Staten Island – Bradley's Old Fashioned Weblog

This is a really nice spot to sit and relax on Fort Hamilton, despite the cars going by on the highway below. There’s fresh air and you can actually smell trees, the grass, and the soil. That alone is a nice change from most of New York. If I lived anywhere nearby, I’d spend more time there just to relax. Another bonus is that because it’s in a controlled access area, you don’t have to worry about the regular parade of New York City lunatics walking up on you when you’re just trying to unwind.

The body of water shown in the image above and video below is The Narrows on the right and Lower New York Bay on the left. The bridge is the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge and is the only crossing between Staten Island and the rest of New York City. There are other bridges that go to the island, but they leave you in New Jersey. Alternatively, there’s a ferry service that takes you to the Financial District in Manhattan, but it’s time consuming. The lack of fast access is one of the reasons Staten Island is so underpopulated compared to the other four boroughs of New York City and, as a result, the island’s culture more closely resembles that of rural New York and New Jersey.

View this on YouTube and set the quality to 4K:

iPhone 16 Pro Max 4k 60 FPS Apple ProRes Sample. Video captured Friday, October 25th. The video was recorded directly to an SSK 1 TB external drive and uploaded with no post processing.

I decided to create this video using a new TODI 63″ Phone Tripod (Amazon affiliate link) that I picked up. I like how compact and portable the tripod is. The way it folds up, I can keep it in my backpack, meaning I can take it with me on walks around the city and pull it out when I see something interesting. My only concern about it was that it was a little wobbly in the strong, constant breezes coming off the ocean on The Bluff, but it didn’t tip over. It just made me a little nervous. I kind of wish there were flat, protruding feet on the bottom that I could stand on to anchor it better. For what it is and costs, though, it worked very well and the iPhone’s software was able to compensate for the slight wobbling so I wound up with a great video.

Guyon-Lake-Tysen House c. 1740 with kitchen addition in 1820s.

Before this month I’d never heard of Historic Richmond Town on Staten Island. The place isn’t heavily advertised and the carpenter in the recreated shop there told us that he wasn’t surprised, because a lot of people that live there in Staten Island have never heard of the place either. You almost wouldn’t know it was there if you rode by on the bus or in in a car. Maybe that says more about the quality of buildings on Staten Island in general than it does about the site, though, that it’s hard to tell buildings that are almost 300 years old apart from the rest of what Staten Island has to offer.

Getting to Richmond Town from Upper Manhattan was a little bit of a struggle. The A train kept stopping in the tunnel and then went local below 59th Street. I know they’ve been doing some construction on the tunnels during the week, at night, but it would be nice if the city could keep the trains running on time when they’re not doing work on the tracks, otherwise what’s the point of the new construction schedule the city pushed? The ferry ride was nice, at least. I always enjoy the views of the city from the boat. The bus ride from the ferry to the town was about 25 minutes, which isn’t too bad.

When we got to Richmond Town we were afraid it was closed because the place was so quiet and empty. I guessed that it was because this is Memorial Day weekend and most people probably stayed home to relax or went out of town for barbecues. When we got to the ticket counter in the gift shop, the clerk there said that Memorial Day weekend is usually really quiet and cited the same reasons I suggested. I didn’t really care that the place was empty of people. Getting away from the crowds in New York City, seeing some trees, grass, fresh air and open spaces was just fine with me.

The fact that most of the buildings were closed was a problem, though. No one there was in costume. When we went on the 3:30 tour, our guide used a set of keys to open up each building we went into and had to take time to open the shutters so there would be light inside. She kept mentioning that the buildings saw regular, period-style use during the week. I wonder who has time to go out there during the week? I’m going to have to do some research and make some phone calls to find out if we can go back on another weekend and see the place completely up and running.

That being said, the tour was really good and our guide knew quite a bit about the houses she was showing us. She was also ready to answer random questions about the facilities and other buildings we were walking by. I was not disappointed at all. It was a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Here are some of my favorite photos from the place: