Serves the Staten Island Ferry, MTA's SIRailroad and most "S" bus lines. Ferries travel 24/7 to Whitehall Terminal in Lower Manhattan. In recent years ferry service was improved but during the pandemic is drastically reduced to hourly service. Completely renovated in the 2000s, the terminal's beautiful modern design is enhanced by a crown reflecting the Statue of Liberty. This view shows the old B\&O Railroad Yards, now the site of Empire Outlets. Beyond that are: Richmond County Bank Ballpark, a lovely waterfront boardwalk, Postcards 9/11 Memorial, and a closed construction site with giant parking garage meant to serve the ill-fated New York Wheel. The open-sky view of New York Harbor that Richmond Terrace was designed to enjoy disappeared when the outlet mall and garage were built, 2014-2019. Exit the terminal on the stadium side to stroll the boardwalk to the 9/11 Memorial, taking in the sweeping views. We pause to read the names before climbing the stairs past the stadium to Richmond Terrace and stop #2.

Staten Island Family Courthouse, built 1929-31. From 1898 to 1919, Carrere & Hastings designed the first four buildings in the new St. George civic center. Architects Sibley & Fetherston followed design precedent, siting this neo-classical gem in line with other municipal buildings on Richmond Terrace and cladding it in terra cotta treated to look like limestone to harmonize with the Richmond County Courthouse. Currently, Family Court is temporarily housed elsewhere while this lovely gets a facelift.

Serves the North Shore. Located on Richmond Terrace at the NW corner of Wall Street, the former 66th Police Precinct Station House and Headquarters was built 1920-23 in Neo-Renaissance style and designed by architect James Whitford, Sr. (P. L. Sperr) The Precinct was recently renovated and volunteers plant flowers in front of the station every spring. The back of the old Staten Island Museum is visible behind it and up the hill. Keep the gas station on the left in mind as you move to our next stop on the tour!

Leaving the Police Precinct, we cross Wall Street and step back in time 30 years to see this charming scene depicting a carriage passing in front of the Staten Island Bicycle Club. The photograph was taken by Alice Austen in 1899. This image ties St. George to Rosebank, where her home "Clear Comfort," now the Alice Austen House, still stands today.

In the center is the former Richmond County Courthouse, built 1913-1919 (World War I halted construction). Designed by Carrère and Hastings, the L-shaped building's Corinthian columns, curved steps, and original grand entrance face Richmond Terrace and the Harbor. Nestled in the nook of the L is an elegant, somewhat neglected courtyard with fountains, large flowering trees and a statue. In June 2018, the courtyard received a facelift to host free weekly multicultural music concerts. This view of the "Million Dollar Retaining Wall" and part of the railyards remained until circa 2015. The Supreme Court moved to Central Avenue, but some courts are still housed here, along with WPA Murals by Charles Davis rescued from the old Seaview Hospital Farm Colony (now demolished). The Municipal Art Society insured these murals be preserved.

Designed by Carrère & Hastings (John Carrère was a Staten Island resident) and built 1904-1906, the three-story French Renaissance style brick building is topped by a two-story mansard roof. This view from Richmond Terrace shows the grand Harbor-facing front, but today, one enters in a more convivial setting on Stuyvesant Place, and the building's grounds are graced with large flowering cherry trees. In 1940, WPA artist Frederick Charles Stahr created a series of murals and reliefs for the grand marble lobby, depicting the history of Staten Island. They were restored in 2000 with assistance from the Municipal Art Society's Adopt-a-Mural program.

From Borough Hall we cross Nick LaPorte Place and walk under the bus shelter with its whale mural. We look across Stuyvesant Place to Bay Street, No's. 26 and 30, the Corn Exchange Bank and the New York Trust & Mortgage buildings, designed by Horace Luckman, completed 1928. No. 30 was designed to incorporate a large illuminated sign on the roof featuring eight foot high letters in a metal framing that spanned 30 by 50 feet. Today, this pair look much the same but house social service agencies and organizations, rather than financial institutions.

Look across Bay Street to see the beautiful Art Deco post office (Oct. 1936. P. L. Sperr). Other than the cars, this scene hasn't changed much, but the Post Office now shares the building with an Armed Services Recruitment Office and other federal agencies. The small three-story building beyond it houses a medical center. Now, we turn around and walk behind the bus shelter to discover tiny Barrett Triangle Park with the Major Clarence T. Barrett Memorial, a 1915 bronze classical warrior figure on a marble pedestal by Sherry Edmundson Fry. In 1989 it was conserved through the Municipal Art Society's Adopt-a-Monument program which continues to maintain it.

Passing Borough Hall, we start up one-block-long Hyatt Street to the former St. George branch of the Staten Island Savings Bank (June,1937, P. L. Sperr). Today, it looks much the same as when new, but with different cars, and is now the St. George branch of Santander Bank. This change didn't occur until the mid 2010s and was the end result of the banking crisis of 2008.

At this point Hyatt Street intersects with Central Avenue and we are now in front of the New York Public Library's St. George Library Center. Designed by Carrère and Hastings and completed 1907, it is the largest of the four Staten Island Carnegie libraries. The original design was a rectangular floor plan, as seen in this undated image. A large addition perpendicular to the original building was constructed in 1952, and the library is now surrounded by large trees. Across from the library is the new Staten Island Supreme Courthouse by Ennead Architects. The lawn beside it on the Hyatt Street side between Central Avenue and St. Marks Place is the Quarantine Memorial, site of the NYC Marine Hospital/Quarantine Cemetery, operated 1799-1858 during the Great Irish Hunger.

