Staten Island ( ), coextensive with Richmond County, is the southernmost of the five boroughs and counties in New York City, New York, United States. It is situated at the southernmost point of the State of New York. The borough is separated from the adjacent state of New Jersey by the tidal straits Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull and from the rest of New York by New York Bay.

A home to the Lenape Native Americans, the island was settled by Dutch colonists in the 17th century. It was one of the 12 original counties of New York State. Staten Island was consolidated with New York City in 1898. Almost always colloquially called 'Staten Island' historically (anglicized from the original Dutch Staaten Eylandt), it was formerly legally known as the Borough of Richmond until 1975, when its name was officially changed to Borough of Staten Island. Staten Island has sometimes been called "the forgotten borough" by inhabitants who feel neglected by the city government and the media. It has also been referred to as the "borough of parks" due to its 12,300 acres of protected parkland and over 170 parks.

With a population of 495,747 in the 2020 census,

Staten Island is the least populated New York City borough but the third largest in land area at ; it is also the least densely populated and most suburban borough in the city. Notably, due to New York City's extreme population density, this means Staten Island's population density is still higher than that of the City of Los Angeles and its total population is larger than independent, internationally well-known American cities such as New Orleans, Miami, or St. Louis.

The North Shore—especially the neighborhoods of St. George, Tompkinsville, Clifton, and Stapleton—is the island's most urban area. It includes the designated St. George Historic District and the St. Paul's Avenue-Stapleton Heights Historic District, both of which feature large Victorian houses. The East Shore is home to the FDR Boardwalk, the world's fourth-longest boardwalk. The South Shore, site of the 17th-century Dutch and French Huguenot settlement, developed rapidly beginning in the 1960s and 1970s and is now very suburban. The West Shore along the protected waters of the kills (waterways) has the island's fewest residents but the most industrial development.

Motor traffic can reach the borough from Brooklyn by the Verrazzano–Narrows Bridge and from New Jersey by the Outerbridge Crossing, Goethals Bridge, and Bayonne Bridge. Staten Island has Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) bus lines and an MTA rapid transit line, the Staten Island Railway, which runs from the ferry terminal at St. George to Tottenville. Staten Island is the only borough not connected to the New York City Subway system. The free Staten Island Ferry connects the borough to Manhattan across New York Harbor. It provides views of the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, and Lower Manhattan.

History

Indigenous / Native American Inhabitants

As in much of North America, human habitation appeared on the island fairly rapidly after the Wisconsin glaciation. Archaeologists have recovered tool evidence of Clovis culture activity dating from about 14,000 years ago. This evidence was first discovered in 1917 in the Charleston section of the island. Various Clovis artifacts have been discovered since then, on property owned by Mobil Oil.

The island was probably abandoned later, possibly due to the extirpation of large mammals. Evidence of the first permanent Native American settlements and agriculture are thought to date from about 5,000 years ago, although early archaic habitation evidence has been found in multiple locations on the island.

Rossville points are distinct arrowheads that define a Native American cultural period from the Archaic period to the Early Woodland period, dating from about 1500 to 100 BC. They are named for the Rossville section of Staten Island, where they were first found near the old Rossville Post Office building.

thumb|right|Skeletons unearthed at [[Burial Ridge|Lenape burial ground in Staten Island, the largest pre-European burial ground in New York City]]

At the time of European contact, the island was inhabited by the Raritan band of the Unami division of the Lenape. In Lenape, one of the Algonquian languages, Staten Island was called , meaning "as far as the place of the bad woods", or , meaning "the bad woods".

The name is spelled in the deed to Lubbertus van Dincklage for the purchase of Staten Island in 1657. In 1661, the first permanent Dutch settlement was established at (Dutch for "Old Village") by a small group of Dutch, Walloon, and French Huguenot families, just south of the Narrows near South Beach. Many French Huguenots had gone to the Netherlands as refugees from the religious wars in France, suffering persecution for their Protestant faith, and some joined the emigration to New Netherland.

At one point, nearly a third of the residents of the Island spoke French. The last vestige of Oude Dorp is the name of the present-day neighborhood of Old Town adjacent to Old Town Road. Staten Island was not spared the bloodshed which culminated in Kieft's War. In the summer of 1641 and in 1642, Native American tribes destroyed Old Town.

