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52-669: The administrative headquarters of the Greenbelt and Greenbelt Conservancy are located at the entrance to High Rock Park (one of the many parks within the system) with a street address of 200 Nevada Avenue in the Egbertville neighborhood; in June 2004 a second facility, known as the Greenbelt Nature Center, was opened approximately 0.75 miles (1.21 km) away, at 700 Rockland Avenue. The Greenbelt Conservancy, which works in partnership with

104-527: A few path cut through it. When Davis, along with local historian Charles Leng , coauthored a history of Staten Island in 1896, they wrote: The crowning glory of Staten Island’s topography and scenery is the forest that springs from its rich, well-watered soil … Irregularity of contour and excessive wetness have saved such places from village development; and there is hope that some at least may ultimately become parklands, for which purpose they are eminently suited. Just one year later, at an 1897 public hearing on

156-402: A landscape dominated by spruce and pine forests. These forests gradually gave way to the modern deciduous forest in the region by mid- Holocene time. Lagoons and bays in the area around Sandy Hook hosted oysters, hard and soft shell clams, lobsters, blue crabs, and a variety of other invertebrates common in bays in the region today. South of western Long Island, tidal flats and wetlands occupied

208-464: A location on Staten Island , New York is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Raritan Bay Raritan Bay is a bay located at the southern portion of Lower New York Bay between the U.S. states of New York and New Jersey and is part of the New York Bight . The bay is bounded on the northwest by New York's Staten Island , on the west by Perth Amboy, New Jersey , on

260-404: A vehicle for rallying community opposition to the highway construction. From 1966 until the early 1970s, SIGNAL organized thousands of citizens and elected officials (including Planning Commissioner Eleanor Guggenheimer, Parks Commissioner Thomas Hoving , Mayor John V. Lindsay , and U.S. Senator Jacob Javits ) to participate in annual winter walks through the highland forests, tracing the route of

312-645: Is Rockland Avenue, which provides a shortcut between New Dorp on the East Shore and the busy New Springville section of Mid-Island . The Jacques Marchais Center of Tibetan Art and Moore-McMillen House are listed on the National Register of Historic Places . Egbertville is served by the S54 , S57 , S74 and S84 local buses. 40°34′41″N 74°07′31″W  /  40.57806°N 74.12528°W  / 40.57806; -74.12528 This article about

364-523: Is the name of a neighborhood located immediately inland from, but classifiable within, the East Shore of the borough of Staten Island in New York City . Originally named Stony Brook as the island's first county seat , then renamed after a family that owned a farm there in the 18th century, Egbertville was known for a time as Morgan's Corner, from 1838. Soon after this, many Irish families arrived in

416-613: The New York City Planning Commission the strategic and detailed documentation to support this designation. When the work was halted by the city, excavations were used to construct what was known as "Moses Mountain" and now "Paulo's Peak," a 200-foot rise and viewpoint adjacent to the Manor Road - Rockland Avenue interchange. Other remnants of construction can be seen from the Staten Island Expressway between

468-649: The Raritan Bay and the New York Harbor , offered timber for ship building, iron ore for the production of cannonballs, and a staging ground for British troops during the War for Independence. In the 1800s, several centuries after European settlers had come to, named, deforested, and farmed large portions of Staten Island, travelers of a different sort arrived. Henry David Thoreau - in his furthest journey from his native Massachusetts – came for one year in 1843 in order to tutor

520-771: The Staten Island Institute of Arts & Sciences ; and New York Times staff writer Alan Oser. Summoning their many and diverse talents, their strategy involved developing and advocating for an alternate route in the press, before public officials, and, when necessary, the courts. One year into the SICPC's legal fight against the original route of the Richmond Parkway, the Staten Island Greenbelt Natural Areas League (SIGNAL), spearheaded by another resident-journalist, John G. Mitchell , formed as