From the front of the library, we are looking at the head of Hyatt Street, and the former James Walsh house after "taxpayers" were erected in front of it. On the right is the Brighton Heights Reformed Church. June 13, 1937, P. L. Sperr

At the corner of St. Marks Place and Fort Place. A fire destroyed the church in 1996 but it was rebuilt three years later. It is now topped by a translucent white spire that defines the neighborhood skyline. Its large community room is the local voting site.

Home of the St. George Theater to the left. We are now standing on St Marks Place at the head of Hyatt Street, facing downhill toward Borough Hall (center). The 2800-seat theater was rescued in 2004 by a tiny nonprofit which began restoring the ornately decorated Spanish and Italian Baroque style interior. Today, it sports a magnificent new LED marquis. At right, the library is barely visible behind the stores, which sat on top of the buried cemetery, now the site of the Quarantine Memorial. (March 1930, P. L. Sperr)

We've just walked back down Hyatt Street, turned left onto Stuyvesant Place and are looking at the McGregor Arms Apartments, as it was then known, at the corner of Schuyler Street. A back corner of the former Richmond County Courthouse is visible on the right. The land at the left is now occupied by office buildings housing court facilities, social service agencies, and the St. George campus of the College of Staten Island.

At the SW corner of Wall Street. The (previous) spire of Brighton Heights Reformed Church can be seen behind the building in the upper left quadrant of the photo. This apartment complex is actually composed of two U-shaped buildings surrounding a landscaped courtyard. Small businesses still occupy the storefronts on the first floor facing the street.

Wall Street, south side, east from Stuyvesant Place to Richmond Terrace, showing the stone wall that gave Wall Street its name. May 2, 1928, P. L. Sperr.

75 Stuyvesant Place was the home of the Staten Island Museum for many years, but in 2018 the museum moved to its state-of-the-art, sparklingly renovated new location in a Greek Revival building at Snug Harbor Cultural Center. The museum still owns this St. George beauty, but alas, it is no longer open to the public. An addition with elevator and glassed showcase walkway at the second story was constructed at the left side of the building several years ago, and in 2018-19, a new copper roof. At the right side of the building behind the large corner tree now stands the Davis Oak, a rare Willow/Black Oak hybrid native to Staten Island. It was thought to be transplanted here in the late 1930s from Tottenville by museum co-founder William T. Davis, a largely self-taught naturalist.

Chartered in 1884, the Academy educated using a progressive curriculum for the era. In 1896 it moved into this building of English architectural design at Wall Street between Stuyvesant Place (then Stuyvesant Avenue) and Academy Place. From the 1940s through 1960s, the Academy gradually moved out and today its home is a campus on Todt Hill. This imposing ivy-covered building was demolished in 1974! Today the space is a gravel parking lot, ringed with trees that are home to squirrels and birds. (August 3, 1928, P. L. Sperr)

We have climbed the hill behind where the Academy once stood, up Wall Street to St. Marks Place, and are looking at the back of the former Staten Island Vocational High School. (The entrance is another block up on Belmont Place.) This beautifully proportioned and detailed public school building is currently undergoing renovations. Photo: Board of Education of the City of New York 1930’s

Across from McKee is this long-gone mansion at the NW corner of Wall Street. The house was owned by the Felts in the years 1898-1907, and by Emma B. Stone in 1917. (May 2, 1928 P. L. Sperr) Today it is the site of the Lt. Liu Playground and Park.

The C.B.J. Snyder-designed Curtis High School was the first high school on Staten Island and its first civic building completed, in 1904, following New York City consolidation. Famous alumni include children’s book author Lois Lowry (The Giver) and hip-hop artist RZA of Wu-Tang Clan. The school is named after abolitionist George W. Curtis, a Republican of a very different time and sentiment, and founding member of the island’s first Unitarian Church.

185 St Marks Place is home to the Castleton Park Apartments, with some affordable housing units in one of two 18-story towers. It stands at the site of the once-popular wood-frame Castleton Hotel, which burned to the ground in 1907. The scene is depicted in the History of Staten Island murals at Borough Hall.

We've continued curving along St. Marks Place and arrived at St. Peter's Roman Catholic Church near Westervelt Avenue in New Brighton (June 22, 1937. P. L. Sperr). Established in 1839, it is the oldest of the 36 Roman Catholic parishes on Staten Island. The original church burned down in the 1890s and was rebuilt 1900-1903. The back view from Richmond Terrace below is an even more imposing one, and the church's bell-tower is visible from the ferry when far out in the harbor. We turn right onto Westervelt and walk downhill two blocks to Richmond Terrace. We are now standing beside our last stop on the tour, with NYCHA's Richmond Terrace Houses to our left. We pause to take in the view of Bayonne, NJ and the Kill van Kull, known to Frederick Law Olmsted as the Staten Island Sound.

This photo was taken by L. McMillen, then Director of the Staten Island Historical Society, for the Municipal Art Society’s five-borough survey of historical buildings. This meeting hall was one in a row of circa 1835 Greek Revival buildings designed in character with Sailors’ Snug Harbor down the road. The hexastyle Doric portico, though it reveals only one story, actually masks a second story behind the pediment. The property has been intermittently vacant, and in 1956, the Historical Society had plans to move it to Historic Richmondtown. However, it remained in New Brighton and was a French restaurant in the 1970s. After another fallow period, it was recently completely renovated and landscaped. It is now “The Pavilion,” an events venue named after the Pavilion Hotel which once stood nearby. We are now ready to begin walking along the North Shore Esplanade back to the ferry. Or, if you're ready to sit down, the bus stop is right in front. In this era of social distancing, if the bus is not too crowded, adjust your mask and board for free at the back of the S40 or S44 bound for St. George Terminal.