAND
Blogger: Cynthia von Buhler
Blog: www.prodigalborough.com
What she's blogging about: Prodigal Borough covers a variety of Staten Island interests including art, parks, the ferry, beaches, parks, real estate and preservation, and food.
Her gem: Staten Island is one big wonder full of eccentric oddities, and my favorite is the easiest to find. Take the scenic ferry ride, and then follow the neon sign to Theo Dorian's gallery SHOW. The current show at the gallery is “Lost & Found,” an exploration of earnestness in art, and in mid-June, the gallery will feature sculptures of hard, mundane forms like axes and logs cast in fine white porcelain by Victoria Munro. The gallery also offers workshops (like guitar lessons during an upcoming exhibit of photographs of glam rock icons by Mick Rock). While on the island, get directions to nearby wonders like the shrine built of found objects, the Chinese koi pond and gardens, and gorgeous Victorian houses. Address: SHOW, 156 Stuyvesant Place, Staten Island, www.showhownyc.com, 718-524-0855.

Art Recycle Opportunity with Day de Dada: Reduce – Reuse - Recreate

Art Recycle Opportunity with Day de Dada: Reduce – Reuse - Recreate

Do you have extra art that you're not using? Maybe you have some leftover concepts in the closet or cluttering up the basement of your mind.

Here's your chance to reduce, reuse, and recycle your extraneous art. Bring your leftover canvases, sculpture bits and unused creative ideas to "Van Duzer Days" on Saturday August 1st and work together with Artists from Day de Dada to create a masterpiece of repurposed art.

It will be live, it will be creative, it will be videotaped, it will be Dada!

Meet at "Van Duzer Days" on Saturday August 1st from 1:00 to 4:00 on Van Duzer Street between Wright and Beach Streets, Staten Island .

Van Duzer Days is part of Summer Streets NYC and is sponsored by Sicolab.

While at Van Duzer Days also check out "We-Cycle" - A community upcycling bike advocacy installation.

More info at www.daydedada.com

Prodigal Borough's Name Has Changed

In homage to Forgotten NY, which first helped us find Staten Island, we are changing our name to Forgotten Borough. Forgotten NY features overlooked, ancient sites in New York City. Staten Island is the most overlooked borough in the city, and it has a plethora of ancient sites. We are here to make you more familiar with the most mysterious borough of New York City: Staten Island. Using the term "forgotten borough" to describe Staten Island isn't new; it was first coined in 1928 by The New York Times.

15 July 1928, New York Times, pg. RE1:
Urging Staten Island operators to be cautious about pricing their realty, W. Burke Harmon, President of the Harmon National Real Estate Corporation, yesterday declared that sudden price increases on properties at this time might well result in halting the normal development of what he calls "this forgotten borough that has suddenly stepped into the limelight."

19 October 1950, New York Times, pg. 35:
Speaking at a borough-wide rally last night in the Boulevard Hotel, Grant CIty, S. I., Mr. Corsi described Staten Island as the "forgotten borough" by the present Tammany administration at City Hall.
(Edward Corsi, Republican candidate for Mayor - ed.)

23 November 1958, New York Times, pg. R1:
Staten Island rates high as the possible scene of New York's next boom in industrial construction, according to city and Chamber of Commerce officials. The fact that the commerce group's members come largely from Richmond is not expected to lengthen the odds against "the forgotten borough," as some of them have named it.

I'm attaching a few of my pictures of Fort Wadsworth. Forgotten. Ancient. You see what I mean.

This site is undergoing a redesign. Check back in soon to see our stylish new look.

New York Times: "A contender for most beautiful building in NYC"

In this New York Times Habitats column Constance Rosenblum visits the old Bechtel mansion on St. Pauls Avenue. I was quoted, but I wasn't given a credit. My film and photo location company which lists this property (The Arabesque Victorian) is CVB Spaces. Check that out if you want to see dozens of my pictures of it (you can see a few of my photographs here). Staten Island is filled with this type of wondrous home. -Cynthia von Buhler

For a Family, Elaborate Elbow Room
By CONSTANCE ROSENBLUM
Published: June 26, 2009

IN 1888, a German-born beer baron named George Bechtel, who was said to be the richest man on Staten Island, gave his 21-year-old daughter Annie an extraordinary wedding present.

