Silver Lake | |
|---|---|
 A postcard showing the northern half of Silver Lake | |
 Location within New York City | |
| Coordinates: 40°37′31″N74°05′45″W / 40.62528°N 74.09583°W | |
| Country |  United States |
| State |  New York |
| City |  New York City |
| County/Borough |  Staten Island |
| ZIP code | 10301 |
| Area code(s) | 718, 347, 929, and 917 |
Silver Lake is the name of both a reservoir and an adjacent neighborhood in the New York City borough of Staten Island.
Silver Lake Park, located on Staten Island's north shore, is bounded by Forest Avenue, Victory Boulevard and Clove Road. The original Silver Lake was a spring-fed body of water formed at the end of the ice age, and now makes up the south basin of the reservoir at this site. Silver Lake was once known as Fresh Pond, but maps show that by the middle of the nineteenth century, the name Silver Lake had come into use and the two were used interchangeably until about 1860. [1] Silver Lake was named after Mark Silver, who founded the philanthropic organization today known as the Hebrew Free Burial Association. He had earlier Americanized his name from Marks Silva. The Association purchased land that became the Silver Lake Cemetery, and it was used for charitable burials. Many of the victims of the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire are buried there. [2]
Silver Lake has a long history of both recreational and commercial uses. During the 19th century, a casino and saloon existed on the lakeshore and several companies harvested its ice. Staten Islanders used the lake for boating and ice skating in that era, and in February 1897, Silver Lake hosted the National Skating Amateur Championship races.
By the end of the 19th century, the population of Staten Island was growing rapidly and residents were calling for land to be set aside for parks. Noting that it was prohibitively expensive and time-consuming for families to visit Manhattan's Central Park or Brooklyn's Prospect Park, prominent Staten Island writer and resident John De Morgan appealed in February 1900 to the State Assembly Committee on Cities to appropriate funds to establish Silver Lake Park. “The people of the community have a right to recreation and pleasure grounds,” he addressed Assembly members in Albany, “Where . . . their children [can be] kept from the contaminating influence of the saloon.”
De Morgan's plea to the State Assembly worked; the Silver Lake Park Commission was created and in their 1900 session legislators appropriated a modest amount for acquiring the land around the lake. The original parcels for Silver Lake Park around the perimeter of the lake were condemned and purchased in 1901, 1902, and 1904, at which point Staten Island parks officials began to convert the area to its current state.
As modern refrigeration replaced ice harvesting, in 1913 the lake was drained and converted to a working reservoir by the Board of Water Supply. The Board was created by the state legislature in 1905 to build the Catskill water supply system. Silver Lake Reservoir in its current form was created in 1917 when water was piped in to fill it from the Ashokan Reservoir in Ulster County, New York, 119 miles (192 km) away. The water started arriving on October 25, and the reservoir would become the largest body of fresh water on Staten Island. [3] [4] The park's underbrush began to be removed in 1921 and the natural oaks (Quercus), tulip trees (Liriodendron tulipifera) and sassafras (Sassafras albidum) were supplemented with shrubs, spruce (Picea) and pine (Pinus) trees, and flowerbeds. A January 1921 letter to the editor in the Staten Island Advance lamented the loss: “Nature [should be] encouraged rather than operated on [by Staten Island parks officials] who are so anxious to improve upon nature.”
Although the park's scenery is dominated by the reservoir, other parts of the park are notable. Land from Marine Cemetery, a nineteenth-century burial site for the Marine Hospital Quarantine in Tompkinsville, was added to the park in 1924. In 1928 the land was converted to a golf course, and in 1994 researchers discovered documentation linking the site to its past use as a cemetery. Today it is thought that perhaps several thousand immigrants, including many Irish escaping the Great Famine of Ireland, who died from contagious diseases after landing in the United States are buried under the 18th fairway of the golf course. The golf course itself was completed in 1929 and tennis, biking, softball, and playground facilities were added as Silver Lake Park became a recreational hub for the developing borough. “You can visit Silver Lake Park in your Sunday suit and come away untarnished,” a 1954 Staten Island Advance piece on the borough's parks claimed. The reservoir was used for potable water until 1971 when an underground storage tank system was completed, the largest of its kind in the world. Today the reservoir is used as part of the drainage system for the tanks.
In 1988, Staten Island Borough President Ralph J. Lamberti provided $1.4 million for a new administration building and children's play area. Again in 1997, Borough President Molinari allocated $700,000 to repave walkways and to add new plants, benches, fences, guiderails, play equipment, handball courts.
Silver Lake Park has many attractions, such as tennis courts, an 18-hole public golf course, a baseball field, play area, and dog run. [5]
The neighborhood to the east and south features several large privately owned apartment buildings and three cemeteries along Victory Boulevard. Also included in the neighborhood, on the other side of the adjacent Silver Lake golf course, is a series of mostly dead-end streets located above Forest Avenue and Hart Boulevard. The dead end streets are Lakewood Road, Park Court, Edstone Drive, Rose Court and Silver Court. They comprise approximately eighty-eight homes and are part of the Silver Lake Park Association. At the very top of Hart Boulevard are the Silver Lake Tennis Courts. Adjacent to the tennis courts is a baseball field. To the west of this neighborhood are Grymes Hill, Wagner College and Sunnyside, where the Mid-Island region is said to begin (the Silver Lake section being reckoned as part of the North Shore).