On July 10, 1657, the Native Americans signed a deed to Lubbertus van Dincklage, attorney of Henrick van der Capelle tho Ryssel, for the purchase of all indigenous lands on Staten Island. However, this deed was annulled when the Dutch purchasers failed to deliver the promised goods for the land a few months later.

thumb|right|[[Voorlezer's House]]

thumb|right|[[Billiou–Stillwell–Perine House]]

Richmond County

At the end of the Second Anglo-Dutch War in 1667, the Dutch ceded New Netherland to England in the Treaty of Breda. The Dutch , anglicized as "Staten Island", became part of the new English colony of New York.

In 1670, the Native Americans ceded all claims to Staten Island to the English in a deed to Governor Francis Lovelace. In 1671, to encourage expansion of the Dutch settlements, the English resurveyed (which became known as 'Old Town') and expanded the lots along the southern shore. These lots were settled primarily by Dutch families and became known as (meaning 'New Village'), which later became anglicized as New Dorp.

Captain Christopher Billopp, after years of service in the Royal Navy, came to America in 1674 along with the newly appointed royal governor of New York and the Jerseys, Sir Edmund Andros, in charge of a company of infantry. The following year, he settled on Staten Island, where he was granted a patent for of land. According to an apocryphal story, Reliable historical documentation of the event is extremely sparse, and, in 1948, Staten Island historian Roswell S. Coles concluded that there was "no real evidence to assume there is any truth in the circumnavigation story." A 2007 The New York Times article concluded that this event was "almost certainly apocryphal" and originated in local folklore, with no written records of the deed before 1873,

In 1683, the colony of New York was divided into ten counties. As part of this process, Staten Island, along with several minor neighboring islands, was designated as Richmond County. The name derives from the title of Charles Lennox, 1st Duke of Richmond, an illegitimate son of King Charles II. In 1687 and 1688, the English divided the island into four administrative divisions based on natural features: the manorial estate of colonial governor Thomas Dongan in the northeastern hills known as the "Lordship or Manor of Cassiltown", along with the North, South, and West divisions. These divisions later evolved into the four towns of Castleton, Northfield, Southfield, and Westfield. In 1698, the population was 727.

The government granted land patents in rectangular blocks of , with the most desirable lands along the coastline and inland waterways. By 1708, the entire island had been divided up in this fashion, creating 166 small farms and two large manorial estates, the Dongan estate and a parcel on the southwestern tip of the island belonging to Christopher Billopp. In 1729, the county seat was moved to the village of Richmond Town, located at the headwaters of the Fresh Kills near the center of the island. By 1771, the island's population had grown to 2,847. As support of independence spread throughout the colonies, residents of the island were so uninterested that no representatives were sent to the First Continental Congress, the only county in New York to not send anyone. This had economic repercussions through 1776, when New Jersey towns such as Elizabethport, Woodbridge, and Dover instituted boycotts of islanders.

On March 17, 1776, the British garrison in Boston under Sir William Howe evacuated the city and sailed for Halifax, Nova Scotia. From Halifax, Howe prepared to attack New York City, which then consisted entirely of the southern end of Manhattan Island. General George Washington led the entire Continental Army to New York City in anticipation of Howe's attack. Howe used the strategic location of Staten Island as a staging ground for the invasion. Over 140 British ships arrived over the summer of 1776 and anchored off the shores of Staten Island at the entrance to New York Harbor. Onboard them were approximately 30,000 British and Hessian troops. Howe established his headquarters in New Dorp at the Rose and Crown Tavern, near the junction of present New Dorp Lane and Richmond Road. There, the representatives of the British government reportedly received their first notification of the Declaration of Independence.

In August 1776, British forces crossed the Narrows to Brooklyn and outflanked the Continental Army at the Battle of Long Island, resulting in the British control of the harbor and the capture of New York City shortly afterwards. Three weeks later, on September 11, 1776, Sir William's brother, Lord Howe, received a delegation of Americans consisting of Benjamin Franklin, Edward Rutledge, and John Adams at the Conference House on the southwestern tip of the island on the former estate of Christopher Billopp. The Americans refused Howe's peace offer, which called for the withdrawal of the Declaration of Independence, and the conference ended without an agreement.

thumb|right|The [[Conference House]]

On August 22, 1777, the Battle of Staten Island occurred between British forces and several companies of the 2nd Canadian Regiment fighting alongside other American companies. The battle was inconclusive, though both sides lost over a hundred soldiers as prisoners of war; the Americans soon withdrew. In early 1780, while the Kill Van Kull was frozen over, William Alexander led an unsuccessful American raid from New Jersey on the western shore of Staten Island. It was repulsed in part by troops led by British Commander Francis Rawdon-Hastings, 1st Marquess of Hastings. In June 1780, Wilhelm von Knyphausen, a Hessian commander, led many raids and a full assault into New Jersey from Staten Island to defeat Washington and the Continental Army. Although the raids were successful in the Newark and Elizabeth areas, the advance was halted at Connecticut Farms (Union) and the Battle of Springfield.