A Time Capsule
Annie was betrothed to a German-American named Leonard Weiderer, and the gift was a three-story, 24-room Victorian mansion in the Queen Anne style. The 4,500-square-foot showpiece, on the street known as Mud Lane (later rechristened St. Paul’s Avenue), was outfitted with eight bedrooms, two kitchens and six fireplaces, each of a different design.

Annie’s bridal home included virtually every detail of Victorian domestic architecture — hipped roofs, gables, fish-scale shingles, chimneys, bay windows, dormer windows, even a turret. Garlanding the exterior were a series of porches and balconies. Two dozen imported stained-glass windows, courtesy of the glass factory Mr. Weiderer owned, exploded with stars, sunbursts, crescent moons and floral designs pricked in luminous primary colors. Chestnut and oak paneling covered nearly every available inch of wall space.

But the couple’s time in the house was brief. Three years into the marriage, tuberculosis claimed Mr. Weiderer’s life. His young widow moved to Germany and married a second time, but just five years later, in 1899, she died also. She was 31.

Annie’s sister Agnes lived in the house until 1928, followed by the Teitelbaums (1928-48), the Fraziers (1948-88) and, from 1988 to 1999, a chef who painted the exterior what one paint consultant described, not intending to pay a compliment, as a “Lucille Ball shade” of pink.

Through all these incarnations, the house proved a hardy survivor, the undisputed but neglected star among nearly a hundred handsome Victorian dwellings in the Stapleton area. What it lacked was someone who valued its lustrous past.

That person turned out to be a soft-spoken Montana-born doctor named Ted Brown. Dr. Brown, 63, who is the director of the New York State Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities Institute for Basic Research, and whose specialty is autism research, works out of offices on Staten Island.

At the time he began house-hunting on the island, he and his family were ensconced in a 200-year-old farmhouse in Port Washington, on Long Island, and he was developing a taste for living close to the past. When he was shown what a real estate agent modestly described as an “older house of character,” he was blown away.

“Maybe I was crazy, but I just thought it would be fun to live there,” Dr. Brown said in his understated way as he and his wife, Donna, sat side by side in what they call their formal parlor, an octagonal space framed by a sweeping archway.

Ms. Brown, a speech therapist who works with autistic schoolchildren (the couple met in 1985 at a genetics conference in Australia), viewed the situation differently.

“When I first saw the house,” she said, “I thought Ted had lost it.”

And remind us why she went along with the idea?

“Because I love him,” Ms. Brown said with an adoring smile.

When the couple bought the house in 1999 for $525,000, they set aside $250,000 for renovations, a figure that ballooned to $400,000. Before moving in, they worked for six months on the interior; once in residence, they tackled the exterior. Painting the facade — using sun-drenched colors like squash, copper, antique gold and seven others — took five months.

“The first couple of years, the house was really in sad shape,” Ms. Brown said. “We were really overwhelmed. Then we began to love it.”

But they know the work will never be finished, in part because the family, which includes the couple’s son, Hunter, 17; their daughter, Montana, 19; and two dogs, use all 24 rooms, amazing as that seems.

The room where the Browns were sitting on this day had the look of a perfectly appointed stage set for some forgotten Victorian-era drama. Furnishings include Persian carpets from Dr. Brown’s childhood home, an inlaid chessboard atop an inlaid table and a piano with Debussy on the music stand. (Dr. Brown, who in 1964 was a Montana state chess champion, plays both the game and the instrument.)

The mantel is almost hidden by an assortment of crystal — bells, goblets, paperweights, teardrop candlesticks. A velvet shawl with ivory fringe is draped over one chair, and needlepoint pillows nestle in the corners of the sofa.

