SI Marine Hospital/Quarantine Memorial Service & Tappen Park Oktoberfest – Saturday, October 17th
Staten Island Marine Hospital/Quarantine (1799-1858)
Memorial Service – Entombment – Reception
Saturday, October 17, 2009
FREE EVENT – OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
10 AM
Memorial Service Starts at:
St. Peter’s Catholic Church
St. Marks Place, S.I. NY 10301
Monsignor James Dorney & Reverend Richard Michael, Trinity Lutheran Church officiating
Caskets holding the remains of the immigrants that were exhumed from the St. George municipal parking lot will be brought into St. Peters Catholic Church courtesy of Meislohn Silvie Funeral Home and lead by the Staten Island Pipes and Drums, Ancient Order of Hibernian’s Honor Guard for the memorial service. Both St. Peters and Trinity Lutheran Church have a long history in the North Shore as well as the Quarantine, both Churches administered to the immigrants.
Staten Island’s unique history includes a major quarantine station – Marine Hospital – that operated from 1799-1858. Countless immigrants of all nationalities, entered into New York Harbor only to be found with infectious disease, held in quarantine at the Marine Hospital on Staten Island, died and were buried in mass graves on the compound.
During the mid 19th century immigration through New York was considerable. Although no complete listing survives from the Marine Hospital of inmates, Richmond County Mortality Schedule for a 6 month period from 1849-1850 shows that the majority of the 650 individuals listed were the victims of the Great Irish Hunger, other nationalities listed on the 1850’s Mortality Schedule include, Germany, England, Holland, France, Switzerland, Scotland and of course New York City, America.
The cemetery was largely obliterated in the 1950’s to make the current municipal parking lot. A few years ago during a recent State of New York construction project at the lot, a section of the original cemetery was found intact under the asphalt as well as finding substantial scattered human remains throughout the site. The majority of these were removed and are currently held at the archeologist lab in Brooklyn. We will bring them back to Staten Island on Saturday, October 17, 2009 where a proper entombment will be provided to them at long last.
Please join us on Saturday, October 17, 2009 for this unique opportunity to honor our ancestors and provide them a long awaited proper & dignified entombment as well as a reception in remembrance of 19th century immigration. For further information, please contact Lynn 917-974-6180 or Bill Siaoh@aol.com.
11:30 am - 3 PM
Reception at:
Tappen Park Oktoberfest
Bay Street @ Water and Canal Street
Stapleton, S.I. 10304
Kilmeyers Old Bavarian Inn will provide an Oktoberfest Cafe.
Manhattan Distributors will supply beverages.
Music by: The ANDY COONEY Band
THIS EVENT IS FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
We are here today because of those that came before us.
Across the Harbor, a Historic Gem… St. George
Many visits to Staten Island go like this: Ride the ferry from Lower Manhattan. Catch a free glimpse of the Statue of Liberty. Disembark. Take the next ferry back.
But the tiny, historic neighborhood of St. George, where the ferry docks, is worth exploring, even if the bleak landscape just outside the terminal suggests otherwise. Get a map at the terminal’s passenger office, and after your amble in St. George, consider a four-minute ride on the S40 bus from the terminal to the Snug Harbor Cultural Center and Botanical Garden, at right, 1000 Richmond Terrace, (718) 448-2500. It is 83 acres of Greek Revival buildings and paradisiacal gardens that will make you feel like you stepped into an E. M. Forster novel.
10:30 A.M.Ride the 1, N, R or W train to South Ferry, and get on board. The ferry is free and leaves Manhattan and Staten Island every half-hour (with variations after 1 a.m., on weekends and during the weekday rush). If it’s a nice day, ride on the upper deck for the fresh air and panoramic views of New York Harbor, Lower Manhattan, Governors Island and the Brooklyn and Verrazano-Narrows Bridges.