British forces remained on Staten Island for the remainder of the war and kept their headquarters in neighborhoods such as Bulls Head. The few Patriots on the island fled after the Battle of Long Island, and the sentiment of those who remained was predominantly Loyalist. Even so, the islanders found the demands of supporting the troops to be heavy. Several buildings, including churches, were demolished for military use, and trees were felled for firewood, leading to extensive deforestation by the end of the war. The island was used as a staging ground for the final British evacuation of New York City on December 5, 1783. After their departure, many Loyalist landowners, such as Christopher Billop, the family of Canadian historian Peter Fisher, John Dunn, who founded St. Andrews, New Brunswick, and Abraham Jones, fled to Canada, and their estates were subdivided and sold. Staten Island was occupied by the British longer than any other single part of the Thirteen Colonies.

19th century

thumb|right|The [[Historic Richmond Town museum complex is located in the heart of Staten Island.]]

On July 4, 1827, the end of slavery in New York state was celebrated at the Swan Hotel in the West Brighton neighborhood. Rooms at the hotel were reserved months in advance as local abolitionists, including prominent free blacks, prepared for the festivities. Speeches, pageants, picnics, and fireworks marked the celebration, which lasted for two days.

In the early 19th century, New Jersey and New York disputed the location of their maritime boundary, due to their original charters being ambiguously worded. New York argued that the eastern edge of New Jersey was located at the Hudson River's shoreline during high tide, which would give New York control of all the docks and wharves on the Hudson River. New Jersey argued that the maritime boundary should run down the middle of the Hudson River and then extend out to the Atlantic Ocean, which would give New Jersey control of the docks and wharves, as well as Staten Island. Vice President Martin Van Buren negotiated a compromise that established the maritime boundary in the middle of the Hudson River and gave Staten Island to New York. Ellis Island and Bedloe's Island, both uninhabited at the time, also came under New Jersey control.

From 1800 to 1858, Staten Island was home to the largest quarantine facility in the United States. Angry residents burned down the hospital compound in 1858 in a series of attacks known as the Staten Island Quarantine War. In 1860, parts of Castleton and Southfield were made into a new town, Middletown. The Village of New Brighton in the town of Castleton was incorporated in 1866. In 1872, the Village of New Brighton annexed the remainder of the Town of Castleton, becoming coterminous with the town. The eocnomy of Staten Island of the 19th century was more of a farming economy. Staten Island still experienced economic growth developing a industrial and commercial center nonetheless. A caveat to this growth was that the period of the Civil War caused a period of economic trouble which did not end until after the war. The population was rather spread out during the 19th century, as only ten communities in Staten Island had a population greater than 1,000. The Island had a population of 51,963 people in the year 1890.

An 1887 movement to incorporate Staten Island as a city was unsuccessful.

Consolidation with New York City

thumb|right|New housing on Staten Island, 1973, photo by [[Arthur Tress]]

thumb|right|US Navy ships tied up at the home port pier during [[Fleet Week in 2007]]

The towns of Staten Island were dissolved in 1898 with the consolidation of the City of Greater New York, as Richmond County became one of the five boroughs of the expanded city. Although Staten Island was consolidated into the City of Greater New York in 1898, the county sheriff maintained control of the jail system, unlike the other boroughs, which had gradually transferred jail control to the Department of Correction. The jail system was not transferred until January 1, 1942. Staten Island is the only borough without a New York City Department of Correction major detention center.

The construction of the Verrazzano–Narrows Bridge, along with the other three major Staten Island bridges, created a new way for commuters and tourists to travel from New Jersey to Brooklyn, Manhattan, and areas farther east on Long Island. The network of highways running between the bridges has effectively carved up many of Staten Island's old neighborhoods. The bridge opened many areas of the borough to residential and commercial development from the 1960s onward, especially in the central and southern parts, which had been largely undeveloped. Staten Island's population doubled from 221,991 in 1960 to 443,728 in 2000. Nevertheless, Staten Island remained less developed than the rest of the city. A 1972 New York Times article stated that, despite the borough having 333,000 residents, parts of the island still maintained a bucolic atmosphere with woods and marshes. The last commercial farm in New York City, on Richmond Hill Road, closed in 2000.

