Hike #824; Staten Island East

Hike #824; Staten Island East

1/19/15 Staten Island East with Jack Lowry, Jen Berndt, Serious Sean Dougherty, David "Captain Soup" Campbell, Rob Creamer, and Marcus Simons.

Group shot on Staten Island Greenbelt Blue!

Our next hike would be a point to point in Staten Island, covering more of the Staten Island Greenbelt as well as more of the perimeter of the island, which we've done in a few other sections in the past. I had off work for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and so I took the opportunity to post a hike.

I laid out a route that would begin where we left off near Fort Wadsworth near the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, then head along the waterfront north to the Staten Island Ferry terminal, where we'd left off on another hike. From there, we'd make our way south back across the island, partially on the Staten Island Greenbelt. Public transportation would bring us back toward our starting point.

We met at Arthur Von Briesen Park, and parked our cars on street nearby in case the park closed before we came back. The theme for this hike was very seriously intended to be diversity, but also very tongue in cheek. I thought it would be appropriate to do something very diverse on Martin Luther King's birthday, to visit a multi cultural place and to cover a route that was equally as diverse, but also because it was a sort of funny premise. Staten Island was certainly the perfect melting pot for such a themed hike, and we've always had some great laughs while hiking it, but also found great surprises. The hikes have always been not at all what people tend to think when they hear of a hike on Staten Island. Jack carried his guitar on past ones singing "Where have all the jerk-offs gone" to the tune of the famous Peter, Paul, and Mary song, because we'd met so many friendly people and hiked such nice places. Jack grew up on Staten Island, and so he would know it better than the rest of us.

Verrazano Narrows Bridge from Arthur Von Briesen Park

This hike would be no exception; we'd have an awesome experience hiking sections we had never done before of both the perimeter of the island and the greenbelt areas within, meeting even more interesting people. I believe this would be our fifth hike on Staten Island.

We started walking the paved pathways into Arthur Von Briesen Park, a city park with some nice big trees in it. We had finished one of the Staten Island hikes here in the past, having walked the greenbelt to the beach on the south side and headed to the east side. We'd continue to follow the perimeter of the island to the north.

There were great views of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge from the edge of the park, and we could see down to the old Fort Wadsworth (another butt of jokes in the past, ie Jerk-wadsworth, etc). We walked along the top of the slope to the southeast side of the park.

Descending from Von Briesen

At this edge, we stepped over the guard rails and made our way to the chain link fence down the slope. There are ropes secured to the fence which guide us down to the waterfront. We used this route to get up the hill on a past hike. A Mexican fisherman below pointed out this hidden route to us before, so I wanted to use it again to get to where we had left off.

Once at the bottom of the steep descent, we had more great views of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge and of Fort Wadsworth, as well as of Brooklyn and Manhattan. We began following the rocky waterfront north. There were bits of beach, but mostly big slippery stones and lots of garbage strewn about, of all sorts. We were far below most of the houses for a while, until we got to one apartment complex where we had to climb up some rocks and onto a platform in front of it. There was no way to continue on the waterfront without getting soaked, so we made our way toward the building and scaled a small concrete wall, then descended to another parking area to make our way inland a bit. We took Cliff Street to Nautilus Street inland a bit from here, then turned right on Bay Street. Jack didn't bring his guitar this time, but Sean did, and so he was playing fun stuff most the entire time. He had been playing some odd Super Mario Bros. video game music as of late, and then we came upon a deli which had a trippy painting of a melting Mario colored in stars and stripes on the side of a Gourmet deli. We decided to stop in the deli and get some food and drinks.

