“
By the Angel," Jace said, looking the demon up and down. "I knew Greater Demons were meant to be ugly, but no one ever warned me about the smell."
Abbadon opened its mouth and hissed. Inside its mouth were two rows of jagged glass-sharp teeth.
"I'm not sure about this wind and howling darkness business," Jace went on, "smells more like landfill to me. You sure you're not from Staten Island?
”
”
Cassandra Clare (City of Bones (The Mortal Instruments, #1))
“
I'm not so sure about this wind and howling darkness business," Jace went on, "smells more like landfill to me. You sure you're not from Staten Island?
”
”
Cassandra Clare (City of Bones (The Mortal Instruments, #1))
“
Colonel Mickelson looks like he could defend Fort Hamilton by himself if Staten Island ever declared war and invaded...
If Jack Nicholson looked like this when he yelled that Tom Cruise couldn't handle the truth, Cruise would have said, "Yes, you're right, I'm sorry. My bad.
”
”
David Rosenfelt (Dog Tags (Andy Carpenter, #8))
“
Whales are silly once every two years. The young are called short-heads or baby blimps. Many whale romances begin in Baffin's bay and end in Procter and Gamble's factory, Staten Island.
”
”
Will Cuppy (How to Tell Your Friends from the Apes)
“
It was generally agreed that a coffin-size studio on Avenue D was preferable to living in one of the boroughs. Moving from one Brooklyn or Staten Island neighborhood to another was fine, but unless you had children to think about, even the homeless saw it as a step down to leave Manhattan. Customers quitting the island for Astoria or Cobble Hill would claim to welcome the change of pace, saying it would be nice to finally have a garden or live a little closer to the airport. They’d put a good face one it, but one could always detect an underlying sense of defeat. The apartments might be bigger and cheaper in other places, but one could never count on their old circle of friend making the long trip to attend a birthday party. Even Washington Heights was considered a stretch. People referred to it as Upstate New York, though it was right there in Manhattan.
”
”
David Sedaris (Me Talk Pretty One Day)
“
When things get too much for me, I put a wild-flower book and a couple of sandwiches in my pockets and go down to the South Shore of Staten Island and wander around awhile in one of the old cemeteries down there. (Mr Hunter's Grave, 1956)
”
”
Joseph Mitchell
“
Where do you live?” he asks softly.
“Farthest reaches of Staten Island,” I lie.
It’s supposed to be my revenge, but he just says, “Good.”
“Good?”
“Good.”
I frown. “It’s a toll of seventeen dollars, my friend.”
He shrugs.
“One-way, Erik.”
“It’s fine.”
“How is it fine?”
He shrugs again. “At least it’ll take a while to get there.
”
”
Ali Hazelwood (Stuck with You (The STEMinist Novellas, #2))
“
The boys from Staten Island would fill more body bags than Stuyvesant could ever imagine. Mechanics and plumbers had to fight while college students shook indignant fists, fornicated in the fields of Woodstock and sat in.
”
”
Frank McCourt ('Tis)
“
on Staten Island. The
”
”
Jackie Robinson (I Never Had It Made: An Autobiography)
“
IN PHILADELPHIA, the same day as the British landing on Staten Island, July 2, 1776, the Continental Congress, in a momentous decision, voted to “dissolve the connection” with Great Britain. The news reached New York four days later, on July 6, and at once spontaneous celebrations broke out. “The whole choir of our officers . . . went to a public house to testify our joy at the happy news of Independence. We spent the afternoon merrily,” recorded Isaac Bangs. A letter from John Hancock to Washington, as well as the complete text of the Declaration, followed two days later: That our affairs may take a more favorable turn [Hancock wrote], the Congress have judged it necessary to dissolve the connection between Great Britain and the American colonies, and to declare them free and independent states; as you will perceive by the enclosed Declaration, which I am directed to transmit to you, and to request you will have it proclaimed at the head of the army in the way you shall think most proper.
”
”
David McCullough (1776)
“
It was a standard shift, for one thing. Irene Tassenbaum of Manhattan hadn’t driven a standard since she had been Irene Cantora of Staten Island. It was also a stick shift,
”
”
Stephen King (The Dark Tower (The Dark Tower, #7))
“
Here was another item detailing the wrecking of a vessel in ice and snow off Prince’s Bay on Staten Island.
”
”
Theodore Dreiser (Delphi Collected Works of Theodore Dreiser (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Eight Book 25))
“
Maybe that’s why most people never move off Staten Island—they’re terrified of hitting traffic on the way out.
”
”
Colin Jost (A Very Punchable Face)
“
Remember, Staten Island is analogous to and shaped like a uterus.
”
”
Peter Champoux (Gaia Matrix: Arkhom & the Geometries of Destiny in the North American Landscape)
“
Would Giovanni da Verrazano think being eaten by cannibals a reasonable price to pay for having his name attached to a toll bridge between Brooklyn and Staten Island? I suspect not.
”
”
Bill Bryson (Made in America)
“
the colony, enough time to impress the settlers with his abilities, and then returned to Europe; now he was coming back. Not long after his ship, the Sea-Mew, passed through the narrows between Staten Eylandt
”
”
Russell Shorto (The Island at the Center of the World)
“
The reality is: Staten Island is like 90 percent of the country—it’s slow to change, but most of the people are fundamentally good people. They’re just set in their ways. After all, it’s an island. It has its own evolution.
”
”
Colin Jost (A Very Punchable Face)
“
—Ojalá tuviéramos un poco más de tiempo... Me encantaría ir en bici por calles desiertas contigo, gastar cien dólares en un salón recreativo y llevarte a Staten Island en el transbordador para que probaras mis helados preferidos.