Throughout the 1980s, a movement to secede from the city steadily grew in popularity, notably championed by longtime New York state senator and former Republican Party mayoral nominee John J. Marchi. The campaign reached its peak during the mayoral term of David Dinkins (1990–1993), after the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated the New York City Board of Estimate, which had given equal representation to the five boroughs. Dinkins and the city government opposed a non-binding secession referendum, contending that the state should not permit the vote unless the city issued a home rule message supporting it, which the city would not. Governor Mario Cuomo disagreed, and the vote went forward in 1993. Ultimately, 65% of Staten island residents voted to secede through the approval of a new city charter making Staten Island an independent city, but implementation was blocked in the State Assembly.

In the 1980s, the United States Navy had a base on Staten Island called Naval Station New York. It had two sections: a Strategic Homeport in Stapleton and a larger section near Fort Wadsworth, where the Verrazzano–Narrows Bridge enters the island. The base was closed in 1994 through the Base Realignment and Closure process because of its small size and the expense of basing personnel there.

thumb|Verrazzano–Narrows Bridge from the South Beach on Staten Island

Fresh Kills and its tributaries are part of the largest tidal wetland ecosystem in the region. Its creeks and wetlands have been designated a Significant Coastal Fish and Wildlife Habitat by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. Opened along Fresh Kills as a "temporary landfill" in 1947, the Fresh Kills Landfill served as a repository for the city of New York's trash. The landfill, once the world's largest manufactured structure, was closed in 2001, but it was briefly reopened for the debris from Ground Zero following the September 11 attacks in 2001. It is being converted into a park, almost three times the size of Central Park, and the largest park to be developed in New York City in over 100 years. Plans for the park include a bird-nesting island, public roads, boardwalks, soccer and baseball fields, bridle paths, and a 5,000-seat stadium. Today, freshwater and tidal wetlands, fields, birch thickets, and a coastal oak maritime forest, as well as areas dominated by non-native plant species, are all within the boundaries of Fresh Kills.

 

Geology

thumb|left|The geology of Staten Island

thumb|right|[[Serpentinite shown in rock cut along I-278 in Staten Island by Todt Hill marked on USGS geological map]]

During the Paleozoic Era, the tectonic plate containing the continent of Laurentia and the plate containing the continent of Gondwanaland were converging, the Iapetus Ocean that separated the two continents gradually closed, and the resulting collision between the plates formed the Appalachian Mountains. During the early stages of this mountain-building known as the Taconic orogeny, a piece of ocean crust from the Iapetus Ocean broke off and became incorporated into the collision zone and now forms the oldest bedrock strata of Staten Island, the serpentinite.

This strata of the Lower Paleozoic (approximately 430 million years old) consists predominantly of the serpentine minerals, antigorite, chrysotile, and lizardite; it also contains asbestos and talc. At the end of the Paleozoic era (248 million years ago) all major continental masses were joined into the supercontinent of Pangaea.

The Palisades Sill has been designated a National Natural Landmark, being "the best example of a thick diabase sill in the United States". It underlies a portion of northwest Staten Island, with a visible outcropping in Travis, off Travis Road in the William T. Davis Wildlife Refuge. This is the same formation that appears in New Jersey and upstate New York along the Hudson River in Palisades Interstate Park. The sill extends southward beyond the cliffs in Jersey City beneath the Upper New York Harbor and resurfaces on Staten Island. The Palisades sill date from the Early Jurassic period, 192 to 186 million years ago.

Staten Island has been at the southern terminus of various periods of glaciation. The most recent, the Wisconsin glaciation, ended approximately 12,000 years ago. The accumulated rock and sediment deposited at the glacier's terminus form the terminal moraine along the island's central portion. The evidence of these glacial periods is visible in the remaining wooded areas of Staten Island in the form of glacial erratics and kettle ponds.

At the retreat of the ice sheet, Staten Island was connected by land to Long Island, as the Narrows had not yet formed. Geologists' reckonings of the course of the Hudson River have placed it alternatively through the present course of the Raritan River, south of the island, or through present-day Flushing Bay and Jamaica Bay.

Geography

thumb|Location of Staten Island (red) within New York City (remainder yellow)

thumb|350px|Population density and elevation above sea level in Greater NYC, U.S. (2010). Staten Island is especially vulnerable to [[sea level rise.]]

thumb|Aerial view of Staten Island from the east at night

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Richmond County has a total area of , of which is land and (43%) is water. It is the third-smallest county in New York by land area and fourth-smallest by total area.