Serious Sean playing convenience store chords

While in the store, Jack stepped out to take a phone call and Sean was playing some chords. The store's owner randomly asked if any of us knew the Oud. Ironically, Jack plays the Oud in his Mediterranean fusion band Gypsy Funk Squad. I called him back in to talk to the guy about it. He was ecstatic to hear Jack liked the Oud, and started pulling up videos on his phone of his favorite Oud music and musicians. We chatted for a while,a nd when Jack mentioned that there are belly dancers involved in his group, the guy changed his tune, stating that he likes belly dancers but that "YOU HAVE TO FEEEL THE MUSIC, FEEL THE OUD!!!". His dissatisfaction with the concept of belly dancing to this music seemed to be like some sort of sacrilege. This was sort of comical to the rest of us, and it seemed like the guy didn't want us to leave! We eventually got out of there and continued north on Bay Street past a church.

We hung a right on New Lane, then a right on Scarboro Ave which turned into Andrease Street. At the end of this street there was a path to the right, around a fence and into a bit of Alice Austen Park. We turned right, then left in an undeveloped swath to reach a walkway along the waterfront, which was not nearly as steep at this point.

To the left of us, up the hill, was the historic Alice Austen House.

Historic Alice Austen House

Alice Austen was one of the first successful female photographers, who captured many famous photographs of upper middle class New Yorkers, over 8,000 images, beginning in 1884. The house is now a museum and education area focusing on art and photography.

Alice Austen House

The house itself is quite interesting as well, having been built between 1698 and the first few years of the 1700s. The building retains an historic look for certain, though Austen's grandfather, who acquired it in the 1800s made several additions and changes.

We continued on the waterfront heading north, now on a paved path. A bit of it was now closed, but we walked immediately parallel on Edgewater Street. Jack said something about how this was supposed to end up as a sort of coast guard base but it never happened. He hadn't been to this part of the island in years, but he always has some interesting tidbits to tell us about. We turned right on Edgewater Drive, after passing an old "Richmond Ice Company" building. The days of ice houses are long past, so this building must be pretty old. There were other older businesses along the side of the road as we walked, and then on the water were lots of footings for long gone docks. We also passed a railroad with some old cabooses in it, and then an old looking hospital building with chain link and razor wire around it in the Clifton section.

As we walked the waterfront, new buildings were being put up, and the entire framework was still, no wood used at all. I figure it must be to protect against storms, but I've never seen anything put together quite like that save for skyscrapers in Manhattan. It seemed out of place in Staten Island, even though it is one of the five boros.

Bad shape parking lot

We wandered along ruined parking areas, still a mess following the storm Sandy, and continued on Murray Hulbert Ave and Bay Street Landing. More piers were collapsing into the river at some points, but we got to where there was a newly developed public one with some great views of Manhattan. It had a sort of box thing on it, and other random items.

At the end was a compass in the middle of the pavement. From it, there were arrows pointing off in different directions, noting where different places were and how far away. Among them were Boston Light, Massachusetts, 190 miles, Reef Light NY, 1 mile, Little Rd Lighthouse under the GW Bridge, 13 miles, and plenty more in all directions including Florida, which seemed to point so far inland.

Manhattan from SI Ferry area

We made our way off of the dock and toward the Staten Island Ferry terminal at St. George section.

Coast Guard Administration building at St. George

We had to turn to the left into an area of former coast guard buildings as we headed toward the ferry terminal. Among them was the beautiful commanding structure that served as the administration building, designed by famous designer Mullet and opened in 1869. The building and all adjacent buildings are fenced off and boarded shut, but at least haven't been demolished. We continued past these buildings to a sort of tower with a light on it, but we couldn't go up.

Mullet designed Admin building for St. George coast guard.

I didn't realize it at the time, but this was an historic coast guard location, having been in operation since about 1778. The site was where many light house fixtures were invented, and so the light house tower we saw is probably some sort of an homage to the light house history there.

We made a right corner and headed toward the terminal. There was a guard guy there who directed us on how to get through. On the last Staten Island hike we'd done, we took the ferry to Manhattan to finish the hike, and so I wanted to connect with this point before heading inland. I also decided we'd retrace some of our steps from that hike for the most scenic portion of the island's north side.

Serious Sean with an all too serious Ferry guitarist!

