The Ferry Goes Green

I'm really happy to hear of this news (see The Daily News article below). I like to sit at the back of the ferry and the diesel occasionally bothers me. I have also been informed that the Staten island ferry terminal fish tanks are now up and running. I'll try to get a photograph for Prodigal Borough soon. --CvB

Staten Island ferries to use clean fuel
BY FRANK LOMBARDI
DAILY NEWS CITY HALL BUREAU
Monday, February 18th 2008, 4:00 AM

Even the orange boats of the Staten Island ferry are going "green."

And just to make sure they do, the City Council has passed a bill mandating that the city-run ferries - which make some 33,000 trips yearly between Staten Island and Manhattan - switch to less-polluting, ultralow-sulfur diesel fuel by July 1.
The bill, which is expected to be signed into law soon by Mayor Bloomberg, also requires the Staten Island ferry to make other environmentally friendly upgrades in coming years.

Total costs of the required improvements have been estimated at $15.4 million, of which $3.8million would come out of the city treasury. The rest is to be funded by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey as part of its obligation to do environmental mitigation work.

Also, because ultralow-sulfur diesel fuel is more costly than regular marine diesel, officials estimate the cleaner fuel will add $249,400 more a year to the ferries' fuel costs.

The greening of the Staten Island ferry is long overdue, according to Councilman Alan Gerson, a Democrat whose lower Manhattan district includes the Whitehall Ferry Terminal, where the ferries dock before their 5.2-mile trip to the St. George Terminal on Staten Island.

"The Staten Island ferry has been one of our city's worst polluters," Gerson said Wednesday before the Council voted 50-0 for the bill.

"With this bill, gone will be the odors, and more importantly gone will be the poisons which got into our lungs, both while we're on the ferry and when we're on land," Gerson added.

The bill, which does not apply to private ferry services, also requires the Staten Island ferry to meet other current and future federal anti-pollution standards for marine vessels - either by installing diesel oxidation catalysts on ferry exhausts, making engine upgrades or buying new boats - which can cost upward of $40 million each. A deadline schedule is in the bill.
Staten Island ferry officials said they were already well underway in making such upgrades. They said none of their current eight boats are in immediate danger of having to be mothballed because of the mandates.

That includes the John F. Kennedy, the granddaddy of the Staten Island ferry fleet, which went into service in 1965. But any ferry older than 30 years will have to be scrapped if it doesn't meet tougher federal standards by 2011.

The Kennedy began using ultralow-sulfur diesel in mid-2007, and the remaining boats are expected to be in compliance by the July 1 deadline.

The Staten Island Commute

The New York Times has a new column for the month of January called New Stops. It features New York City commutes and is written by Billie Cohen. To read the one on about the ferry commute go HERE. Prodigal Borough also featured two of our own personal Staten Island to Manhattan commutes with pictures and time stamps. To see the Staten Island to West Village commute go HERE. To see the Staten Island to Times Square commute go HERE.

Staten Island Wonderland

Photograph courtesy of Forgotten NY
Forgotten NY features fantastic tours of little-known New York City neighborhoods. Our friend Kevin Walsh, at Forgotten NY, has another Staten Island post up on his site. This time he is featuring Hamilton Park. Click "HERE" for the article and pictures.

Did you know that we found Staten Island through his site? I had never been to Staten Island before I read about it on Forgotten NY about three years ago. We almost bought a building we saw on his site, in Vinegar Hill, but the foundation was badly eaten by termites. So, we methodically visited every Forgotten NY neighborhood before deciding that St. George was the one for us.

The Prodigal Borough was almost named The Forgotten Borough (if you type in www.forgottenborough.com you arrive at our site) but we decided that the name was too similar to Kevin's site name. But you never know, we might still use it someday or maybe we should share it and make a page that features all of Kevin's Staten Island Forgotten NY tours. Get busy Kevin! Kevin grew up on Staten Island. Buy Kevin's book, Forgotten NY "HERE. "

Please Move To Tompkinsville: Another North Shore Neighborhood in the Press

At the Everything Goes Bookstore and Cafe, in Tompkinsville, the performers Christoph and Trish sing their song "Please Move To Tompkinsville"
Excerpt from The New York Times
By Carole Braden
Published: December 9, 2007
For the full article and pictures click on the headline above.