Although Staten Island is a borough of New York City, the island is geographically part of New Jersey. Staten Island is separated from Long Island by the Narrows and from mainland New Jersey by the Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull. Staten Island is positioned at the center of New York Bight, a sharp bend in the shoreline between New Jersey and Long Island. The region is considered vulnerable to sea-level rise. On October 29, 2012, the island experienced severe damage and loss of life along with the destruction of many homes during Hurricane Sandy.

In addition to the main island, the borough and county also include several small uninhabited islands:

  • The Isle of Meadows (at the mouth of Fresh Kills)
  • Prall's Island (in the Arthur Kill)
  • Shooters Island (in Newark Bay; part of it is in New Jersey)
  • Swinburne Island (in Lower New York Bay)
  • Hoffman Island (in Lower New York Bay)

The highest point on the island, the summit of Todt Hill, elevation , is also the highest point in the five boroughs, as well as the highest point on the Atlantic coastal plain south of Great Blue Hill in Massachusetts and the highest point on the coast proper south of Maine's Camden Hills. Ward's Point in the neighborhood of Tottenville is the southernmost point in the state of New York.

Staten Island is the only borough in New York City that does not share a land border with another borough (Marble Hill in Manhattan is contiguous with the Bronx). The borough has a land border with Elizabeth and Bayonne, New Jersey, on uninhabited Shooters Island. It has several maritime borders with New Jersey communities, such as Perth Amboy, Cliffwood Beach section of Old Bridge, Union Beach, and Keansburg.

thumb|A deer found in [[Charleston, Staten Island; the deer may be part of a 40-large herd in Clay Pit Ponds State Park Preserves.]]

Wildlife

Staten Island is home to a large and diverse population of wildlife. Wildlife found on Staten Island include white-tailed deer (which have increased from a population of 24 in 2008 to 2,000 in 2017 due to a hunting ban and a lack of predators), as well as hundreds of species of birds including bald eagles, turkey, hawks, egrets and ring-necked pheasants. Staten Island is home to Atlantic horseshoe crabs, cottontail rabbits, opossums, raccoons, garter snakes, red-eared slider turtles, newts, spring peeper frogs, leopard frogs, fox, box turtles, skunks, northern snapping turtles and common snapping turtles. In 2014 a new species of frog, the Atlantic Coast Leopard Frog (Lithobates kauffeldi), was described from Staten Island.

Parkland

Staten Island includes thousands of acres of federal, state, and local park land, including the "greenbelt" and "blue belt" park systems and the Gateway National Recreation Area, in addition to hundreds of acres of private wooded areas. The National Park Service maintains full-time wildland firefighters to patrol Staten Island sites in wildfire brush trucks.

The parks on Staten Island are managed by various state, federal, and local agencies.

Five sites are part of the Gateway National Recreation Area, managed by the U.S. National Park Service and patrolled by the United States Park Police:

  • Great Kills Park
  • Miller Field
  • Fort Wadsworth
  • Hoffman Island
  • Swinburne Island

Two New York State parks are managed by the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation:

  • Mount Loretto Unique Area
  • Clay Pit Ponds State Park Preserve

New York State Park Police officers patrol these parks and the surrounding streets.

of State Forests, state wildlife management areas, and Wetlands are managed by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation:

  • Saint Francis Woodland
  • Butler Manor Woods
  • Arden Heights Woods
  • Todt Hill Woods
  • North Mount Loretto State Forest
  • Lemon Creek Tidal Wetland Wildlife Management Area
  • Blosers Wetland Wildlife Management Area
  • Goethal Pond Wetland
  • Bridge Creek Tidal Wetland
  • Old Place Creek Tidal Wetland
  • Oakwood Beach Wetland
  • Sharrotts Shoreline Natural Resource Area
  • Sawmill Creek Wetland

The of NYS Department of Environmental Conservation land throughout the island are patrolled by New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Police officers and one NYS DEC Forest Ranger, who has the dual task of law enforcement and fire suppression.

The New York City Department of Parks and Recreation manages 156 parks including:

  • Conference House Park
  • Willowbrook Park
  • Graniteville Quarry Park
  • Silver Lake Park
  • Clove Lakes Park

The Fresh Kills Landfill was the world's largest landfill before closing in 2001, although it was temporarily reopened that year to receive debris from the September 11 attacks. The landfill is being redeveloped as Freshkills Park, an area devoted to restoring habitat. The park will become New York City's second-largest public park when completed.

Adjacent counties

New Jersey

  • Hudson County — north and northeast
  • Union County — northwest
  • Middlesex County — west and southwest
  • Monmouth County — south

New York

  • Kings County — east
  • New York County — northeast

Demographics