11 A.M. As you disembark from the ferry, Staten Island’s stately Borough Hall, will be in front of you, a French Renaissance-style structure built between 1904 and 1906 and designed by Carrère and Hastings, the architectural firm behind the New York Public Library. Go left on Bay Street and walk five minutes to the Everything Goes Book Cafe & Neighborhood Stage, 208 Bay Street, (718) 447-8256, a cozy, welcoming used-book store and community gathering spot run by Ganas, a local commune (it’s closed on Mondays). Tasty, affordable coffee and organic baked goods are for sale, accompanied by live music weekend nights. Ganas also runs a nearby vintage shop, Everything Goes Clothing, 140 Bay Street, (718) 273-7139, closed Sunday and Monday, where one recent offering was a thick Pucci-like shift that felt like a bath towel and cost $14.
NOON Head to the Cargo Cafe, 120 Bay Street, (718) 876-0539, for cool ambience — exposed wood beams, peeling red walls, shabby chic chandeliers — and cheap lunch: $4.75 for a burger, fries and a soda; the weekend brunch starts at $7 and includes muffins and a cocktail or coffee (open Tuesday to Sunday at 11 a.m.; Monday at 5 p.m.).
1:30 P.M. Walk along Central Avenue to Hyatt Street, and visit the St. George Theater, 35 Hyatt Street, (718) 442-2900, an 80-year-old former vaudeville house that was recently restored to its over-the-top baroque glory. Cyndi Lauper and Rosie O’Donnell appeared there last week; Toni Orlando is scheduled for Sept. 10. Be sure to see the auditorium’s glorious, spotlighted dome ceiling.
2 P.M. Time to view some fancy local houses — from the outside; people live there. Map in hand, head up Hyatt Street, take a right on St. Mark’s Place, a quick left on Fort Place and then a right (stay with me) on Daniel Low Terrace to gaze at some very pretty Tudor-style mansions and well-kept flower gardens. Just off Daniel Low Terrace is Fort Hill Circle; check out No. 22, a castlelike house built in 1930.
2:30 P.M. Walk downhill to the Staten Island Museum, 75 Stuyvesant Place, (718) 727-1135, a tiny repository of local history, assorted animals preserved in jars, cool glow-in-the-dark rocks and a portrait of St. George’s namesake, George Law, who, as it turns out, wasn’t a saint at all. Admission: $2.
3 P.M. If you’re peckish again, or thirsty, try Beso, 11 Schuyler Street, (718) 816-8162, a tucked-away tapas bar that also serves Cuban pressed sandwiches for $7.95; glasses of wine start at $7. Or head to Enoteca Maria, 27 Hyatt Street, (718) 447-2777, a modern, authentic Italian restaurant, open Wednesday to Sunday, that has food critics and local folks swooning with its rotating cast of female chefs from assorted regions of Italy.
4 P.M. Take the ferry back to Manhattan. If you skipped the wine, the tapas and the Italian fare, the ferry snack bar sells pretzels and $3.50 domestic beer.
Van Duzer Summer Streets to offer music, art, sports, dance, relaxation and more
by Ben Johnson/Staten Island AWE
Saturday August 01, 2009, 10:30 AM
Stapleton joins NYC’s ‘Weekend Walks’ program — block-rocking parties ensue
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — The New York Times has yet to dub it a burgeoning bohemian paradise (a la St. George in 2007), but many Islanders have claimed a certain few blocks in Stapleton as the epicenter of the North Shore’s original music and arts scene.
The Chris Sorrentino illustration seen above — which recently garnered scores of comments after being posted on Facebook — should be a clue. Or just ask the area’s landlords: In the past few years, many regular faces performing at The Cup or Martini Red, eating at Vida, or shopping at Bent Pages and other local businesses have relocated to the growing arts hive on Van Duzer Street.
“There was just so much going on there, the neighborhood, arts and culture,” says filmmaker James Harris, 26, who moved above The Cup in February. “I could walk across the street or down the block and run into five or six people I know. I just think everyone’s finally coming together and trying to build a community here.”