During the morning rush, commuters from the rest of Staten Island, bound for offices in Manhattan and elsewhere, exit the Staten Island Railway at Tompkinsville, a stop before the ferry terminal in St. George, and head out to the street in droves.

It takes a local resident like James Boivin to know that these people aren’t alighting here out of any particular wish to visit the neighborhood, but to duck Staten Island’s sole bank of MetroCard turnstiles at the ferry stop. “They avoid the fare by getting off at Tompkinsville,” said Mr. Boivin, “and walking the rest of the way to the ferry terminal.”

Deirdre Parker, a spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, explained that because a majority of Staten Island Railway riders are commuters to Manhattan and beyond, the authority had decided against the expense of installing turnstiles anywhere else along the line. Thus Tompkinsville, which is wedged between the better-established North Shore neighborhoods of St. George and Stapleton, has become the hop-off point for fare dodgers who get on at points south.

Mr. Boivin, a community activist who works as a freelance garden designer and real estate broker, has lived in the area for more than 20 years. He moved into his current home in Tompkinsville in 1999 after a stint in Europe, and runs a bed-and-breakfast out of his two-floor rental in a 1910 brownstone on Montgomery Avenue, for which he originally paid $500 a month (he would not reveal his current rent). He described the area as one of the most “robust, diverse” ones in the city, pointing to the mix in the local school playgrounds as proof. (School data cite a student population speaking 37 languages.)

Census figures from 2000 show a general neighborhood population of about 4,300, roughly 60 percent nonwhite, though more recent estimates suggest the numbers have climbed. Boroughwide, the overall population has jumped 7 percent since 2000, while the minority population has increased 25 percent.

The accurate figure for Tompkinsville, of course, depends on pinning down exact neighborhood boundaries, which proves an elusive task. The heart of the community, about a quarter-mile square and surrounding a vest-pocket triangle called Tompkinsville Park, is not at issue. It spans from New York Harbor on the east to St. Paul’s Avenue on the west, from Victory Boulevard to the north to Grant Street on the south.

It’s once you wander farther that the debates begin about this area named for an early 19th-century state governor, Daniel D. Tompkins. Many residents declare it larger, stretching it north to Benziger Avenue and beyond (an area that others consider part of St. George), or south to surround Clinton and Baltic Streets (more often claimed by Stapleton). Many also maintain that Tompkinsville encompasses Ward Hill, a grander area bound by St. Paul’s and Cebra Avenues and Victory Boulevard.

“You can’t be wrong” when it comes to boundaries on Staten Island, said Thomas W. Matteo, the borough historian — leaving unstated the obvious corollary that you can’t be right either.

One border that nobody argues about is the one that the harbor’s edge enforces — the area that stands to bring in more house hunters someday, residents and real estate brokers say. One condominium building and two midrise co-ops, both former warehouses, overlook the water from Bay Street Landing, a dead end at the northern tip of this neighborhood’s largely undeveloped waterfront (or the southern tip of St. George’s). This area is to be part of the St. George Esplanade in coming years.

Developers like Leib Puretz, who owns 130 Bay Street Landing, are angling to get in on the action with residential properties, near the water and farther inland.

Zoning rules don’t allow new construction exceeding five or six stories, said Joseph Carroll, the district manager of Community Board 1, but he acknowledged that the zoning could change. “Most people agree that there is a need for height here,” Mr. Carroll said. Upward construction would greatly increase the housing opportunities in the area, and its cachet. Or so local brokers hope.

What You’ll Find

Tompkinsville is a grab bag, offering everything from Victorians, colonials and Federal-style structures to 21st-century conversions. There are town houses, co-ops, condos, rentals and, for would-be landlords, multiunit buildings.

On Tompkins Circle and Ward Avenue, on the Ward Hill edge, houses are more luxurious; on St. Paul’s Avenue, they are slightly more modest, though often with water views.

“There isn’t a house here that you couldn’t make into a wonder,” said Norma Sue Wolfe, a sales associate for Gateway Arms Realty. Streets including Swan, Grant and Van Duzer are an odd mix: original clapboard facades and aging brick buildings, side by side with vinyl-clad homes and other surprises.

