The forgotten borough : Staten Island and the subway

Author / Creator

Gold, Kenneth M. (Kenneth Mark), 1966- author

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Online

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Summary

"Why is Staten Island distinct among the boroughs? Since the incorporation at the beginning of the twentieth century, it has been called the "Forgotten Borough." For its inhabitants, the phrase sug...

"Why is Staten Island distinct among the boroughs? Since the incorporation at the beginning of the twentieth century, it has been called the "Forgotten Borough." For its inhabitants, the phrase suggests its perceived neglect by city officials, coupled with a resentment for being remembered to its detriment as a site for illness and refuse. Other New Yorkers employed the label to reflect the social and cultural differences and physical distance between Manhattan and Staten Island. It is forgotten because it is neither relatively near nor like the other four boroughs. At the heart of this book by historian Kenneth Gold is why and how Staten Island evolved differently from the other boroughs, and why it was forgotten. The answer is grounded in transportation developments. Gold argues that Staten Island's failure to become linked to the New York City subway system was an omission crucial to forging its growth and identity as the "other" borough of New York. The Forgotten Borough explores Staten Island's relationship with New York City, beginning when it contemplated joining in 1890 to when it finally was connected to the city with the opening of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in 1964. It conveys how these two fundamental characteristics of Staten Island-difference and distance-are historically interwoven and determined. It is far too easy to essentialize the borough's otherness when for much of its pre-twentieth century history Staten Island mirrored its neighboring boroughs-from its burgeoning industry to its immigrant population. But when Staten Islanders decided to become a part of Greater New York, they discovered that boroughhood did not quite lead to the benefits-particularly in transportation-that its boosters envisioned. After 1900, the borough's relative distance from its neighbors grew as the subway system bound together Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens. The central thesis of this book is that those two factors shaped its subsequent development and identity so that by 1964 Staten Island generally appeared distinct from the four other boroughs for being whiter, wealthier, less populated, and more politically conservative"--

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