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You can find a house in parts of Mariner's Harbor for around $250k. It will be a few blocks east or west from South Avenue and probably below Forest but still.
Affordable depends on many factors. Again large numbers of DSNY, FDNY, NYPD and Corrections live on SI because it is one of the few places left they can get an "affordable" house.
Agreed, relative to Queens and Brooklyn the properties are cheaper with regard to single family or 2 family homes.
Using the $500k figure and assuming 20% down you have a mortgage of about $2500 a month with taxes and insurance. Certainly doable for your average DSNY/NYPD/teacher etc with a working spouse but I wouldn't say cheap. Of course there are always other factors (inheritance, side gigs, etc).
My point was its not a haven for low income earners like many CD posters make it out to be.
Agreed, relative to Queens and Brooklyn the properties are cheaper with regard to single family or 2 family homes.
Using the $500k figure and assuming 20% down you have a mortgage of about $2500 a month with taxes and insurance. Certainly doable for your average DSNY/NYPD/teacher etc with a working spouse but I wouldn't say cheap. Of course there are always other factors (inheritance, side gigs, etc).
My point was its not a haven for low income earners like many CD posters make it out to be.
Again hence all that god awful track/town houses. If you notice that is a major part of new house construction on SI. Those homes are going to be cheaper than a fully detached place with a nice front/back yard along with driveway and perhaps garage in most parts of the Rock.
Look at all that new development in Bulls Head, New Springville, around Baron Hirsch etc... everywhere you look it is track housing. Now if you want a nice older house in a good area with nice schools then you are talking real money.
Now know some gay friends who have moved out to St. George and Stapleton areas. But they do not have kids so aren't worried about the school district. Just wanted one of those older Victorian or similar homes for a good price.
Or, again you can get something in Mariner's Harbor for under $300k, but you'll be dodging bullets. *LOL*
No, SI really isn't affordable housing wise for many including middle class and or say young families starting out. There is very little rental housing or starting out places. Many young couples move to NJ off the Rock because they cannot find a place they can afford.
As someone who lived on SI in the 70s-80s, I'd have to say I'm surprised that so many people feel that things changed so much in *this* century, as opposed to the first decade or two after the VNB opened. While I've seen the increase in immigrants from far-flung reaches of the globe, in recent times -- when I've visited, that is -- a good part, if not most, of the tract housing splotches of development were well in place by the mid-70s. The new people were mostly whites, true, usually from Brooklyn, but are we talking about Si being a quiet, rural place or SI being a white-bread place? For quiet and rural were mostly gone by the 70/80's. And NO, you didn't leave your car door unlocked in the 70s! Heck, your car wasn't safe even if it was locked in your garage, if the model was in demand by thieves.
Well, at least, you can look at it this way: nowadays, you don't have to settle for pizza and bagels. You have a veritable United Nations of restaurants, from what I saw. Sri Lankan? Ecuadoran? Uzbekistani? Makes my mouth water thinking about it!
The track housing is a damn disgrace. The down zoning that occurred during the Bloomberg era addressed just that, but the damage was already done.
Only parts of SI were downzoned under Rudy G. and Bloomberg, still more than enough room left for damage to come. And it has and will.
Went to a BBQ in MH over the summer and there are new track/town house type homes where just one or two family houses once stood. Ditto for much of the new construction in Bulls Head around the SIE including that new development going up there.
Oh and then there is the Mount Manresa site. You know the Savo Brothers for what they paid to get that property plus development costs are going to go with track/town houses. Cannot see any other way how they will make their money back and a profit.
The track housing is a damn disgrace. The down zoning that occurred during the Bloomberg era addressed just that, but the damage was already done.
More is coming at the Mount Manresa site with the Savo Brothers doing more of that they do best.
"Gaspare Santoro, 75, and his son Paul, 36, were hired by the Savo Brothers -- the development firm behind the plan to build 250 townhouses on the site of the former Jesuit retreat house -- to do asbestos testing at the site"
That is right folks, they are cramming nearly 300 town houses up there which means any resemblance to the rural or even suburban feel once had there will be gone. It will look just like the old Demyan’s Hofbrau place off Van Duzer Street
Question: What was it like to live on Staten Island before the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge was completed in 1964?
I've been curious about this question in my own mind and finally decided to ask it here. If any of you are old enough to have lived on Staten Island prior to 1964 (by which time the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge was completed), the only way to get from Staten Island to any of the other boroughs of NYC was by the Staten Island Ferry to Lower Manhattan. Hence, one couldn't take a car or bus (and certainly not a train) over any bridge or tunnel to any of the other 4 boroughs of NYC but only had the option to make your way to St. George on Staten Island's North Shore to catch the ferry to Lower Manhattan. And, to my knowledge (or what I think is my knowledge), the ferry never took on cars or other motorized vehicles on it (motorcysles, motorscooters, vans, trucks, public or private buses, et al).
It says in Wikipedia that both the Outerbridge Crossing Bridge and the Goethals Bridge connecting Staten Island with New Jersey were completed at the same time by 1928. So they were available to all residents since 1928 yet that is still rather cumbersome for eventually making one's way to NYC and then back from NYC to Staten Island by automobile or bus. Hence, anyone wanting to get to NYC by motor vehicle (their own vehicles ... unless public or private buses were also available to make this trip) would have to first travel from Staten Island to New Jersey and then drive north to either the Holland Tunnel in Jersey City (completed in 1927) or the Lincoln Tunnel in Weehawken (completed in 1937) or the George Washington Bridge in Fort Lee (completed in 1931) or park their vehicle in or near one of the PATH subway locations in Jersey City, Hoboken, Harrison, or Newark to take the PATH subway to Manhattan (the first PATH subway trains started running in 1907 from Hoboken, NJ to 19th - 23rd Streets in Manhattan). Quite a drawn-out and cumbersome journey ... and likely rather costly too. And was the PATH subway historically always run as a 24-hour operation or not? And was the Staten Island Ferry historically always run as a 24-hour operation or not? If the answer is "No" to either of those just-asked questions, then, prior one or both of them becoming 24 hours, people could be somewhat stranded to get back after the cutoff time each day for PATH subway or SI Ferry service.
In short, if any of you remember the times prior to 1964 (whether you were adults or teens or children back then), wasn't it rather limiting to live on Staten lsland and easily/readily have access to the rest of NYC (and then was around-the-clock 24-hour/7-day access historically always available?) other than only having the singular option of going just by yourself (i.e,. without any type of motor vehicle) onto the Staten Island Ferry or else having the only other option being to make the arduous trek across to New Jersey by whatever type of motor vehicle (or were there public bus options also for making such trips through New Jersey) and to have to make your way north to one of the crossings to Manhattan? And then comng back to Staten Island the same arduous way? And did they all run 24/7 or not? I imagine all the tolls incurred for all those round-trip crossings by motor vehicle added up to something not so cheap each day (or, if not traveling to & from NYC each single day, then however often you'd travel to NYC taking your motor vehicle). And to not have direct access to Brooklyn or Queens but to always have to travel through Manhattan first. What a pain it must have all been for you or your families or relatives or friends or neighbors. No?
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