Closer to the bustle of Victory Boulevard are a number of lavishly redone buildings. Because Staten Island over all is “just not a sexy place,” said Kevin Barry, who owns 15 buildings in the borough, he is doing his bit toward changing that, with sleek rentals marketed to younger buyers priced out of Manhattan and Brooklyn. He describes his three-story 11-unit building at Victory Boulevard and St. Marks Place as having a “young dorm feel.”

Beyond the foot of Victory Boulevard, near the waterfront, stand the condos, co-ops and town houses of Bay Street Landing. It was the views that brought Linda Daller here. A 28-year resident of Suffolk County on Long Island, Ms. Daller spent eight years on South Shore Staten Island before finding and closing on a 910-square-foot unit at 10 Bay Street Landing. “I thought about Manhattan for a while,” she said, “but it’s 10 times the price.”

What You’ll Pay

There are deals, but many of them need updating. Still, those in sticker shock from other areas will find this one refreshingly affordable.

For one thing, the borough has not proved as slump-proof as Manhattan. “Prices in this area are down at least 13 percent from last year,” said Adele Sammarco, a spokeswoman for the Staten Island Board of Realtors.

According to the board, the median price in Tompkinsville this year was $442,500. At the moment inventory is not huge, judging from a Multiple Listing Service search that yielded 31 properties. These ranged in price from $239,900, for a 1910 two-family colonial with 1,700 square feet of living space, to $999,000, for a 4,500-square-foot Ward Hill five-bedroom with harbor views. A 1930 single-family attached home with an Art Deco facade, listed at $335,000, has an accepted offer. Dimas Lespier of Exit Realty Solutions recently sold a three-bedroom, three-bath town house on Margo Loop for $360,000.

New construction includes a condo, The Pointe, at Victory Boulevard and Bay Street. The broker, Casandra Properties, says the 57-unit complex is half sold.

Rentals seem strong. George Christo, a developer, hopes to get as much as $2,500 for the 800-square-foot penthouse of his as-yet-unnamed new building, and $2,200 for the units below it.

Nick Purpura, who moved from SoHo two months ago to a two-bedroom in a former firehouse at Hannah and Van Duzer Streets, said he pays “Manhattan rent,” but gets “way more space.”

What to Do

The Every Thing Goes Book Cafe and Neighborhood Stage, on Bay Street, draws a varied crowd with organic espresso, local cider, art exhibitions and music nights. But Tompkinsville has yet to nurture the upscale restaurants and bars found nearby in both St. George and Stapleton. Still, its restaurants offer Mexican, Dominican, Honduran, Jamaican and Sri Lankan food. Residents tend to wish aloud for a grocery like Whole Foods, but for now they make do with bodegas, as well as a Western Beef supermarket nearby.

The George Cromwell Recreation Center at Pier No. 6 offers sports from boxing to basketball, and the Joseph H. Lyons Pool is a summer wonderland. (Adult membership is a total of $75 a year for both facilities.)

The Commute

Commuters favor the 25-minute free ride on the Staten Island Ferry to Battery Park. The walk to the terminal takes about 10 minutes.

Everything Goes Bookstore and Cafe in Tompkinsville is currently displaying paintings by Mary Bullock.

Christmas on the Ferry

New York Times writers, Ken Belson and Nate Schweber, took a ride on the ferry on Christmas day and interviewed a few people for the December 26, 2007 issue. Click on the headline above to read the full article.

Verrazano Vineyard? The Only Vineyard in New York City is Underway

The God and Goddess of Wine by Cynthia von Buhler.
While I have my ear to the ground on Staten Island this bit of news actually came to me from my Italian gallery partner, Stefania Carrozzini, at our ("Carrozzini von Buhler Gallery "in Manhattan). I was telling her how much she would love it here and how so many people speak Italian when she said "Si, I know all about it. I read about it in the New York Times the other day. They are making wine there."

What?!

So, I dug around online and found the article. Here it is:

A Toast to Tuscany, With a Staten Island Red
By ELISABETTA POVOLEDO
Published: November 13, 2007, The New York Times

"CRESPINA, Italy, Nov. 7 — The visit to this picturesque corner of Tuscany probably will not spawn a best-selling sequel with a title like “Under the Staten Island Sun.” But in the not-too-distant future, Staten Island will bring a little bit of Tuscany to New York, in the form of a vineyard being developed at the Staten Island Botanical Garden.

