In 1935, 250 acres of land in the neighborhood of New Springville/Heatland Village were being converted into an airport by Ed McCormick. By 1941, the airport opened as the Staten Island Airport beneath Richmond Hill Road, adjacent to a drive-in movie theater. The drive-in movie theater remained while the airport closed in 1964. By the next year, a building was constructed for an E.J. Korvette department store, completely changing the neighborhood from its rural setting of chicken farms.
After the department store chain went bankrupt in 1980, it closed down. During the early part of the prior decade, however, another building was already under construction nearby. The construction of this building and its accompanying parking lot was so large that…
