St George

St. George - Part I

St. George is our Northern tip of Staten Island.  It is probably the best know section to the other boroughs for the simple fact that the Ferry Terminal is there.

The Staten Island Ferry is the third largest tourism attraction in New York City, which is one of the biggest tourism cities in the world.  Do you know how many people that brings to St. George alone each year?  Not as many as you would think, since they all get off the boat and then right back on the next.

If they would step off and into our small section of the greatest city in the world, it would be worth the trip.  For the record, we feel we need to state Staten Island is a part of New York City.  Some people actually do not know this.

There is so much to offer in each of our neighborhoods, and St. George can be one of the more diverse in offerings.  This week, we are just doing our Neighborhood Profile on St. George.  There is lot more to come.

St. George holds one of the more ethnically diverse sections of Staten Island.  In fact, on an Island know for her Italian population, St. George probably has the smallest amount of Italians on the Island.

According to Wikipedia, St. George has the largest section of Irish Americans.  Living right outside of St. George myself, I tend to disagree with that and would venture to guess West and New Brighton are more heavily populated with the Irish.

George Law once owned St. George, and he had control over the waterfront.  Knowing the value of the waterfront property, Eratus Wilman wanted that control and made Law a deal. WIlman told him they would canonize him if he gave us the land.  He did and the area became know as St. George. 

Just for clarification, George Law is not a saint right now, nor will he ever be.  That is not exactly how sainthood works.

St. George has always been a busy section of Staten Island, but it began to decline after the bridge was build and the population of the Island began to shift with a huge influx of visitors and transplants using the new bridge.

In recent years, St. George has begun to rejuvenate herself and she is still a work in process. The ferry terminal is new and the Staten Island Yankees have been in operation since 2001 in St. George.

Much more about St. George and our North Shore to come in future posts…..