A group of businessmen from the borough spent a few days this month rambling through lush vineyards, Renaissance villas and an Etruscan tomb, seeking the essence of the Tuscan experience to transplant back home. They hope the vineyard, which they said would be the first large-scale venture of its kind in the city, will entice more visitors to the oft-forgotten borough.

“We were looking for something to draw tourists off the ferry and see what Staten Island has to offer,” said Henry Arlin Salmon, a Staten Island real estate appraiser and one of the members of the Tuscan Gardens Vineyard Founders Group, which is behind the planned winery.

The Tuscan angle seemed natural, considering that nearly 38 percent of Staten Island residents are of Italian ancestry, according to the 2000 Census, more than any other county in the United States, said Joseph J. LiBassi, a promoter of the vineyard project and a member of the botanical garden’s board. “The vineyard encapsulates what Italians brought to Staten Island: agriculture, wine, culture.”

Of course, he added, the vineyard should appeal to non-Italians, too. “There are a lot of wine aficionados,” he said.

Work on the vineyard should start in the spring on about two acres of botanical garden land next to the Tuscan Villa and the Tuscan Garden exhibitions under construction. (The Tuscan Garden is based on the Villa Gamberaia, at Settignano, near Florence.)

Experts in viticulture and enology at Cornell University are helping determine which Italian grape varieties will have the best chance of thriving on Staten Island, “which can get pretty damp,” Mr. Salmon said. Because it is illegal to import vine cuttings into the United States, the plants will most likely come from vineyards in upstate New York or, perhaps, California.

Eventually, the idea is to make red wine — and someday maybe white — from the 2,000 vines that organizers of the vineyard figure will be planted at the botanical garden. It will be years, however, before anyone can get a tasting of Staten Island red.

As for potential names for the winery? Mr. LiBassi proposed “Crespina Staten Wine.”

R. Randy Lee, a real estate developer and the chairman of the Staten Island Economic Development Corporation, suggested “Vespucci” or “Verrazano.”

The wine is also expected to incorporate the kind of heritage grape varieties that would have been known in colonial times.

“After all, George Washington wasn’t importing wines from Tuscany,” Mr. Lee said. “I’m not sure how it will taste, but we want to reproduce it.”

The interest in heritage grape varieties is one reason the Staten Island delegation came to this part of Tuscany, to meet with Piergiorgio Castellani, a winemaker trying to save indigenous local grape varieties from extinction.

Mr. Castellani plans to travel to Staten Island in February to provide technical assistance on the vineyard. The borough, he said, “is not the best microclimate in the world; it’s close to a large city, there’s pollution. So they have to find a compromise solution that will mix resistant, adaptable vines with the right Tuscan varieties.”

Mr. Castellani, who escorted the Staten Island group to the University of Pisa to meet with viticulture experts, added: “The principal aim of the project is didactic. We’ve given them a broad basis of knowledge so they can go forward.”

Once the vineyard is up and running, visitors will be able to follow winemaking from the vine to the bottle.

“It’s basically chemistry; you mash grapes, and there’s a chemical reaction,” Mr. Salmon said. “Let’s face it, wine is exciting.”

The visit from the Staten Island delegation caused a major buzz in this small town roughly 21 miles south of Pisa that is known for its hoot owls. Officials in Crespina were thrilled when Staten Island officials accepted their invitation to be a sister city. “For a town of 4,000, it was like entering a skyscraper,” said Thomas D’Addona, Crespina’s mayor.

In addition to a small parade down the town’s main street (serenaded by the Walking Sharks Street Band) and a crossbow demonstration, the town’s celebrations included a photo session with Giancarlo Giannini, an Italian movie star who has a home in the area.

A previous sister city partnership with the French town of Penchard some time ago was kept alive for a few years and then passed into oblivion, local officials said. But the vineyard at the botanical garden, everyone involved agreed, will be one tangible link across the ocean.

“If they want us for the grape harvest, we’ll be ready to go with our boots and tools,” Mr. D’Addona said.

The Circular World Of The Blogging

Bloggers read news items or other blog posts and then post about it on their own blog. Here is an example of how ciruclar this can be: I posted about an article on Staten Island that was in The New York Times. (See Bohemia by the Bay a couple of posts down.) Then The New York Times quoted from my post. Now I am posting again about their article. Confused yet? You can read what they have to say "HERE. "