”
”
Adam Silvera (They Both Die at the End (Death-Cast, #1))
“
One of my great joys in life was making a movie with Method Man, who told me he would never leave Staten Island because it was the only place in America where he could get pulled over and the cops were actually excited to see him.
”
”
Colin Jost (A Very Punchable Face)
“
s ships Phoenix and Rose, in the company of three tenders, cast off their moorings at Staten Island and started up the harbor under full sail, moving swiftly with the favorable wind and a perfect flood tide. Alarm guns sounded in New York. Soldiers
”
”
David McCullough (1776)
“
Nothing like it had ever been seen in New York. Housetops were covered with “gazers”; all wharves that offered a view were jammed with people. The total British armada now at anchor in a “long, thick cluster” off Staten Island numbered nearly four hundred ships large and small, seventy-three warships, including eight ships of the line, each mounting 50 guns or more. As British officers happily reminded one another, it was the largest fleet ever seen in American waters. In fact, it was the largest expeditionary force of the eighteenth century, the largest, most powerful force ever sent forth from Britain or any nation.
”
”
David McCullough (1776)
“
Shy said It's our music, coming out of our shit towns, it's not from Staten Island or Seattle or Detroit, it's from Walsall and Watford.
Shaun and his mate Andy burst out laughing and Andy did a squeaky voice and said Fwom Wycombe and Weading and... Wochdale and Shy said Fuck off Andy, and Shaun said Argh man, learn to take a joke, yeah?
”
”
Max Porter (Shy)
“
By the Angel,” Jace said, looking the demon up and down. “I knew Greater Demons were meant to be ugly, but no one ever warned me about the smell.” Abbadon opened its mouth and hissed. Inside its mouth were two rows of jagged glass-sharp teeth. “I’m not so sure about this wind and howling darkness business,” Jace went on, “smells more like landfill to me. You sure you’re not from Staten Island?
”
”
Cassandra Clare (City of Bones (The Mortal Instruments, #1))
“
And around her, suddenly, joined and overlapping in a way that somehow does not create paradox or cause pain, are her kin. Bright Manhattan, tall and shining, but with the deepest of shadows between his daggerlike skyscrapers. Jittery, jagged Queens, pan-amorous in her welcome to all, genius in her creative hustle and determination to put down roots. Brooklyn is old, family-solid, a deep-rooted thing of brown stone and marble halls and crumbling tenements, last stop for the true-born of New York before they are forced into the wilderness of, horror of horrors, Long Island. And together, they turn and behold their lost sister at last: Staten Island. She is dim compared to their light, suburban where they are dense, thinly populated in comparison to their teeming millions. There are actually farms somewhere amid her substance. And yet. She bristles with tiny throwing daggers in the shape of ferries, and defensive fortifications built in semi-attached two-family blocks. They can feel the strength and attitude of her, blazing more brightly than any sodium lamp. She is so different, so reluctant… but whether she wants to be or not, and whether the rest of them are willing to admit it or not, she is clearly, truly, New York.
”
”
N.K. Jemisin (The City We Became (Great Cities, #1))
“
Mrs. Daneeka, Doc Daneeka’s wife, was not glad that Doc Daneeka was gone and split the peaceful Staten Island night with woeful shrieks of lamentation when she learned by War Department telegram that her husband had been killed in action. Women came to comfort her, and their husbands paid condolence calls and hoped inwardly that she would soon move to another neighborhood and spare them the obligation of continuous sympathy.
”
”
Joseph Heller (Catch-22)
“
As Ted sat, feeling the evolution of the afternoon, he found himself thinking of Susan. Not the slightly different version of Susan, but Susan herself — his wife — on a day many years ago, before Ted had begun folding up his desire into the tiny shape it had become. On a trip to New York, riding the Staten Island Ferry for fun, because neither one of them had ever done it, Susan turned to him suddenly and said, "Let's make sure it's always like this." And so entwined were their thoughts at that point that Ted knew exactly why she'd said it: not because they'd made love that morning or drunk a bottle of Pouilly-Fuisse at lunch — because she'd felt the passage of time. And then Ted felt it, too, in the leaping brown water, the scudding boats and wind — motion, chaos everywhere — and he'd held Susan's hand and said, "Always. It will always be like this.
”
”
Jennifer Egan
“
And you?'
'Ah. I'm coping.'
He said it simply, but it caused something in my heart to crack a little.
'It's not for ever,' I said, as we stopped.
'I know.'
'And we're going to do loads of fun stuff while you're here.'
'What have you got planned?'
'Um, basically it's You Getting Naked. Followed by supper. Followed by more You Getting Naked. Maybe a walk around Central Park, some corny tourist stuff, like the Staten Island ferry and Times Square, and some shopping in the East Village and some really good food with added You Getting Naked.'
He grinned. 'Do I get You Getting Naked too?'
'Oh, yes, it's a two-for-one deal.' I leant my head against him. 'Seriously, though, I'd love you to come and see where I work. Maybe meet Nathan and Ashok and all the people I go on about. Mr and Mrs Gopnik will be out of town so you probably won't meet them but you'll at least get an idea of it all in your head.
”
”
Jojo Moyes (Still Me (Me Before You, #3))
“
And outside Watts, a dozen more shootings produce a dozen more weeping families that have to struggle stoically through their black grief or that can stand behind microphones and declare their black anger, and the bodies pile higher and higher and higher, and so does the frustration with the impunity 'because,' says the district attorney in St. Louis in Kansas City in Staten Island in Dayton in Gary in Albuquerque in Oakland, 'you can’t indict an algorithm.