572-683: The Unitarian Universalist Church of Staten Island, issued the first of many position papers beginning by invoking Olmsted's plea for a linear park; it concluded by presenting an alternate parkway plan that would spare what has come to be known as the Staten Island Greenbelt, a term proposed by landscape architect, Bradford Greene, one of the group's founding members. Greene was familiar with this policy or land use designation from previous work he had been involved with in Maryland . At

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624-434: The eastern box turtle , and the northern water snake , as well as New York's state reptile, the common snapping turtle . On occasion northern "black" racer and eastern milksnakes are reported here. Both species are threatened elsewhere on Staten Island due to habitat destruction due to development. The Greenbelt provides year-round habitat native mammals like the gray squirrel , eastern chipmunk , eastern cottontail , and

676-457: The largemouth bass , bluegill , green sunfish , brown bullhead , black crappie , yellow perch , chain pickerel , as well as several darter species. The native Lenni- Lenape , who inhabited the island centuries before the arrival of the Dutch, reportedly dubbed Staten Island Aquehonga Monocknong or "the place of bad woods" perhaps because of the spirits they believed dwelled there. Then, as today,

728-417: The white-tailed deer . Permanent bird residents include the blue jay , northern cardinal , downy woodpecker, and black-capped chickadee, while northern flickers and other migrants use the Greenbelt as a stopover on seasonal migration routes. Raptors such as Cooper's hawks, redtail hawks, and great horned owls also call the greenbelt home. The waterways are rich in fish life, and such species found here include

780-648: The Clove Road and Bradley Avenue exits, which are referred to as the abandoned bridges. They are a little west of the Petrides School Complex. This abandoned interchange was removed as part of a $ 140 million overhaul of the Expressway. In 1982, 25 acres (10 ha) of city-owned land, which heretofore had belonged to the New York City Farm Colony , were added to the Greenbelt; this tract is located on

832-493: The NYC Parks Department, is a membership organization offering year-round nature-themed events for people of all ages. The Protectors of Pine Oak Woods, a citizen organization committed to the conservation and preservation of remaining natural area on Staten Island has, since the early 1970s, carried on the mission of its predecessor, SIGNAL. Today the "Protectors" continue the tradition of organizing people concerned about

884-568: The Staten Island Improvement Commission, Olmsted made the following proposal for Staten Island: ...it would be a simple plan to form a park … four miles in length … It would occupy a moderately central position and turn to good use a large extent of land … This ridge extends from the Fresh Kills near Richmondtown to Stapleton . But while its altitude is melted away in gentle slopes to the northward…permitting it that quarter

936-570: The acreage of which had originally been a part of Pouch Boy Scout Camp, including Orbach Lake, to the north. With a $ 35,000 grant from the State of New York it was bought from the Boy Scouts and established as Camp High Rock for Girls. For thirteen years, the camp served girl scouts from throughout the five boroughs of New York City. However, in 1964, the Girl scout Council of Greater New York secretly decided to sell

988-568: The area, leading to its being referred to (somewhat jokingly) by such names as Tipperary Corners, New Dublin, and Young Ireland. Egbertville is at the center of the Staten Island Greenbelt , with the park system's administrative offices being located there. Richmond Creek flows through a ravine, named the Egbertville Ravine after the neighborhood, as it skims the eastern base of Lighthouse Hill . The community's main thoroughfare

1040-500: The bay. For most of the 20th century, the shores of Arthur Kill have been home to the largest petroleum importing, refining, and storage facilities on Earth; as a consequence the estuary has been host to major and minor oil spills. In addition, Arthur Kill drains the area encompassing the second largest landfill on Earth ( Fresh Kills Landfill ). This landfill, and others along the Raritan River, provide an ample supply of leachate to

1092-491: The bay. The peak of the fishing industry occurred in the late 1880s to 1910s. Fishing and farming slowly gave way to industries including ship building, ceramics, chemicals and paint manufacturing, electrolytic copper refining, and petroleum refining. In the Keasbey, New Jersey area, large pits were dug to extract the clays for ceramics and bricks, and huge chemical dumps, fly ash piles, and landfills were created to accommodate

