I’ve always wanted a suburban life for my children, like the one I experienced on Staten Island.
I grew up in New Dorp, on a beautiful, quiet, dead-end block, with tons of kids to play with. We had a pool, yard, and the kind of idyllic childhood that I often recall with amusement.
I still live on the Island, and boy, has it changed.
There’s too much traffic, it’s overcrowded, and it can get noisy on the North Shore, where I now live with my husband and two children.
From the day my first child was born, we’ve agonized over leaving the place I’ve always lived. Nothing — not family, not schools, not the amount of property we owned — was keeping us here, so why not consider other places.
We analyzed the pros and cons every day, trying to decide WHERE we would even go if we left the Island — New Jersey, Westchester, Rockland, Long Island — and we weren’t worried about how our kids would adapt to a move, especially if it were to a place in a nice, quiet neighborhood with a big backyard.
We kept looking all over the tri-state area. The days turned into weeks, then months, then a few years slipped by. But we never left.
We even tried to sell the house – still not sure where to go – but that attempt was futile. The housing market wouldn’t allow it.
I had almost given up hope of ever making a decision.
And then one day, I noticed my children with their friends.
I saw my son running with his best friends in the playground after school, looking like he had won the lottery. The same day, at Royal Oak Park, I saw my daughter and a classmate hug each other like their lives depended on it.
The kids were getting older, and started having play dates — trampoline dates, as my son calls them — after school, as dozens of classmates walked past our house on the way home.
We were sharing in the wonder of the birthday party whirlwind, the get-togethers with parents, the shared vacations, the sleepovers.
As the noise of the children and their friends began to fill the house, it seemed the noise of the busy street outside started to fade into the background.
We began — without even being aware that it was happening — to experience that small-town atmosphere that even the best of the suburbs often struggle to provide.
The kids walk down the block to school every day, with classmates from the neighborhood. No bus, no car.
We sit with the same friends from school and with our neighbors in church every Sunday.
It’s been said that “everyone knows everyone” here on Staten Island. We are a living, breathing example of it. Many Islanders have the same kind of connection: the doctor, dentist, or pediatrician who has become almost like a member of the family. The next-door neighbor who can always be relied upon for a little sugar, or an egg. The families of your children’s classmates, who become like family to you.
When the teachers, shopkeepers, postal workers, and restaurant owners all know your face, your name and the names of your children, life becomes a little bit more meaningful.
When the community becomes like an old friend, you know you’re home.
Staten Island isn’t perfect. There’s a lot about it that makes me long for the way it was when I was a child.
But it’s been said that the happiest people are not those who have the best of everything — they’re the ones who make the best of everything they have.
If this neighborhood, this community, this Island is any example, we’ve been pretty happy all along.