Silver Lake is served by the S48 , S61 , S62 , S66 , S91 , S92 and S98 local/limited buses and the SIM30 express bus. [6]
Staten Island is the southernmost borough of New York City, coextensive with Richmond County and situated at the southernmost point of New York. The borough is separated from the adjacent state of New Jersey by the Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull and from the rest of New York by New York Bay. With a population of 495,747 in the 2020 Census, Staten Island is the least populated New York City borough but the third largest in land area at 58.5 sq mi (152 km2); it is also the least densely populated and most suburban borough in the city.
The Staten Island Greenbelt is a system of contiguous public parkland and natural areas in the central hills of the New York City borough of Staten Island. It is the second largest component of the parks owned by the government of New York City and is maintained by the city's Department of Parks and Recreation and the Greenbelt Conservancy, a not-for-profit organization that works in partnership with NYC Parks to care for the Greenbelt and raise funds for its maintenance and programs. The Greenbelt includes High Rock Park, LaTourette Park, William T. Davis Wildlife Refuge, and Willowbrook Park among others.
The Sepulveda Dam is a dry dam constructed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to withhold winter flood waters along the Los Angeles River. Completed in 1941, at a cost of $6,650,561, it is located south of center in the San Fernando Valley, approximately eight miles (13 km) east of the river's source in the western end of the Valley, in Los Angeles, California.
West New Brighton is a neighborhood of Staten Island, New York City, situated in the central area of North Shore. The neighborhood is bordered by New Brighton to the east, Port Richmond to the west, the waters of the Kill Van Kull to the north, and the communities of Sunnyside and Castleton Corners to the south.
The term East Shore is frequently applied to a series of neighborhoods along the Lower New York Bay and the Raritan Bay and within New York City's borough of Staten Island.
Oakwood is a neighborhood located in east central Staten Island, New York City, near the South Shore. It is bordered by Tysens Lane (north); the Atlantic Ocean (east); Great Kills Park (south); Kensico Street, and Clarke Avenue (west).
Grymes Hill is a 374 feet (114 m) tall hill formed of serpentine rock on Staten Island, New York. It is the second highest natural point on the island and in the five boroughs of New York City. The neighborhood of the same name encompasses an area of 0.894 square miles (2.32 km2) and has a population of 8,263 people. The hill also includes parts of the Silver Lake neighborhood. The area includes part of ZIP Codes 10301 and 10304.
Hempstead Lake State Park is a 737-acre (2.98 km2) state park located in Nassau County, New York in the United States. The park is located in West Hempstead and is one of three state parks within the Town of Hempstead. There is a quick-access entrance at exit 18 from the Southern State Parkway. The park contains the largest freshwater lake in Nassau County.
Marine Park is a public park located on Jamaica Bay in the neighborhood of Marine Park in Brooklyn, New York. Its 798 acres (3.2 km2) surround the westernmost inlet of the bay. Most of the land for Marine Park was donated to New York City to be turned into public park land by the Whitney family in 1920 and by Frederic B. Pratt and Alfred Tredway White, who jointly donated 150 acres (0.61 km2) in 1917. The land donated consists of the area between the current day Fillmore Avenue and Gerritsen Avenue and East 38th Street. Originally almost 2,000 acres (810 ha), over half of which has been donated to the National Park Service as part of the Gateway National Recreation Area, the park is mainly a fertile salt marsh which is supplied with freshwater from Gerritsen Creek.
Forest Park is a park in the New York City borough of Queens, spanning 538 acres (218 ha). It is the tenth-largest park in New York City and the third-largest in Queens. Created on August 9, 1895, it was originally referred to as Brooklyn Forest Park, as the area was part of Brooklyn at the time.
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Alley Pond Park is the second-largest public park in Queens, New York City, occupying 655.3 acres (265.2 ha). The park is bordered to the east by Douglaston, to the west by Bayside, to the north by Little Neck Bay, and to the south by Union Turnpike. The Cross Island Parkway travels north-south through the park, while the Long Island Expressway and Grand Central Parkway travel east-west through the park. The park primarily consists of woodlands south of the Long Island Expressway and meadowlands north of the expressway. It is run and operated by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation.
Victory Boulevard is a major thoroughfare on Staten Island, New York City, measuring approximately 8.0 miles (12.87 km). It stretches from the West Shore community of Travis to the upper East Shore communities of St. George and Tompkinsville. In the late 1940s, the portion of Victory Boulevard between Richmond Avenue and Forest Avenue was designated as New York State Route 439A (NY 439A). The section between Forest Avenue and Bay Street became part of NY 439 at the same time. Both designations were removed in c. 1968.
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Clove Lakes Park is a public park in the Sunnyside neighborhood of Staten Island in New York City.
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Kissena Creek is a buried stream located in the neighborhoods of Flushing, Fresh Meadows, Hillcrest, and Kew Gardens Hills in the New York City borough of Queens. Kissena Creek originates in a now-filled swamp within Kew Gardens Hills and Pomonok in central Queens, flowing east to Hillcrest. The creek then travels mostly north and west, largely flowing beneath Kissena Park Golf Course, Kissena Park, Kissena Corridor Park, and Queens Botanical Garden, before merging with the Flushing River in Flushing Meadows–Corona Park.
Media related to Silver Lake, Staten Island at Wikimedia Commons