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1144-414: The boulder-littered moraines were covered with many species of trees: oak, hickory, maple, beech, as well as lesser quantities of birch, sweet gum, ash, black walnut, wild cherry, and tulip. Below the canopy of this sub-climax forest grew dogwood, ironwood, spicebush, blackberry, wild grape, Virginia creeper, and sassafras, along with royal and cinnamon ferns, skunk cabbage, lady slipper, and trout lilies in

1196-628: The camp to a developer for $ 1 million. Upon learning about this sale, the New York City Parks Department and the State of New York, with the help of the Open Lands Foundation, raised over $ 1.3 million to buy back the land from the developer, thus creating High Rock Park. Then, on November 22, 1965, the Staten Island Citizens Planning Committee (SICPC), which had begun in 1954 as an ad hoc committee of

1248-497: The coast since colonial times. The bay supported a lucrative fishing and shellfish industry during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, especially oysters , which helped to support a stable population around the bay and aided, in part, to feed the flood of immigration. Stable communities continued to grow and change with new industries supporting a larger population base. Advances in methods of fishing and shellfish collecting resulted in overextraction of these resources from

1300-591: The commissioned report with a recommendation stating that the route to the west of what is today the Greenbelt, was the "least social cost corridor." Under duress from developers who were eager to begin building homes adjacent to the roadway, the Greenbelt's erstwhile supporters, Mayor John Lindsay and Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller , publicly backed a compromise route. In response, the two citizen organizations were willing to stop at nothing to preserve what John Mitchell, in one of his writings, referred to as "a fine patch of wild". With their combined memberships behind them,

1352-725: The construction of a sunken boulevard which would have sped traffic through the middle of the famed Washington Square Park, the Joint Committee to Stop the Lower Manhattan Expressway led by Jane Jacobs , defeated him again. In spite of opposition, road work began in 1965 on what became known as "Section 1". In 1966 Volmer Associates were hired by the city of New York to describe alternate routes to Section 1. They were proposed, studied, and debated by New York state and city officials, creating contention and divisions even within these governmental units. While travel distance between

1404-548: The early 1960s, though then- Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority chairman Robert Moses revealed plans for what is now the Korean War Veterans Parkway , a parkway that would connect Brooklyn with New Jersey , traversing the island from the soon to be opened Verrazano-Narrows Bridge on the island's North Shore to the Outerbridge Crossing on the southern shore of Staten Island . This original route of

1456-505: The fish catch and prompted government recommendations against its routine consumption. The bay is crossed by a dredged channel allowing commercial ships to enter the Arthur Kill. Raritan Bay's fish include striped bass , fluke , winter flounder , bluefish , porgy , black sea bass , smoothhound shark , northern puffer , northern king fish , oyster toadfish , tautog and weakfish . The crustacean species represented include

1508-443: The greatest freedom in the location of roads, it descends toward the sea on the south in steep and broken declivities, totally unsuited, not to say impracticable, for roads for rapid travel. Other proposals on behalf of preserving wilderness on Staten Island were put forward in subsequent years. William T. Davis , a naturalist born on the island, believed: The best park is certainly a piece of woodland left as Nature arranged it, with

1560-489: The helm of the SICPC, an all-volunteer organization, were several "off-islanders" – young professionals who had moved to Staten Island's North Shore area in the 1950s largely because of the quality of life promised by the open space that still existed. In addition to Bradford Greene, there were Terrence Benbow and Frank Duffy, both attorneys practicing in Manhattan ; Robert Hagenhofer, a graphic designer; George Pratt, director of

1612-535: The island's bridges was on paramount concern to the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, the City Park Department, led by August Hecksher, commissioned the planning firm Wallace, McHarg, Roberts and Todd. Ian McHarg, a Glasgow born landscape architect, who had stated in his much studied book Design with Nature that engineer road builders were "gouging and scarring the landscape without remorse," headed up