”
”
Tochi Onyebuchi (Riot Baby)
“
—Ojalá tuviéramos un poco más de tiempo... Me encantaría ir en bici por calles desiertas contigo, gastar cien dólares en un salón recreativo y llevarte a Staten Island en el transbordador para que probaras mis helados preferidos.
—Me gustaría ir a Jones Beach, correr por la playa y entrar en el agua contigo, hacer tonterías con nuestros amigos bajo la lluvia. Pero también me gustaría disfrutar de noches tranquilas y charlar contigo mientras miramos una película mala.
”
”
Adam Silvera (They Both Die at the End (Death-Cast, #1))
“
I’ve applied to Brentwood every semester since I was a freshman. My mom fought me on it at first, but I think at this point she’s resigned herself to the fact that I’m never going to get in, so she just signs the forms without arguing. I mean, it’s Brentwood, so to get accepted you not only have to dance like you’re in Black Swan and belt out a B over high C like it’s a middle G and cry on cue through a memorized six thousand lines of Shakespeare, but you have to do it all at once, while having a 4.0 and forking over a hundred thousand dollars and giving the admissions director a blow job, apparently, but once you’re in, you’re in, it’s Brentwood then Juilliard then fame and fortune, and even if not, it’s New York City, baby, and the most important part of this equation is Brooklyn Bridge at midnight and tiny dogs in Chelsea and the Staten Island Ferry and that ex-girlfriend (don’t think about that, should I think about that?) and the answer to the goddamn equation is the absolute value of not Nebraska.
”
”
Hannah Moskowitz (Not Otherwise Specified)
“
My first impression of him was that he was free spirited, clever, funny. That proved to be completely inaccurate. We left the party together and walked around for hours, lied to each other about our happy lives, ate pizza at midnight, took the Staten Island Ferry back and forth and watched the sun rise. I gave him my phone number at the dorm. By the time he finally called me, two weeks later, I’d become obsessed with him. He kept me on a long, tight leash for months—expensive meals, the occasional opera or ballet. He took my virginity at a ski lodge in Vermont on Valentine’s Day. It wasn’t a pleasurable experience, but I trusted he knew more about sex than I did, so when he rolled off and said, “That was amazing,” I believed him. He was thirty-three, worked for Fuji Bank at the World Trade Center, wore tailored suits, sent cars to pick me up at my dorm, then the sorority house sophomore year, wined and dined me, and asked for head with no shame in the back of cabs he charged to the company account. I took this as proof of his masculine value. My “sisters” all agreed; he was “suave.” And I was impressed by how much he liked talking about his emotions, something I’d never seen a man do. “My mom’s a pothead now, and that’s why I have this deep sadness.” He took frequent trips to Tokyo for work and to San Francisco to visit his twin sister. I suspected she discouraged him from dating me.
”
”
Ottessa Moshfegh (My Year of Rest and Relaxation)
“
♥ To my daughter Taliah, I just wanted to tell you how proud we are all of you and all the other children of the PS22 Chorus of Staten Island. With your great determination and hard work you all made this day happen, singing at the presidential inauguration. I want you to remember this day for the rest of your life, because it is such an historical day for you, for your school and for our nation. As you sit above the great man below you taking the oath of presidency...remember as a child he had dreams too and the great odds he had to overcome to achieve them . May your dreams take you far in your life and may it all start on this day, at this period of time, at this historical moment in your lives...may you all cherish this moment in your hearts
forever!
”
”
Timothy Pina (Hearts for Haiti: Book of Poetry & Inspiration)
“
Somewhere in the city, an orange cat finished chewing on a marjoram plant next to his studio apartment's door and leapt purring onto the shoulder of his owner, home early from work. Somewhere in the city, a young Chinese pianist sat down at a rehearsal hall and let his fingers play the first opening notes of the Emperor Concerto, notes that would envelop the small girl in row D of the Philharmonic that night in a shimmering cloud. A boy in Staten Island touched his finger to the lower back of the girl who had been just a friend until then. A woman in Hell's Kitchen stood in her dark attic garret, her paintbrush in hand, and stepped back from the painting of chartreuse highway and forest-green sky that had taken her two years to complete. A clerk in a Brooklyn bodega tapped her crimson fingernail on a box of gripe water, reassuring the new mother holding a wailing baby, and the mother's grateful smile almost made both of them cry themselves.
”
”
Stephanie Clifford
“
Officers approached the 43-year-old Garner on July 17 in a high-crime area near the Staten Island Ferry Terminal and accused him of illegally selling untaxed cigarettes—the kind of misdemeanor that Broken Windows policing aims to curb. Garner had already been arrested more than 30 times, mostly for selling loose cigarettes but also for marijuana possession and other offenses. As captured in a cell-phone video, the 350-pound man loudly objected to the charge and broke free when an officer tried to handcuff him. The officer then put his arm around Garner’s neck and pulled him to the ground. Garner repeatedly stated that he couldn’t breathe, and then went eerily stiff and quiet. After a seemingly interminable time on the ground without assistance, Garner was finally put on a stretcher to be taken to an emergency room. He died of cardiac arrest before arriving at the hospital. Garner suffered from severe asthma and diabetes, among other ailments, which contributed to his heart attack.