The couple are justly proud of the grand staircase, which looks like a puzzle composed of intricately braided chestnut spindles and a matching woven screen, each tiny curl milled separately. At the base of the stairs, a pair of linked circlets have been carved into the wood. It is an emblem, Ms. Brown thinks, of the union of the young couple whose time in the house was so brief and so tragic.

The second floor is devoted to bedrooms, and the third, the onetime servants’ quarters, with its tiny rooms and low ceilings, is a teenage boy’s paradise; Hunter has his own bedroom, kitchen and video area.

The third floor is also the entrance to the little two-story room at the top of the turret. On a Web site that lists the Brown house as a location for filming and fashion shoots, the passageway to the turret is described as a “creepy, coffin-shaped tunnel.”

Creepy is the word.

“When we first moved in, the kids used to play there,” Dr. Brown said, “and someone was always being dragged in and locked away and had to be rescued.”

After he moved to Stapleton, Dr. Brown joined the Mud Lane Society, the preservation group that helped get 92 Victorians designated as city landmarks. The group’s president since 2007, he knows more than most people about what life in this part of the city was like a century ago. Along the staircase hang photographs giving a vivid picture of the brewers who were island royalty before Prohibition brought them low, and through eBay Dr. Brown has amassed a collection of old bottles from the Bechtel brewery.

He has discovered that living in such an over-the-top house was just as he thought it would be — fun. Total strangers stop and take pictures, in part thanks to www.forgotten-ny.com, a Web site that proclaims 387 St. Paul’s Avenue as “possibly the most gorgeous private dwelling on Staten Island and a contender for most beautiful building in NYC.” And at least for the Browns, who see themselves as caretakers of a piece of Staten Island history, the poignant history of the house only enhances its appeal.

“This was a wedding gift for a bride,” Ms. Brown pointed out. “Don’t you wish you could give your child such a gift?”

The New York Time's Hunt Column Asks "So Where Are They Now"

A few years ago Joyce Cohen, from The New York Times, interviewed us (Cynthia von Buhler and Russell Farhang) about our house hunt and move to Staten Island. That article launched Prodigal Borough as she listed the blog url in the paper. We have been writing about Staten Island ever since. Cohen's Hunt column is celebrating its 5th year anniversary, so they called to ask us "where are you now?" We are living in both CT and Staten Island now, both places are lovely in their own way.

The original article can be found HERE.
There is also a multimedia slideshow.

Excerpt: And then, one day, they noticed Staten Island. "It was like we opened up a present we had forgotten about," Mr. Farhang said. So off they went.

They saw a few houses with Tina Sirico, an agent at Sari Kingsley Real Estate in New Dorp. The houses in Staten Island seemed beautiful and well-kept, and much cheaper than houses elsewhere. They were surprised and thrilled, especially when they visited a four-story, 2,500-square-foot Mediterranean-style villa, with a curved staircase inside and a lush garden outside. It looked like a castle. The house, in the St. George section, was listed at $659,000.

Trying to contain their excitement, they waited until that evening to place their bid. They bought the house for $655,000.

According to the sellers, Laura Drew Kelly and Michael Kelly, who moved to Dover, Del., the house was built around 1929 by a Spanish teacher from Spain, who wanted a home reminiscent of his country.

The new article can be found HERE
and a slideshow is HERE.

Excerpt: Three years ago, Russell Farhang and Cynthia von Buhler were married in the lush backyard of Fort Hill Castle, their turreted Staten Island home.

“I thought we would live there forever,” Mr. Farhang said, never imagining that he would come to think of the castle as a starter house.

Ms. von Buhler became active in the local arts scene. Mr. Farhang enjoyed the ferry commute with coffee, newspaper and friends...

Ms. von Buhler, who has an art studio in the house, has just finished her most recent children’s book, “But Who Will Bell the Cats?” (Houghton Mifflin). Not coincidentally, the setting for the book is a castle. Back in Staten Island, Fort Hill Castle is currently occupied by Ms. von Buhler’s sister.