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1664-595: The island's elected officials or residents. The parkway ends at the Greenbelt's southwestern edge, at Richmond Avenue and Arthur Kill Road , near the Fresh Kills Park . Conservation activists, given immediacy by the Federal Highway Act and hope in the person of President John F. Kennedy's Secretary of the Interior, Stewart Udall , mobilized in opposition to these plans. They first saved High Rock Girl Scout Camp,

1716-563: The island's fragile and threatened wilderness via lobbying and naturalist led hikes. A researchable archive of planning, legal, public relations, and other documents related to the Staten Island Greenbelt, its ecology and history, is housed at the library of the College of Staten Island , a campus of the City University of New York. Containing an extensive system of connected trails and covering 2,800 acres (1,100 ha), its forested hills run

1768-576: The landmark study. Having pointed out that a method for displaying and factoring social values into highway design and planning had not been developed, McHarg set about creating just that. Long before GIS technology was available, McHarg used data rich maps and overlays which allowed planners to visually understand how social values – historic, residential, economic, recreational, scenic, ecological factors – synergistically interacted with and potentially impacted upon human activity, including road building. Using map transparencies he and his colleagues produced

1820-564: The length of Staten Island's midsection while wetlands and kettle ponds fill much of the low-lying areas. Four hundred and ten feet above sea level, Todt Hill is the highest elevation south of Maine along the Eastern Seaboard . This and other surface features are the result of glacial activity from the Pleistocene epoch; the metamorphic and igneous rocks below the surface – schist , sandstone, serpentine , magnetite , iron oxide – are

1872-822: The lowstand in sea level caused by the Wisconsin glacier, the Raritan River carved back into its headlands and captured the major drainages from the Newark Basin . As the Wisconsin glaciers melted, the Flandrian Transgression eventually flooded the deeper valleys of the Hudson , Raritan, and Arthur Kill. During warming at the end of the Pleistocene and Early Holocene , the area encompassing Raritan Bay changed from tundra to

1924-401: The margins of a tidal estuary (now submerged by marine waters). Inner Raritan Bay began to fill about 2,500 years ago with large oyster beds forming along the estuarine tributaries. Sea level continued to rise about one foot per century. This rise in sea level has resulted in the landward migration of the shoreline (aided by storm-induced coastal erosion ) as much as two miles in some portions of

1976-684: The nephews of his friend and fellow transcendentalist , Ralph Waldo Emerson . Some years later, landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted , famed for his design of urban parks throughout the U.S., settled for a time on a 130 acres (53 ha) experimental farm overlooking the Raritan Bay, which he called Tosomock Farm. After 10 years, he and his new bride left the island only to return later in his life. After Olmsted left Tosomock Farm, businessman Erastus Wiman bought it, renaming it "The Woods of Arden", which stands today at 4515 Hylan Boulevard , near Woods of Arden. In 1871, in his capacity as consultant to

2028-414: The north side of Rockland Avenue, from Brielle Avenue almost to Forest Hill Road. In 1984, the Staten Island Greenbelt was officially recognized by the city, becoming one of the largest natural areas within the five boroughs of New York City and the second largest park in the city, behind Pelham Bay Park . Explanatory notes Citations Bibliography Egbertville, Staten Island Egbertville

2080-554: The officers of the SICPC and SIGNAL sought injunctive relief in New York State Supreme Court, which meant suing both Lindsay and Rockefeller. The court decision found for the plaintiffs. The citizen planners and conservationists were victorious. The area was earmarked as one of two Special Natural Features Districts in the City of New York, and between 1972 and 1974 the urbanist and architect Peter Verity (now of PDRc) prepared for

2132-516: The proposed "Richmond Parkway" would have bisected the swath of land on whose behalf Olmsted had pleaded including what is today Fresh Kills, William T. Davis Wildlife Refuge , Reed's Basket Willow Swamp, Willowbrook and High Rock Park. The 4.8-mile (7.7 km) parkway route going through the area has been de-mapped despite occasional proposals for its revival due to steadily increasing highway congestion on Staten Island. None of these proposals, however, have received any significant support from either