”
”
Heather Mac Donald (The War on Cops: How the New Attack on Law and Order Makes Everyone Less Safe)
“
Are you chuckling yet? Because then along came you. A big, broad meat eater with brash blond hair and ruddy skin that burns at the beach. A bundle of appetites. A full, boisterous guffaw; a man who tells knock know jokes. Hot dogs - not even East 86th Street bratwurst but mealy, greasy big guts that terrifying pink. Baseball. Gimme caps. Puns and blockbuster movies, raw tap water and six-packs. A fearless, trusting consumer who only reads labels to make sure there are plenty of additives. A fan of the open road with a passion for his pickup who thinks bicycles are for nerds. Fucks hard and talks dirty; a private though unapologetic taste for porn. Mysteries, thrillers, and science fiction; a subscription to National Geographic. Barbecues on the Fourth of July and intentions, in the fullness of time, to take up golf. Delights in crappy snack foods of ever description: Burgles. Curlies. Cheesies. Squigglies - you're laughing - but I don't eat them - anything that looks less like food than packing material and at least six degrees of separation from the farm. Bruce Springsteen, the early albums, cranked up high with the truck window down and your hair flying. Sings along, off-key - how is it possible that I should be endeared by such a tin ear?Beach Boys. Elvis - never lose your roots, did you, loved plain old rock and roll. Bombast. Though not impossibly stodgy; I remember, you took a shine to Pearl Jam, which was exactly when Kevin went off them...(sorry). It just had to be noisy; you hadn't any time for my Elgar, my Leo Kottke, though you made an exception for Aaron Copeland. You wiped your eyes brusquely at Tanglewood, as if to clear gnats, hoping I didn't notice that "Quiet City" made you cry. And ordinary, obvious pleasure: the Bronx Zoo and the botanical gardens, the Coney Island roller coaster, the Staten Island ferry, the Empire State Building. You were the only New Yorker I'd ever met who'd actually taken the ferry to the Statue of Liberty. You dragged me along once, and we were the only tourists on the boat who spoke English. Representational art - Edward Hopper. And my lord, Franklin, a Republican. A belief in a strong defense but otherwise small government and low taxes. Physically, too, you were such a surprise - yourself a strong defense. There were times you were worried that I thought you too heavy, I made so much of your size, though you weighed in a t a pretty standard 165, 170, always battling those five pounds' worth of cheddar widgets that would settle over your belt. But to me you were enormous. So sturdy and solid, so wide, so thick, none of that delicate wristy business of my imaginings. Built like an oak tree, against which I could pitch my pillow and read; mornings, I could curl into the crook of your branches. How luck we are, when we've spared what we think we want! How weary I might have grown of all those silly pots and fussy diets, and how I detest the whine of sitar music!
”
”
Lionel Shriver (We Need to Talk About Kevin)
“
Some grant programs are structured as competitions. New York City’s Industrial Growth Initiative, now in its second year, is a two-stage process that requires businesses to attend a growth workshop and then apply for a more in-depth workshop series covering topics like human resources and marketing. The program culminates with a business plan competition, where participants put what they have learned to work and create expansion plans to guide their next stage of growth. The plans are pitched to an audience of judges and business leaders, and three winners split a $150,000 prize. One recent winner was Eric Campione, chief administrative officer for P.A.C. Plumbing, Heating, & Air Conditioning. Mr. Campione submitted a plan to bring the third-generation family-owned business on Staten Island into the digital age with new technology, such as iPads for field technicians. It is about more than money, though.
”
”
Anonymous
“
Past the projects, the land opened up and water came into view. The breeze carried rain and salt. Jetties and barrier walls supported the shore, which was stacked with crumbling brick warehouses. Out in the channel, the Statue of Liberty stood alone on her little island, her corroding flame held high in the air as the sun set over the industrial shoreline and skyways of New Jersey. Across the narrows, the bluffs of Staten Island wavered in the smoky light of dusk that turned the Verrazano into bronze. Faint light burnished water into busy with freighters and tug boats. A lone sail boat flitted in the distance. On the near shore, on a slip of water between a jetty and the land, a blood red barge bobbed on the tide.
”
”
Andrew Cotto (Outerborough Blues: A Brooklyn Mystery)
“
IT’S INCOMPREHENSIBLE TO ME . . . HOW MILLIONS OF AMERICANS COULD VOTE AGAINST 11 MILLION IMMIGRANT FAMILIES.” HINA NAVEED, COFOUNDER, STATEN ISLAND DREAM COALITION
”
”
Rowan Blanchard (Together We Rise: Behind the Scenes at the Protest Heard Around the World)
“
We live in a world where there are twenty cities with populations over ten million people. The entire population of the American colonies was 2,500,000. Philadelphia, the largest American city, had all of thirty thousand people, a small town by our standards. The same week the Continental Congress voted for independence, the British landed 32,000 troops on Staten Island. In other words, they landed a military force larger than the entire population of our largest city.
”
”
David McCullough (The American Spirit: Who We Are and What We Stand For)
“
We live in a world where there are twenty cities with populations over ten million people. The entire population of the American colonies was 2,500,000. Philadelphia, the largest American city, had all of thirty thousand people, a small town by our standards. The same week the Continental Congress voted for independence, the British landed 32,000 troops on Staten Island. In other words, they landed a military force larger than the entire population of our largest city. When the delegates signed their names to that Declaration, pledging "our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor," those weren't just words. Each was signing his own death warrant. They were declaring themselves traitors.
”
”
David McCullough (The American Spirit: Who We Are and What We Stand For)
“
Venice Painting Contractor Inc.
142 logan av Staten Island NY 10301
347-259-7175
”
”
Venice Painting Contractor Inc.
“
How to become the President of Liberia from “Liberia & Beyond”
In 1973, Charles Taylor enrolled as a student at Bentley University, in Waltham, Massachusetts. A year later Taylor became chairman of the Union of Liberian Associations in America, which he founded on July 4, 1974. The mission of ULAA was meant to advance the just causes of Liberians and Liberia at home and abroad. In 1977 Taylor graduated from Bentley University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics.