We stopped for some food and drinks at the ferry terminal. While there, Sean was playing some guitar. I was singing along, he'd figured out the chords to Don McLean's "Vincent (Starry Starry Night)", and a short black man with a thick African accent and a worn looking wooden guitar came up and started playing along. He started playing a song he knew and sang along, and Sean started following his chords which was pretty cool. He went into another song, which wasn't as good as his first one, and Sean started playing his guitar with his teeth to be funny. The other guitarist's level of dismay was such that he dropped to his knees, put his hands on his head and said "NOOO, you're going to break the strings!!!", pleading with Sean to stop! The guy actually got sort of pissed off at how Sean was playing his own guitar! The man calmed down and was friendly once again, but left me feeling sort of mystified as to how someone could get upset over something so silly. It was sort of similar to the guy getting upset about belly dancing to the Oud. Apparently you do NOT belly dance to the Oud, and you do NOT play guitar with your teeth!

We continued out to the waterfront, again with more direction from some of the ferry terminal workers, then continued heading west along the waterfront. We had some great views of Manhattan as well as Bayonne, and the ships passing by in the Kill Van Kull. The old Staten Island Railraod abandonment was just to the left of the road we were paralleling to the left. When we reached Jersey Avenue, we turned left and followed it, then right on a side street to a left on York Ave.

We turned right on Prospect Ave, then turned left into some woods behind the Skyline Playground. A nice foot path led through this park and out to Van Tuyl Street's dead end, but that's not where we wanted to be. We went back up hill and tried to take an upper route, but it wasn't going to work. We took Arnold Street barely west to a left turn on Franklin Ave. A foot path led into the woods from the dead end with high grasses on either side of a meadow, some saplings, and some metal fence on either side of the trail to designate a route.

View in Jones Woods Park

This was known as Jones Woods Park. We soon had a nice view of the surrounding neighborhoods off to the left.Some people by a garage down below us waved hello at us up on the hill. We went down hill a bit on the trail, which led to a flat area with wide, worn paths. We turned left here and found an abandoned paved road. We followed that to the right which gradually took us down hill to the corner of Brighton Ave and Lafayette Ave. We turned left on Brighton Ave, then right on Glen Ave  heading up hill, then went straight through an intersection and hard right onto Duer Lane. This led out to Silver Lake Park, with paved trails directly across the street.

Sean and Jack traded off on guitar and Jack played some happy stuff while we walked near Silver Lake, by a large stone causeway over the middle and with lots of nice views.

Silver Lake Park

We headed to the southwest side of the lake, then headed up to the golf course restaurant building to use the restrooms. Jen forgot her phone here, and we moved on not realizing it, down Victory Boulevard. We continued to Clove Road and stopped at a good pizza place here for lunch. I felt totally stuffed after this. We moved on from that point into the south side of Clove Lakes Park. My plan was to continue to the Staten Island Greenbelt Blue Trail. We made our way up hill and to the right, north through the park on the west side of the lake until we found the trail. It was at that point Jen realized she'd forgotten her phone. Captain Soup offered to go back and try to help her find it. Just as they were leaving, I got a call on my phone. Someone checked her phone and I was the last number she'd called in the morning, so we knew it was at the golf course. They headed back and I came up with an easy spot for them to meet us, by cutting a corner of the Greenbelt.

We headed along the blue trail, which was tough to find because blazes could be so obscure at times.

SI Greenbelt Blue Trail mess

Further, there were still trees down from the first time I'd hiked this section with Jack a few years ago. The thing was still marked well enough, but we had to literally climb through the trees and fight back some of the bad brush that had grown over the way. The trail eventually became clearer and we headed down hill to reach the ball field on the corner of Royal Oak Road and Victory Blvd. The trail continues straight across on Little Clove Road.

The trail used to be so much better here, climbing up to abandoned overpasses over Staten Island Expressway, part of what was to be the interchange with the Robert Moses planned Richmond Expresseway. The Staten Island Greenbelt for the most part follows swaths of land that were intended to become this superhighway infrastructure, but the plan was shelved and it all became the greenbelt.

