Hi Neighbor,
My pal, Grasmere Steve, and I had wondered for years what was going on at Seaview Avenue and Hylan Boulevard in Dongan Hills.
Strong gusts of wind blew sheets of plaster board from a construction site at Hylan Boulevard and Seaview Avenue Monday Feb 25, 2019. (Staten Island Advance/Jan Somma-Hammel)
A vacant building just sat there after plans were filed for a child-care center in 2016. Finally, just a few weeks ago, our Jessica Jones-Gorman reported the early learning and child-care center, along the lines of one the same company operates in Bulls Head, will open mid-2026.
We all know what happens on Staten Island when school lets out.
Traffic. Traffic. Traffic.
The building at 1719 Hylan Blvd., which has been under construction for several years, is now taking shape as “childcare services center.” (Staten Island Advance/Jan Somma-Hammel)
It got us discussing the mayhem that might result with parents dropping off and picking up their toddlers at one of the most traveled intersections in the area.
It sent me on a trip down memory Lane again, back to the days when you didn’t risk life and limb crossing the boulevard at Seaview. When traffic across the Island was not even an issue.
Loads of memories live at that intersection.
For the Weed People – those who lived “Below the Boulevard – the intersection at Seaview and Hylan was the gateway into more respected Staten Island environs like Dongan Hills, New Dorp or Grasmere. We lived in Ocean Breeze, but when asked, often said we lived in Dongan Hills. Close enough, we figured.
A band of us kids would venture up Seaview to Flagg Place or Todt Hill Road in search of salamanders that lived in little streams on the hillside.
But before crossing the boulevard into Nirvana, a stop at the Chuck Wagon on Hylan near Liberty Avenue was mandatory. It was the first 15-cent hamburger joint on Staten Island, years before Ronald McDonald found his way over the Verrazzano.
One summer, my buddy “Brother” – I never knew why that was his nickname – applied for a job flipping burgers at Chuck Wagon. It was the ‘60s. “Brother” had hair down to his shoulders. The manager looked at him and pointed at me. “I’ll hire you,” he said. “Not him. Not till he gets a haircut.”
“Brother” refused the haircut. I refused the job. It was out of solidarity with “Brother.” Plus, I wanted the summer off.
A family relaxes in unhurried enjoyment of a fine dinner at Magnotti’s Restaurant in Dongan Hills in 1973. The dining spot became The Broadway Pub, Under The Boardwalk and The Boardwalk. (Staten Island Advance)Staten Island Advance
You’d never call Hylan Boulevard a sleepy little roadway, even in those days. But it was nothing like today. Where the child-care center now dominates the stretch of Hylan between Seaview and Cromwell Avenues once sat a little Italian restaurant called Magnotti’s. It was my family’s go-to place. When Magnotti’s closed, a tavern opened, first called Under the Boardwalk, and then just The Boardwalk. Why the name change? Anyone’s guess.
But let’s get back to traffic.
A friend asked over lunch the other day if a proposed parkway through the Greenbelt connecting the Sunnyside section of the Staten Island Expressway to what’s now the Korean War Veteran’s Parkway leading to the Outerbridge would have been built if Robert Moses had not fallen out favor in the late 1960s.
Moses, if you’re new to the history of these parts, was responsible for the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, the Staten Island Expressway, reshaping the East Shore waterfront . . .not to mention the Triborough Bridge, Queens Midtown Tunnel, Bronx Whitestone Bridge, the Henry Hudson Bridge, the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, the Throg’s Neck Bridge – and a lot more.
Moses had all kinds of extraordinary ideas to move traffic to and from Long Island and in or out of New Jersey and points south, the VN Bridge and Staten Island Expressway the most notable for us.
He had another that would have reshaped the traffic pattern dramatically.
It would be so interesting to “go back to the future” to see the impact of one of Moses’ biggest highway plans for Staten Island and how traffic would be today – if it was built.
A series of political battles and a financially controversial – some say disastrous — 1964 World’s Fair in Queens, of which he was president, cast a shadow over Moses and his influence was diminished significantly.
Shore Drive, it was called. Moses planned it along with the Staten Island Expressway and Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge. The plan was for the drive to stretch from Fort Wadsworth, along the waterfront, all the way to the Outerbridge.
Wow. But it made sense. Now, those Outerbridge-bound must cross over the width of Staten Island, make a left at the West Shore Expressway, and travel the length of Staten Island.
Shore Drive would have run through Miller Field, New Dorp Beach, a private bungalow colony called Cedar Grove Beach, Great Kills Park, Wolfe’s Pond Park, over a bridge at Lemon Creek, all the way to the Outerbridge, swallowing up houses along the way.
“Shore Drive to Engulf 579 Parcels, 148 Buildings,” read the headline in the Advance on July 23, 1962 as plans for the parkway were being advanced.
Staten Islanders back then didn’t fight against such projects as we do today. The story noted that “legislation providing for the project has already been provided by the state and that its construction is essential to the development of the Island which will follow the competition of the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge.”
The plan, very real at the time, had the federal government and state splitting the estimated $33.3-million cost.
Before a shovel hit the ground, Moses’ enormous power dwindled, the city got cold feet and Great Kills Park became part of Gateway National Recreation Area – sacred land in terms of building on it.
Those old enough to remember, or who know the history, grimace when the name Robert Moses and the extraordinary power he wielded, is mentioned. But in the 1950s, he had the vision to see what Staten Island would become 75 years later if something dramatic didn’t happen to deal with traffic.
Traffic backs up along Hylan Boulevard near Bedford Avenue in Midland Beach on Thursday, May 8, 2025 (Advance/SILive.com | Mike Matteo) Mike MatteoMike Matteo
Think about it next time you sit stalled on a choked Hylan Boulevard. Who’s has the vision to plan for the now, and next 75 years?
Brian
Oh by the way: Could any of my Republican friends explain the thought process of their leader, Dozing Donny Trump? In the days leading up to the NYC mayoral election, Dozing Donny called Zohran Mamdani a Communist, and a Communist lunatic. He threatened to cut off federal aid to New York if Mamdani won, and many expected the National Guard to be patrolling city streets on January 1. In the days after the election, Trump was showing off the gilded Oval Office to the mayor-elect, telling reporters Mamdani would do a “great job,” that he’d help him succeed and that they have “a lot more in common” than he thought. I guess whoever paraphrased Shakespeare was right. Politics does indeed make strange bedfellows. Or phonies.