Returning to Liberia he supported the violent coup, led by Samuel Doe, and became the Director General of the General Services Agency most likely because of his supposed loyalty. His newly acquired elevated position put him in charge of all the purchases made for the Liberian government. Taylor couldn’t resist the urge of stealing from the till, and in May of 1983, he was found out and fired for embezzling nearly a million dollars in State funds. During this time he transferred his ill-gotten money to a private bank account in the United States. On May 21, 1984, seizing the opportunity, Taylor fled to America where he was soon apprehended and charged with embezzlement by United States Federal Marshals in Somerville, Massachusetts. Taylor was held in the Plymouth, County jail until September 15, 1985, when he escaped with two of his cohorts, by sawing through the steel bars covering a window in his cell. He precariously lowered himself down 20 feet of knotted sheets and then deftly escaped into the nearby woodlands. He most likely had accomplices, since his wife Jewel Taylor conveniently met him with a car, which they then drove to Staten Island in New York City.
”
”
Hank Bracker
“
call me out on my shit. I’m a grown man, but I need a woman that will call me out when I’m wrong. I don’t want a yes woman, Justice. There’s too many of those out there and I don’t want one.
”
”
Jahquel J. (A Staten Island Love Letter 3: The Forgotten Borough (Davis Family, #3))
Denise Kiernan (The Last Castle)
“
That we have given up our control of this issue is evident in the fact that the Black Lives Matter movement began outside of the church. We should have sounded the alarm when Michael Brown (Ferguson, Missouri), Eric Garner (Staten Island, New York), and so many others were killed. We should have been leading the marches and speaking truth to power. But instead, too much of our energy and drive has been misdirected toward materialism, comfort, and convenience. Many of us no longer keep our church building open to provide a safe harbor for our children after school. We are concerned that our building may be torn up. We have shut out the children in our communities who need the influence of God's people and God's Word on their lives. We have become inwardly focused and are not the healing agents we once were. This is part of our confession and we must be broken about it.
”
”
John M. Perkins
“
Staten Island, where the Vanderbilt family—or van
”
”
Denise Kiernan (The Last Castle)
James Patterson (Judge & Jury)
“
However, since my standard uniform is black anyway, I have nothing to worry about in that regard. I’m already wearing black jeans and a black leather jacket. I’ve got a grey t-shirt on underneath, but I figure that will be fine. Instead of heading back to Staten Island, I call Mom and let her know that I’m staying downtown to have dinner with a few of the girls from work. She tries to sound happy for me, but the unmistakable anxiety creeps into her voice when she asks what time I’ll be home. I promise that I’ll be back by midnight, and this time, I pledge to myself to keep that promise. Taylor will understand. She’ll have to
”
”
Marissa Finch (A Friend Like That)
“
Most Americans don’t know that in the 1800s, malaria’s range swept all the way up the Great Plains into North Dakota, or that in 1901, a fifth of the population of Staten Island carried the parasite.
”
”
Carl Zimmer (Parasite Rex: Inside the Bizarre World of Nature's Most Dangerous Creatures)
“
Before visiting Staten Island, I'd never met a day laborer. To me, a city girl who knew undocumented men mostly as restaurant workers, day laborers seemed like an almost mythical archetype, groups of brown men huddled at the crack of dawn on street corners next to truck rental lots and hardware superstores and lumberyards. Historically, legislators and immigration advocates have parted the sea of the undocumented with a splintered staff—working brown men and women on one side and academically achieving young brown people on the other, one a parasitic blight, the other heroic dreamers.
”
”
Karla Cornejo Villavicencio (The Undocumented Americans)
“
I'm attending a monthly meeting at Colectiva Por Fin on my first night on Staten Island. The room is small but as more men come in, it seems to double and triple in size. On the wall, migrants are celebrated through art that strikes me as deeply annoying, mostly the word "migrant" reconfigured as butterflies. I fucking hate thinking of migrants as butterflies. Butterflies can't fuck a bitch up.
”
”
Karla Cornejo Villavicencio (The Undocumented Americans)
“
abolish the widely flaunted requirement that taverns serve food. Once again conventional roles were reversed, as Rockefeller argued for a free market solution and his critics conjured a New York, in the words of conservative Republican lawmaker John Marchi of Staten Island, deregulated into “a wide-open market, a dumping ground for cheap liquor, a paradise for the conniver and the loss-leader advocate.
”
”
Richard Norton Smith (On His Own Terms: A Life of Nelson Rockefeller)
“
Salvation arrived in the person of John Underhill, a hard-drinking, short-tempered Indian fighter renowned for his brutality in the Pequot War of 1637 as well as for a pamphlet extolling the charms of New Netherland. Underhill and a small contingent of New England troops rallied the Dutch over the winter of 1643-44, attacking Indian villages in Connecticut, on Staten Island, and on Long Island, killing hundreds and taking many prisoners. Some of the captives were brought back to the fort, and an eyewitness reported that Kieft “laughed right heartily, rubbing his right arm and laughing out loud” as they were tortured and butchered by his soldiers. The soldiers seized one, “threw him down, and stuck his private parts, which they had cut off, into his mouth while he was still alive, and after that placed him on a mill-stone and beat his head off.” Secretary Van Tienhoven’s mother-in-law allegedly amused herself all the while by kicking the heads of other victims about like footballs. In a later raid on an Indian camp near Pound Ridge in Westcheser, Underhill and the Anglo-Dutch force were said to have slaughtered somewhere between five hundred and seven hundred more with a loss of only fifteen wounded.