Unfortunately, Jack told me over a year ago when they'd torn out the old overpasses. The trail route now must go to the east a bit more to pass beneath the nearest road underpass of the SI Expressway. We continued on Little Clove Road out to Renwick Avenue where we'd meet back up with Captain Soup and Jen.

From this point Jack had to leave us for a previous engagement, and the rest of us continued on along the new trail route, beneath the expressway, left on Milford Road, then right up hill on Ocean Terrace. We turned right on Staten Island Blvd and followed it to the dead end to Deere Park, where the Greenbelt Blue Trail now goes into the woods. This used to be the "Blue X" trail, a simple neighborhood connector, but was now the main trail. It still had the blue x marks on white blazes as well as the regular 2x3 blue markers. We kept to the right, as the blue x trail splits off and a footpath goes left as part of a lollipop loop. We soon reached the abandoned grading for the Richmond Expressway and turned left, following both blue paint and blue plastic DEC discs.

The trail is always a nice one for me; I love passing through these woods and feeling a sense of remoteness right on Staten Island. We crossed the intersection of Todt Hill Road and made our way into the boy scout Pouch camp. Jack had attended camp here years ago, as well as our other friend Al MacLennan. There was a wood teepee type thing built along the trail we checked out along the way.

We passed the pavilion, and along the backs of some development houses. The Staten Island Greenbelt yellow trail intersected a couple of times, but we didn't follow that one this time. We continued along until we came to the great overlook at the west side of the Richmond County Country Club

Richmond country club view on SI Greenbelt

We met two women there who were out for a hike too, and chatted with them for a bit. I was surprised and upset to see that the giant wooden observation platform that had been here in the past was now gone. The women told us that it was destroyed during Sandy. It had been replaced with only a simple park bench, which didn't offer as high a view as the old platform did.

We continued on along the trail, and the two women joined us for part of it. We followed the blue trail accurately, but they apparently knew a couple of quicker routes than that, because after we got ahead of them they were somehow caught up immediately. The trail was wetter than I'd seen it before, but not impassable. Just slippery.

We headed around Stump Pond, then through High Rock Park. There are a lot of buildings and an access road the trail follows through here. It was going to get dark pretty soon, so we moved along rather quickly. I think the trail crossed Rockland Ave after coming out the end of Tonkling Road. The greenway became narrower, and we turned left, heading south on the Greenbelt White Trail from here. It took us across Richmond Road, sort of at an angle, and then through the narrow swath to the south to Clarke Ave. The trail turned left here, then back into the woods to the right from Savoy Street. It was getting pretty dark by this point. We passed beneath the Staten Island Railroad bridge, passed through some more wet areas, came out on the corner of Currie Ave and then right back into the woods for the last stretch to the south, to Hylan Blvd, where the white trail connects to Great Kills Park. The bus stop was directly across the street from the trail head.

Everyone was totally surprised that we just emerged from the woods directly to the bus stop. I suppose it is probably one of the most abrupt and surprise endings to a hike we could ever have.

Hylan Ave end of the white trail

I didn't realize that we'd needed to have exact change for the buses, and fortunately Marcus came to our rescue with his ability to put up to four people on his Metrocard for one ride. He covered the price for that, which wasn't enough for everyone, but fortunately the bus driver let us all go anyway without everyone paying.

The bus was rather crazy; it moved along fast and the large windows which made up most of the sides made it feel unsafe and out of control even though it was not. We only had to wait maybe fifteen minutes for the bus, which was very convenient.

It dropped us off not too far from where we were parked; a short walk down the street led us there. Rob's car was dead when we'd arrived, but we didn't realize it. I got a call that he had a problem after I'd already left, so had to go back to help out. It wasn't too bad and I was able to get him jumped. We stopped for some food in the Amboy area to finish off the day.

And so ended another lovely experience on the oft misconceived Island of Staten.