Joyce Cohen is also a blogger. Visit her blog at: http://huntgrunt.blogspot.com

Art By The Ferry 2009

The 2009 ART BY THE FERRY Festival highlights the wide variety of excellent visual arts, crafts, spoken word and performing arts on Staten Island in spaces provided by local real estate developers, restaurants, galleries and the Staten Island Museum. And it’s free!

Support two fundraising events for Art by the Ferry 2009;
Thursday May 28, 6pm-9pm at Killmeyer’s
and
Saturday May 30, 7pm - 10pm at Everything Goes Book Cafe & Neighborhood Stage

LOCATION:
St. George, Staten Island, NYC

DATES:
June 6,7 & 13,14, 2009
11am to 6pm

SPONSOR:
Staten Island Creative Community (SICC)*

FESTIVAL MOTTO:
“The artists are coming! The artists are coming!”
*More information about Staten Island Creative Community is on the News page - livepage.apple.com
FESTIVAL SCHEDULE:

Art ON the Ferry, sponsored by SIcoLab -- on the Staten Island ferries, Saturday June 6, from 11am to 2pm.

Performance Art Parade -- Saturday June 6, 2pm

Workshops for Arts Professionals, presented by COAHSI -- Saturday, June 6, 2009; 1pm, Sunday, June 7, 2009; 1pm, Staten Island Museum

Music, Performance -- all day, all four days, multiple venues

Children’s Workshops

Art Exhibits -- all day, all four days, multiple venues

Crafts -- all day, all four days, multiple venues

Spoken Word -- all four days at the Fish’s Eddy site

Stairway To Heaven

Fort Hill is the highest hill in St. George. Fort Hill Castle, on Fort Hill, is the highest house on the hill. Does that make these the highest steps in St. George?
Staten Islander Dan Icolari has launched his own blog called "Walking Is Transportation." St. George (in the North Shore) is extremely hilly and "Walking Is Transportation" explores that in his post: "The Vertical Life, or Hill-Walking on Staten Island's North Shore." Check it out by clicking HERE.

A Google Earth map of New York City
The "stairway" article got me thinking about elevation in St. George. I knew that Todt Hill on Staten Island is the highest point in all five boroughs of New York (and the highest point on the eastern seaboard of the United States south of Maine). I also knew that Fort Hill, where my house is located, is the highest point in St. George, Staten Island. My house is the tallest house on Fort Hill - might it be the highest point in St. George? And, if we are talking about Staten Island having the highest elevations in all of New York City, my house is closer to heaven than most places in New York City. I checked out the elevations on Google Earth. You can see my calculations below. The height of the houses are approximate. I will look into that and report back with actual figures.

My house (Fort Hill Castle) elevation. Ground elevation: 166 feet, Tower elevation: 35 feet approximate, Total elevation: 215 approximate

Fort Hill Park (the highest point of Fort Hill): 207 feet, House elevation: 20 feet approximate, Total elevation: 227 approximate

Todt Hill Elevation: 410 feet

227 feet - 215 feet = 12 feet

My approximate calculations show that there is one other house at a slightly higher elevation on Fort Hill, however, our house is the tallest, therefore they even out a bit. I'm guessing house heights here, but it looks like my house is only about 12 feet from being the highest in St. George, and only about 215 feet lower than the highest point in all of New York City. We have been thinking about raising the height of our tower by about 24 feet so we can get a 360 degree view of the island; currently part of our house blocks some amazing views. Our house tower always seemed kind of squat compared to the rest of the house, so a couple of years ago, I spoke with an architect who said that we would be allowed to do this given the cities rules and regulations on building height. We are already higher than our neighbors so we wouldn't be blocking any other house views. If we do this, our house will easily clear the 12 feet or so difference and would be the highest house in St. George.Before
After (stretched image)