”
”
Edwin G. Burrows (Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898)
“
Todt Hill mansion on Staten Island. “Didn’t say. He don’t
”
”
Christopher Smith (Fifth Avenue (Book One in the Fifth Avenue Series): A Gripping Pyschological Thriller with a Stunning Twist!)
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stranded. New Yorkers have learned to cope with life’s worst vicissitudes, and this nil admirari attitude, they say, is one reason why New York considers itself a city of survivors. Only the fittest make it here. The unfit, having tried and failed, go home to Peoria, where they do just fine. The notion that New York is a community of success is perhaps the greatest source of the New Yorker’s immense self-pride. We are not talking here of Harlem, or of the Bronx, or Queens, or Brooklyn or Staten Island. These remain, Rand-McNally notwithstanding, foreign places. New York—the New York that counts—consists only of the lower two thirds of Manhattan Island, and some might limit the New York territory to an even smaller strip
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Stephen Birmingham (Life at the Dakota: New York's Most Unusual Address)
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Calling on Her Lady of Oh again, are you?” “Her lady of…George, where do you devise these things?” “Didn’t you see her face when I confessed I was not one of the Staten Island Knights? It was as if I ceased to exist. And never before in my life have I heard someone manage to contain a world of dismissals, disappointments, and judgments in a single ‘oh.’” He folded his arms over his chest, the very image of stubbornness. Ben loosed a long exhale, though a grin fought to burst forth. “You judge her too harshly.” Now George’s arms flew up. “I? I judge too harshly? Have you bothered to tell her ladyship that she judged me too harshly?” “Her ‘ladyship’ did not judge you at all.” And she hadn’t given him the chance to tell her anything in this past month. Other than exchanging basic civilities, she wouldn’t be budged from Colonel Fairchild’s side whenever they were in company. No need to let George know that, though. His friend leveled an accusing finger at his nose. “Do you know what has happened to you? I shall put it in terms you can understand. You are Odysseus, and she is your siren. You had better lash yourself to your ship, my friend, or face destruction on the rocks of her island. She may look the part of an enchantress, but she has no heart within her, as most anyone will tell you.” “All this wisdom gained from seeing her across a crowded ballroom a few times and exchanging a single greeting. Your intuitiveness astounds me, George.
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Roseanna M. White (Ring of Secrets (The Culper Ring, #1))
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always wanted, but it came with a price. He scanned the oak-paneled room. He had made the office his own. There was an old bookcase he had brought from home filled with law books. Paintings and sketches of the New York Harbor, the Kill Van Kull, and various Staten Island scenes and pictures of his family encircled the walls and usually kept him focused. He
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George R. Hopkins (Random Acts of Malice)
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We found an old paystub in his apartment from the Staten Island Hilton Inn, where he apparently works part-time.
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George R. Hopkins (Random Acts of Malice)
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Peter Minuit Plaza near the Staten Island Ferry terminal. Still, most have no idea that he was the Dutchman who purchased the famous island from the Canarsee band of Indians of the Algonkuin-Delaware Federation in 1626 for $24, beads and chatskas. It would be a story of how a white man got the island for a bargain from the unsuspecting Indian tribe. Details may prove otherwise. A hasty note in a logbook was the only evidence of the sale and the British who came after the Dutch never received official documentation of the transaction; but according to Canarsee legend, there was never a sale. The Indians leased the land to Minuit for $2.40 per year and received an advance payment of twenty-four dollars for the first ten years. Compounded annually at 7.5%, the city of New York owed the Canarsee Indians about seven trillion dollars in back rent.
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K.T. Tomb (Drums Along the Hudson (Quests Unlimited Book 34))
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Staten Island Best for: Views of Manhattan from the ferry What you won’t find: Notable museums, nightlife, hotels, theaters, truly great restaurants, interesting architecture And I’ll again be blunt: Except for the fun and free ferry ride here, there’s no reason a tourist should visit here. Yes, there are a handful of cultural and historic sites, but none that justify the commute.
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Pauline Frommer (Frommer's EasyGuide to New York City 2014 (Easy Guides))
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The government hideout on Staten Island got blowed up.
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Edward W. Robertson (Breakers (Breakers, #1))
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On Staten Island, instead of sewers, an innovative Bluebelt program repurposed the borough’s ponds and creeks as natural drainage corridors for runoff coming from nearby streets, reducing the burden for sewage treatment plants. The
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Sergey Kadinsky (Hidden Waters of New York City: A History and Guide to 101 Forgotten Lakes, Ponds, Creeks, and Streams in the Five Boroughs)
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For Charleston and Rossville residents, the forest around Clay Pit Ponds was an irreplaceable natural area with native and industrial history. In 1951, Parks Commissioner Robert Moses proposed filling in the freshwater wetlands with trash to prepare the land for development. The Federation of Sportsmen and Conservationists, the Staten Island Museum, and the Audubon Society teamed up to save the seven ponds in the preserve, home to herons, ducks, muskrats, and bitterns. “I can’t imagine any park commissioner in the world permitting the dumping of garbage into such beautiful ponds,” said W. Lynn McCracken, chairman of the Park Association of Staten Island.
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Sergey Kadinsky (Hidden Waters of New York City: A History and Guide to 101 Forgotten Lakes, Ponds, Creeks, and Streams in the Five Boroughs)
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The geology of Staten Island is the most complex of the city’s boroughs, containing the terminal moraine of the last ice age, a fault line from 470 million years ago, the southern tail of the Palisades formation, and sediments collected over the millennia.