That community will be celebrated via Van Duzer Summer Streets, an onslaught of music, public art, and various clinics and demonstrations from local business and organizations. Under the auspices of the NYC Department of Transportation’s Weekend Walks program, and with the support of the Downtown Staten Island Council, Van Duzer Street will shut down between Beach and Wright streets from noon and 8 p.m. on Saturdays through Aug. 22, creating a traffic-free block party of hyper-local proportions.
“We want to change the perception of the area, and bring more foot traffic to Van Duzer,” says Martini Red owner Manny Rodruiguez, 38, chair of the Van Duzer Summer Streets organizing committee. “The events will hopefully bring more exposure to the area that has so much character and talent.”
Entertainment runs the gamut from painting and music workshops for kids to locally-produced film screenings. Some of The Cup and Martini Red’s usual suspects will perform on an outside stage, and special after-parties will feature more music and a special performance of the buzzworthy “live” talk-show “Mid-Evenings with Jay Miller.”
In the meantime, the curious can look forward to a distinct theme for every Saturday: Art, sports and athletics, relaxation, and dance (all injected with live music, of course). Leave it to artists to construct an entire theme around “relaxation,” but don’t assume the weekly festivities are all navel-gazing meditation. High school art teacher Bridgette Vallario plans to enlist the public in We-Cycle all day on Aug. 1, a sculpture project using a mix of materials to make bicycle wheels and place them around the Island in the hopes of increasing bike lanes and other cycle-friendly culture.
VAN DUZER SUMMER STREETS SCHEDULE:
Music, food, art & more Saturdays through Aug. 22 at the traffic-free block party on Van Duzer Street between Beach and Wright streets in Stapleton.
AUGUST 1: ART
12:30-2 p.m.: Live painting in the street with John Exit & Mike Die
2-3:30 p.m.: Children’s Songswap with Rob Yuzuk (Wahoo Skiffle Crazies) & Kristen Rodak
3:30-3:50 p.m.: Opening ceremony on the main stage
4:30-5:20 p.m.: Kilgore Trout is Dead
5:30-6:20 p.m.: Captain Ahab & the Sea Crackens
6:30-7:20 p.m.: Paragraph
8 p.m.-3 a.m.: After-parties at The Cup & Martini Red
AUGUST 8: SPORTS
12:30-2 p.m.: Kids’ street games (badmitton, water baloons, toss across, bubble wand, jump rope & more)
2-3:30 p.m.: Women’s basketball clinic
3:30-7 p.m.: Open skateboarding session sponsored by DC Shoes
4:30-5:20 p.m.: The Seconds
5:30-6:20 p.m.: The Pragmatics
6:30-7:20 p.m. The Great Unwashed
8 p.m.-3 a.m.: After-parties at The Cup & Martini Red
AUGUST 15: RELAXATION
12:30-1 p.m.: Group-led meditation and excercise in the street
1-2 p.m.: Yoga in the street
2-3 p.m.: Pilates in the Street
3-4 p.m.: Martial arts in the Street
4:30-5:20 p.m.: Wahoo Skiffle Crazies
5:30-6:20 p.m.: The Headlocks
6:30-7:20 p.m.: The Bandulos
8 p.m.-3 a.m.: After-parties at The Cup & Martini Red
AUGUST 22: DANCE
12:30-1 p.m.: Children’s Modern Dance Workshop
1-2 p.m.: Bellydancing demonstration
2-3 p.m.: Breakbeats (break dancers & DJ)
2-6 p.m.: Sandy Lo book signing/selling of “Lost in You” at Bent Pages
4:30-5:20 p.m.: Baptist Choir
5:30-6:20 p.m.: Aqua Vibe
6:30-7:20 p.m.: Scott James
CLICK: Check VanDuzerSummerStreets.com for more information.
