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Angie Mangino: Posted on Thursday, April 28, 2011 8:18 PM
Let’s continue Tottenville’s tie to the shoreline by exploring its shipyards. In his book, Tottenville, The Town the Oyster Built, Barnett Shepherd tells of the development of ship repair and shipbuilding thanks to a growing oyster industry. He speaks of Totten’s Shipyard, as well as Rutan, Butler, Sleight, Journeay and Ellis. In the late 1800’s there were eight boatyards in Tottenville with Brown the biggest shipyard, across from Ward’s Point, off Hopping Avenue. The others included Ellis, Rutan, Butler, Sleight, Nass, Tracy, and O’Boyle. After 1900, however, they declined as steel replaced wood in ship construction. World War I brought another massive expansion in shipbuilding to Tottenville, with the most notable shipyard being Cossey. Opened in 1908, this 20-acre plant was the center of Tottenville’s shipbuilding for 22 years until 1930. Its 250 workers built 1,149 boats. As Linda Cutler Hauck from the Tottenville Historical Society shared at the book talk and signing of their book, Tottenville in the Images of America series on March 26 at the Tottenville Branch Library, there is still a ship repair business on Ellis Street today run by John Garner. The book holds a picture of a tugboat under construction at A.C. Brown shipyard, as well as a picture of the last surviving yacht constructed there. The shipyard made repairs for the South Street Seaport of schooners such as the Pioneer, built in 1885 and the Lettie G. Howard, built in 1893 and was the site of restoration of the Pegasus, from the Tug Pegasus Preservation Project. At the South Street Seaport Museum’s site, http://www.seany.org/ you can see the Pioneer and the Lettie G. Howard under the tab for Ships. Learn of the Pegasus Project, complete with pictures of Pegasus in Tottenville from arrival on December 23, 2003 to restoration completion on August 12, 2005, at http://www.tugpegasus.org/shipyard.htm Don’t forget to come back here to share your comments. |
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AngieMangino: Posted on Thursday, April 21, 2011 1:32 PM
Much of Tottenville’s history connects to the shoreline with the Tottenville-Perth Amboy Ferry, the shipyards, and a large oyster fishing trade. Hotels abounded, and the community was a bustling small town. Do you have any memories of the Perth Amboy Ferry? First operated in June 1860 with steamboats, the first true ferryboat was the Maid of Perth, which set sail in 1867. The ferry was a profitable enterprise as an adjunct to the Staten Island Rapid Transit. Even after the Outerbridge Crossing opened in 1928, it continued as a profitable project because of its frequent and reliable service over a period of 81 years. This company’s last ferry, the Charles Galloway, left Pert Amboy for Tottenville on Oct. 16, 1948. Smaller boats provided subsequent ferry service until 1963, when this service between Staten Island and New Jersey ended. What do you think? In these days when we seek to go green and reduce our dependence on cars, would the idea of a ferry from Tottenville to New Jersey interest you? Tottenville was one of Staten Island’s first inhabited towns, once known as a place of hotels and summer homes. Over the years, Tottenville became a quiet, sometimes forgotten, residential area, affectionately known as the town with bars and churches on every corner. Now it is somewhat less quiet, complete with strip malls and at times, what seems like a traffic light on every corner, but our churches are still here, and we still have bars. What is most important, however, is that somehow with all the growth, we continue to hold tightly to the warmth and strong sense of community that has historically been, and will continue to be, our greatest strength. |
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Angie Mangino: Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2011 12:50 AM
Tottenville’s history begins in 1676 with a crown grant by James, Duke of York, to British sea captain Christopher Billop, of 932 acres of land in what is now Tottenville. With a second crown grant in 1687 to “the Manor Bentley,” his land grew to 1630 acres, covering all of Tottenville. Billop built his house, what we know as the Conference House, around 1680, giving it the name Bentley after a ship he had commanded. As for me, I discovered Tottenville in 1978 when my husband and I moved here with our two young sons, both under the age of two. Take a woman from the Bronx, bring her to an apartment on Sanford Street which did not have a sidewalk in front of it at the time, but did have the landlord’s rooster which woke her each morning with its ungodly “cock-a- doodle-doo,” and as you can imagine, I was not initially a happy camper. “What do you mean there’s no Chinese restaurant in Tottenville? No bagel store? No diner? Are those people really riding horses along Amboy Road? Where am I? Are you sure this is part of New York City?” Tottenville, along with the rest of Staten Island, indeed was part of the historic union of the five boroughs in 1898 to form New York City. You could have fooled me! However, we did have a pizza place in 1978 that not only gave me a taste of my past, but became a close tie to my personal history in Tottenville. Remember Antonio’s? I remember Joe Ventura, the owner, one day saving me from a pack of stray dogs who thought my babies might be tasty as I maneuvered their coach carriage on my way to getting pizza with the boys. I remember Joe opening his restaurant early for me on that icy winter day in 1986 as we returned from the cemetery after my mother’s funeral, immediately serving a bottle of wine to us to warm us as his gift of condolence. Most importantly, I remember him as the one who introduced me to the true spirit of Tottenville community that continues to sustain me today. If you told me in 1978 that in 1981 I would be encouraging my husband to buy our own house In Tottenville, and that in 1998 I would begin research to share Tottenville history, I wouldn’t have believed you! However, here I am, in love with this town of Tottenville. When did you discover Tottenville? |
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Angie Mangino: Posted on Thursday, April 07, 2011 12:50 PM
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By Angie Mangino: Posted on Wednesday, April 06, 2011 11:46 PM
In 1998 while researching for the centennial anniversary of Our Lady Help of Christians church, I found a fascinating book stored in reference at the Tottenville Public Library. In 1950 Benjamin Franklin Joline self published a portrait of Tottenville entitled Tottenville in Retrospect. The book’s narrative began in 1668. History came alive for me as I read of the people of Tottenville, recognizing their names from the street names of the town. The only problem I found was that it ended in 1898, the year Staten Island became part of New York City, and the year with which I had wanted to start! Where was the history of the next 100 years? The Council on the Arts and Humanities for Staten Island (COAHSI) awarded a grant in 1999 to continue my research to answer that question and to hold an interactive workshop at Our Lady Help of Christians Auditorium on September 24 of that year. In 2000, the New York Public Library sponsored another workshop at the Tottenville Branch, and in 2002, the N.Y. State Assembly named me a Staten Island Woman in History. The 50 Plus show at the local Community TV station interviewed me about this work and Gabe Pressman’s report on Tottenville on WNBC included reference to my work. Life intervened to put my work on hold, but today, thanks to the work of the Tottenville Historical Society, I find a renewed interest in the history of Tottenville at a time when I have more hours to devote to sharing the deluge of information I had discovered. First, there was Tottenville, The Town the Oyster Built by Barnett Shepherd, which accounts for those 100 missing years, and just recently a book by the Tottenville Historical Society on Tottenville in the Images of America series of Arcadia Publishing. I now see the direction my own book-in-progress is to follow as I write biographical essays on people from Tottenville from my perspective as a Tottenville resident since 1978. Which raised the question, what am I to do with the volume of over ten years of research that will now not be in the book? Thus this blog is born. Come on a journey with me each week to delve into the history of our town and to share your comments to assist me in the direction the sharing of all this information takes. |
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