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Sergey Kadinsky (Hidden Waters of New York City: A History and Guide to 101 Forgotten Lakes, Ponds, Creeks, and Streams in the Five Boroughs)
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There’s this pretension that everything that’s of importance to human beings can be measured,” says Mark D. White, chair of the philosophy department at the College of Staten Island. “This whole trend toward digitizing human life and quantifying it. And if something can be measured, it can also be influenced, manipulated, engineered.
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Anonymous
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was not alone. In 2017 the Puget Sound ferries carried 26,567,061 riders, 92 percent of whom were on the best-known routes, those run by WSF.2 The next most popular ferry system in the nation, the Staten Island Ferry, carried 24,421,745 people that year on one single route, which operates twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year. Across the border, BC Ferries manages the system most similar to WSF. In 2017 its boats carried 21,034,746 people on twenty-five routes to forty-seven ports.
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David B. Williams (Homewaters: A Human and Natural History of Puget Sound)
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Il se nommait bien Garrett Goodrich, docteur en chirurgie oncologique, ancien interne au Medical General Hospital de Boston, médecin attaché au Staten Island Hospital et chef de l’unité de soins palliatifs de cet hôpital.
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Guillaume Musso (Et Après... (French Edition))
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Abner Louima, who this happened to. He had given an interview from a hospital bed, and his face was an open face, a lovely face. And the policeman who had done this to him lived alone with his mother on Staten Island. And I hated that man; I hated the look on his face, with no remorse at all, his face stayed blank.
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Elizabeth Strout (Lucy by the Sea (Amgash, #4))
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Staten Island ferry
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Douglas Preston (Brimstone (Pendergast, #5; Diogenes, #1))
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looking across the bay toward Staten Island.
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Douglas Preston (Brimstone (Pendergast, #5; Diogenes, #1))
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If you need a tent in Staten Island, look no further. Everything Entertainment is synonymous with tenting on the island. Weddings, Picnics, birthdays, store openings, corporate functions. Everything Entertainment has handled it all. Feel secure knowing you have the resources of our warehouse close by as we are based on the island. We have experience in most venues on the island, including the Alice Austen House, Snug Harbor, and Mt. Loretto amongst others.
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Party Rentals Staten Island
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apologies to Staten Island.
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Jeffery Deaver (The Midnight Lock (Lincoln Rhyme #15))
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The ships were anchored about eight miles from here, off Staten Island.
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Lauren Tarshis (I Survived the American Revolution, 1776 (I Survived #15))
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Bildt,” the little Dutch farming village from which his ancestors had emigrated to Staten Island, and “more,” an Old English word for “rolling uplands.
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Robert Wernick (Vanderbilt's Biltmore)
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Ah,” replied Shorenstein, “you’re worried? Listen. Did you ever go down to the wharf to see the Staten Island Ferry come in? You ever watch it, and look down in the water at all those chewing-gum wrappers, and the banana peels and the garbage? When the ferryboat comes into the wharf, automatically it pulls all the garbage in too. The name of your ferryboat is Franklin D. Roosevelt—stop worrying!” The Shorenstein rule no longer has quite the strength it had a generation ago, for Americans, with increasing education and sophistication, split their tickets; more and more they are reluctant to follow the leader. Politicians, of course, still look for a strong leader of the ticket; yet when they cannot find such a man, when it is they who must carry the President in an election rather than vice versa, they want someone who will be a good effective President, a strong executive, one who will keep the country running smoothly and prosperously while they milk it from underneath. In talking to some of the hard-rock, old-style politicians in New York about war and peace, I have found them intensely interested in war and peace for two reasons. The first is that the draft is a bother to them in their districts (“Always making trouble with mothers and families”); and the second is that it has sunk in on them that if an H-bomb lands on New York City (which they know to be Target A), it will be bad for business, bad for politics, bad for the machine. The machine cannot operate in atomic rubble. In the most primitive way they do not want H-bombs to fall on New York City—it would wipe out their crowd along with all the rest. They want a strong President, who will keep a strong government, a strong defense, and deal with them as barons in their own baronies. They believe in letting the President handle war and peace, inflation and deflation, France, China, India and foreign affairs (but not Israel, Ireland, Italy or, nowadays, Africa), so long as the President lets them handle their own wards and the local patronage.
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Theodore H. White (The Making of the President 1960: The Landmark Political Series)
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Robert Wilmott was responsible for no small part of the Morro Castle’s success. Passengers frequently made sure that he was still in command of the ship before buying a ticket. He was the perfect ship’s captain for passengers who had never been on anything bigger than the ferryboat to Staten Island.
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Gordon Thomas (Shipwreck: The Strange Fate of the Morro Castle)
Rosalie Zuckerman (The End of Bliss)
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He’s not our man. He had a plane ticket showing he was out of town during the Staten Island shooting, and he was at a group therapy session the night before yesterday, when Glossner was shot in Manhattan.
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James Patterson (Crosshairs (Michael Bennett, #16))
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Todt Hill mansion on Staten Island. “Didn’t say. He
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Christopher Smith (Fifth Avenue (Book One in the Fifth Avenue Series): A Gripping Pyschological Thriller with a Stunning Twist!)
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in Staten Island and
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Rosalie Zuckerman (The End of Bliss)
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Staten Island to New York City
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Rosalie Zuckerman (The End of Bliss)
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Staten Island Advance
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Rosalie Zuckerman (The End of Bliss)
Marianna Randazzo (Given Away, A Sicilian Upbringing)
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Discussion Questions 1. An institution for people with disabilities, the Willowbrook State School opened in 1947 on Staten Island, New York, and remained in operation until 1987. Despite having a maximum capacity of 4,000 people, by 1965 it housed over 6,000 intellectually and physically disabled children and adults, becoming the largest state-run mental institution of its kind in the United States. Due to staff and money shortages, there was only one nurse per ward, one or two attendants per 35 to 125 residents, and more than 200 residents living in houses built for fewer than 100. An estimated 12,000 residents died at Willowbrook from 1950 to 1980, approximately 400 a year, due to neglect, violence, lack of nutrition, and medical mismanagement or experimentation. What was your awareness of Willowbrook State School before reading The Lost Girls of
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Ellen Marie Wiseman (The Lost Girls of Willowbrook)
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You sound like Olive Oyl working the Piercing Pagoda at the Staten Island Mall.
