Jones Woods Park, New Brighton Staten Island
Posted by Anthony Licciardello on
Many of Staten Island's prominent families made their homes here during the nineteenth century. One of these families was the Jones family, most of whose descendants came to New York from Philadelphia. The most 
prominent member of this family on Staten Island was Shipley Jones, who was born in the middle of the nineteenth century. He was born into a wealthy family who created a large estate for him in the current neighborhood of New Brighton. Originally, the estate was owned by his parents, both of whom died prior to the first years of the twentieth century. At that time, the estate was passed down to Shipley Jones, who owned it for a number of years before he too passed away.
Shipley Jones graduated from Columbia College in 1869 with a Bachelor of…
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Throughout the nineteenth century, farming was one of the most significant industries on Staten Island. By the turn of the twentieth century, the number of farms on the Island began to greatly diminish. Nonetheless, German immigrant Henry William Dietrich Mohlenhoff decided to relocate from his farmland in Queens to Staten Island, where he purchased thirty-two acres of land. On this land, he and his wife established a farm. The couple had one dozen children, all of whom worked on the farm with their parents. Even as the sons married, they would erect their own homes on the property so that they could still work on the farm.Â
known for its patriotic residents. With the end oof the First World War, residents begged for memorials to be placed in their neighborhoods, or for sites to be dedicated in honor of the fallen Staten Island soldiers. These residents got exactly what they wanted and today, Staten Island is home to a great number of memorials and places dedicated in honor of those residents who served for our country.
In 1892, a school building was erected in Staten Island's neighborhood of Great Kills. The building, which housed students of Public School 8, was given many additions at the turn of the twentieth century and it was designated as the Great Kills School in 1916. The following year, however, it was replaced by an entirely new school building.
garbage at the time. In an effort to clean up the Great Kills shoreline, a non-profit organization known as the Turnaround Friends was formed in 1994. The Turnaround Friends teamed up with the New York City Departments of Environmental Protection, Parks and Recreation, and Sanitation to perform a clean-up effort. The New York City Department of Parks and Recreation soon expanded the site to five acres and created Seaside Wildlife Nature Park, a waterfront park overlooking the Great Kills Harbor.
the early part of the twentieth century, he had established a 35-acre estate near the center of Staten Island.Glauber passed away in 1944 and the estate soon came into the hands of the City of New York. By the end of the decade, almost half of the estate was assigned to the New York City Housing Authority, who planned to use the land for a public housing project. This project, which consisted of 502 apartments, was completed in 1950 as the Todt Hill Houses.
remaining quarter of land was acquired by the City of New York to be established as a park. The school opened to the public in 1965 at 1270 Huguenot Avenue with the park following it just two short years later.
During the middle of the twentieth century, the City of New York began acquiring land for the current Staten Island Expressway. In 1958, a parcel of a little over thirteen acres of land was acquired in the neighborhood of Bulls Head. Grass was planted on the parcel, but nothing else was done to the site for decades. It is bounded to the north by the Staten Island Expressway, to the south by Lamberts Lane, to the west by Fahy Ave., and to the east by a ramp connecting to the Staten Island Expressway.
the property of the current park. This house was demolished just a few years later, however. Up until 2010, the land was left to its own devices and a gate protected the wildlife within.