Staten
Island is home to many green spaces which hold war memorials. In the northern section of the 
borough, you
can find Egbert Triangle, named for one of the members of the Egbert family. The Egbert family first settled on Staten
Island in the seventeenth century. Over
the years, many of them became prominent members of Staten Island's
society. In fact, there was even a
neighborhood named after them near the center of Staten Island-Egbertville which is commonly referred to as New Dorp Heights.
One
of the members of this prominent family was Arthur Stanley Egbert, who was once
a conductor of the Richmond Light and Rail Road Company. After the First World War began, Egbert
became a Seaman apprentice for the United States Navy, a position that was then
known as the Seaman Second Class rank.
On May 31, 1918, the USS President Lincoln sank after being hit by German torpedoes. Egbert, along with 715
others, was aboard the ship. He and twenty-six of the other men went down with the USS President Lincoln.
In 1929, the City of New York acquired a fraction of an acre of land on Staten Island's North Shore. At that time, the site became known as Egbert Square.The name "Square" was often given to many small parcels of greenery, but the name of the park was later changed to Egbert Triangle, since the parcel of land is shaped as such. Bordering the park are Forest Avenue, Richmond Avenue, and Willowbrook Road.
In 1935, a plaque was dedicated and mounted to a large fieldstone boulder. This plaque honors not only Arthur Stanley Egbert, but all of the other natives of the Port Richmond and Graniteville neighborhoods who died in the First World War. The park itself is enclosed by a steel fence, but there is a path between the vegetation which leads to this memorial.
Posted by Anthony Licciardello on
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