Looking to get better insight on what Staten Island parks have to offer? Here you will find information on what types of parks exist on Staten Island as well as some background on the history of each park. Additionally, we will highlight some of the amenities and events each has to offer. Staten Island is known as the "Borough of Parks" as it features the highest concentration of New York City Parkland of the five boroughs that make up New York City. The information on local parks is part of Prodigy Real Estate's ongoing commitment to give the most comprehensive  information about Staten Island and its amazing features.

.conferance_house_park_realestatesiny_400Photo© Conferance House Park, Tottenville Staten Island

On the North Shore of Staten Island, you can find Maple Woods. This is a woodland park that is in a community Maple Woods, Staten Islandsometimes referred to as Park Hill. Maple Woods is bound by Richmond Road and is between the streets of Steuben Street, Rhine Avenue, and Pierce Street.

In 1938, the State of New York had given the City of New York the parcel of land that makes up Maple Woods, but on a contingent basis. The City of New York had to use this land for either a park or a playground. From the time the City of New York had received this land up until 1991, the site was left to its own devices. Weeds and vines started to take over the land, while people began to dump items in the park, and it started to become what looked like a vacant lot. In 1991, the New York City…

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On Staten Island's North Shore, you can find the neighborhood of Park Hill. This neighborhood is close to the eastern scp7_400shore, right above the Staten Island Expressway.  Within the neighborhood are a few parks-one of which is Sobel Court Park.

Before this neighborhood was known as Park Hill, it was called Fox Hills after Lewis Henry Meyer's estate. Lewis H. Meyer was one of the founders of the Staten Island Savings Bank and was their President for ten years. When he bought his property on Staten Island, he built a nice estate that he named Fox Hill Manor, after his love of fox hunting.

Sobel Court Park stretches between Vanderbilt Avenue and Bowen Street and is located between Roff Street and Sobel Court. Prior to this land becoming a park, Mayor…

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On the North Shore of Staten Island, there is the neighborhood of Graniteville. This neighborhood received its name from the quarry of granite that ran through the area. Between the mid-to-late 1800s, the granite was quarried for the building of roads and walls on Staten Island. It was not until years later that it was found that the quarry was actually made up of diabase, and not granite.

After the quarry was closed, excess dirt from where new houses were being built was filled into the quarry and it turned into a vacant lot. In the mid-1970s, Dr. Alan BenimGraniteville Quarry Park, Staten Islandoff, a current professor at the College of Staten Island, was surveying the land and found a rare stone within the diabase. This stone is called trondhjemite and is only known to be found in Wales…

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Prior to the building of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, Staten Island was more of a vacation area than anything else.  Once the bridge was opened in 1964, many people started to move to Staten Island on a permanent basis. As more 
people wanted to move onto the Island, there were more houses being built, as well as housing communities.

Blueberry Park EltingvilleOn the South Shore of Staten Island, in the neighborhood of Eltingville, one of the housing communities that was built after the opening of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge was Atlantic Village. This community is located right off of Arden Avenue and has nice views of the Raritan Bay, being that the houses are across the street from it.  This housing community was built between the mid-1970s and the late 1980s.

When creating…

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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 Jones Woods Parkprominent 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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gnpc9_400Throughout 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. 

In 1928, Staten Island farmers began to grow flowers in greenhouses to ease the air pollution.  The Mohlenhoff farm began to…

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Since the beginning of the twentieth century, Staten Island has been

Port Richmond Levy Park, Staten Islandknown 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 1909, the City of New York acquired roughly half of an acre of land on the North Shore of Staten Island.  After twenty-five years, the site was finally transferred over to the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, who did not do much to the site for a number of years. …

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P.S. 8 Great Kills ParkIn 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.

Public School 8 is located at 112 Lindenwood Road.  Its boundaries include School Street to the northwest, Lindenwood Road to the northeast, and Seely Lane to the southwest.  For quite some time, the southeastern boundary for Public School 8 was an empty lot.  That changed by the end of the century when the city developed a playground on the empty lot.  The name of the school was also changed at that time from the…

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Westwood Park, Willowbrook Staten Island
The Staten Island Expressway is often used as the dividing line between Staten Island's North Shore and Mid-Island sections.  The land for this expressway was acquired by the City of New York during the middle of the twentieth century.  After its completion, it was found that there was much unused land that had been obtained for the construction of the expressway. As a result, many parcels of land were transferred over to the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, who developed many parks using the vacant land.

In 1958, the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation had obtained almost seven acres of this land in the neighborhood of Willowbrook, below the completed Staten Island Expressway.  This site, as well as land surrounding it,…

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At the turn of the twenty-first century, the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation acquired a parcel of land on the Great Kills shoreline made up of roughly twenty square feet.  The land had been filled with debris and Seaside Nature Park in Great Kills, SINYgarbage 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.

Over the years, much has been…

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