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Claire Jiménez (What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez)
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Wagner College on Staten Island
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Chuck Cascio (The Fire Escape Stories, Volume I)
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Before Irene was a fiancée, she had set out from Staten Island for Washington, DC, the story went, “to find herself.” In a family whose eldest aunt was famous for being the first white woman up the Amazon, there was room for such things.
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Luis Alberto Urrea (Good Night, Irene)
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Nowadays, Staten Island teenagers are glued to smartphones and huddled in cool, dark hideouts, like albino bats
Nowadays, if no one's posted it online, it's not real
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Marc Arginteanu (Azazel’s Public House)
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A mom in Staten Island, a fairly conservative part of New York City, told me her second grader’s class read a book about whether an avocado is a fruit or a vegetable and told the kids they can be anything they want to be as well. While in the past this kind of conversation may lead to a child imagining themselves as an astronaut or a firefighter, in our current era, this led directly to what gender the child identifies with and how he or she wishes to be perceived by the class. Thus, a seven-year-old is being conditioned to the idea that his or her birth gender might be temporary and can be switched up at any time.
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Bethany Mandel (Stolen Youth: How Radicals Are Erasing Innocence and Indoctrinating a Generation)
Dean King (Titanic...The Sinking of the Unsinkable: The Terrible Truth Behind the Tragedy that Shocked the World)
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We have a friend who used to commute by ferry between Staten Island and Manhattan, in New York City. The trip took nearly half an hour and could have been a frustration in a busy day. But this man, David Wilkerson, used the time on the boat for prayer in tongues. He would start off by thinking of all the things he had to be thankful for. In a reversal of Bob Morris's sequence, he would review them one by one in his mind, in English, praising God for each one.
Bit by bit, inside him, he would feel a mounting sense of joy. He was conscious of being loved, being taken care of. He began to glimpse pattern and design in all that was happening to him. And suddenly, in trying to express his gratitude, he would reach a language barrier. English could no longer express what he felt. It was simply inadequate for the Being that he perceived. It was at this point that he would burst through into communication that was not limited by vocabulary. His spirit as well as his mind would start to praise God.
Inevitably, by the time David reached the Manhattan pier, a transformation had taken place. He was built up in body and in spirit. He felt emboldened, ready to tackle impossible tasks, invigorated and refreshed, ready to meet whatever the day had to offer. And this was often important, for David Wilkerson is a youth worker among street gangs in the New York slums--a job that brings him into contact with teenage dope addicts, child prostitutes, young killers and some of the most discouraging and intractable problems in the world today.
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John Sherrill (They Speak with Other Tongues: A Skeptic Investigates This Life-Changing Gift)
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Home of the Staten Island Yankees,
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Dima Zales (Sleight of Fantasy (Sasha Urban, #4))
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As we got closer to Staten Island and the tip of Manhattan, the sun hung behind the dense wll of skyscrapers that defines the Manhattan skyline. Within minutes, the sun was a gigantic orangish-pink orb suspended over Gotham. I couldn't take my eyes off the scene, but there was nowhere to stop the bike for a photo. It was one of those moments seared into my consciousness for all eternity. The realization that I was riding out of the darkness and into the light of a new day ran through my head as I kept my eyes on that glorious sunrise.
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Debi Tolbert Duggar (Riding Soul-O)
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Staten Island Advance
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Andrew Gross (Everything to Lose)
Jeremy Dronfield (The Boy Who Followed His Father into Auschwitz: A True Story of Family and Survival)
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Alfred Hanna had slipped into the mayor’s office by the thinnest of margins. Every cop in the city used the term LFP, for little fat prick, to refer to him. I had even heard LFP used on the radio. Since his election, he had managed to piss off virtually all city workers, the Puerto Rican population, Staten Island residents, and even tourists, when he’d referred to a group from Arkansas touring City Hall as “a bunch of rednecks.” Nothing anyone else in the city wouldn’t have said. But the mayor was held to a higher standard. Barely. In short, Alfred Hanna was a true New Yorker.
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James Patterson (Blindside (Michael Bennett #12))
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They’ve literally tried to secede from New York City and form their own city or join New Jersey. In June 1989, the New York State legislature gave Staten Island residents the right to decide on secession, and in November 1993, 65 percent of voters voted yes. Governor Mario Cuomo insisted that the referendum be approved by the state legislature, where it was defeated,
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Karla Cornejo Villavicencio (The Undocumented Americans (One World Essentials))
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By 1640, the Dutch had spread out from Manhattan and established new settlements on Staten Island, Long Island, and in the Bronx, which was named for Jonas Bronck after he settled there in 1639. They also settled in what is now Westchester County
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Charles River Editors (Colonial New York City: The History of the City under British Control before the American Revolution)
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Yes, Staten Island is the most Italian county in all of the United States, beating out even Meatball, Indiana. But the beauty of Staten Island is that anyone who lives there long enough, regardless of ethnicity, just becomes Italian.
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Colin Jost (A Very Punchable Face)
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Every public golf course on Staten Island has a secret alter ego.
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Colin Jost (A Very Punchable Face)