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2184-472: The proposed (and already mapped) highway route. These two citizen organizations and their combined strategies of lobbying, public relations, and grassroots organizing challenged Robert Moses, who had been thwarted by community efforts only twice before: In 1956, mothers who frequented Manhattan's Central Park with their young children successfully had stopped a proposed parking lot expansion by challenging Moses in court. Two years later, when Robert Moses proposed

2236-462: The region at the close of the Pleistocene . The early "Big Game Hunters" vanished, but the coastal regions were resettled by peoples accustomed to village-style living ("tidewater communities") that subsisted on hunting and gathering marine shellfish, and eventually, on agriculture. In pre-Columbian times "woodlands cultures" probably centered in the Ohio Valley became the dominant cultural influence in

2288-453: The region. Large shell middens were found around Raritan Bay and on Staten Island, a testament of the utilization of the bay for food by Algonquin Indian tribes (Lenapes) who occupied the area when early Colonialists arrived. Early settlers used these shell piles for road construction and field fertilizer. Tottenville was once well known for its roads paved with oyster shells. The Raritan River

2340-507: The result of tectonic activity from the much earlier Paleozoic era and volcanic activity from subsequent geologic eras. The Greenbelt is one of the most biologically diverse places in New York City. It is home to several species of amphibians; such as the eastern redback salamander, the green frog, the American bullfrog , and the grey tree frog; reptiles; such as the eastern garter snake ,

2392-637: The south by the Raritan Bayshore communities in the New Jersey counties of Middlesex and Monmouth , and on the east by Sandy Hook Bay . The bay is named after the Raritans , a branch of the Lenape tribe who lived in the vicinity of the bay and its river for thousands of years, prior to the arrival of Dutch and English colonists in the 17th century. Archeological evidence suggests that humans were already in

2444-503: The topic of land preservation in Albany , the state's capital, Staten Island resident Erastus Wiman stated: [The land is] a wilderness of such beauty pervaded this region that no expenditure could improve upon. During the first half of the 20th century, several proposals for Staten Island parks and parkways were drafted first by the Borough of Staten Island and then by the City of New York. During

2496-503: The waste from the growing industrial empire. The building of shore management structures (dikes, groins, seawalls), the spraying of DDT (and other pesticides ) to control the mosquito problem, the carving of ditches to drain wetlands, the filling of shore lowlands, the channelization of creeks, highway and sewer construction, neighborhood development, and a myriad point and non-point sources of household, automobile, industrial chemicals, and ocean dumping all contributed to growing toxicity of

2548-440: The waterways. Chemical wastes cause stress and disruption of the life cycles of plankton, shellfish and other invertebrates, and the fish, birds, and other wildlife that they support. The result was an ecological disaster. The bay approached sterile conditions at the peak of pollution and algal bloom-induced anoxia. Environmental actions from the 1970s to present have helped slowly bring back sea life, but current conditions pale to

2600-509: The wealth of marine resources of the past; certain species of fish and birds continue to decline, and the introduction of tenacious exotic species from around the world contribute to their decline. As a sign of optimism though, oysters are beginning to naturally reappear in the Hudson River after having vanished completely about the time of World War II . Regional industrial overdevelopment and other pollution factors have raised PCB levels in

2652-476: The wetter areas. Within the oak-mulch enriched soil that has been laid down over millennia, arrowheads have been found. These finds attest to both the Leni-Lenape's subsistence on and unsuccessful defense of their home, which contained the natural resources that made it so attractive to first Dutch and then British colonizers in the 17th and 18th centuries. Its forested hills, strategically located between and above

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2704-707: Was perhaps the major drainage channel along the ice front throughout the Wisconsin glaciation (Stages 1, 2, 3 and 4). Prior to that time the region drained southward across the saddle between the Atlantic Highlands and the Newark Basin into the Delaware River Valley. This saddle area is a very broad flood plain that preserves river terrace gravels ( Pensauken Formation ) from the Sangemon Interglacial State (Stage 5), as well as older Pleistocene fluvial deposits ( Bridgetown Formation ). During

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