I’m a city girl, born and bred Brooklyn. So before my husband and I took the leap of faith and drove over the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge to our new home, moving to Staten Island most definitely was out of the question. After all, my only impression of the kidney-shaped rock was formed way back when in 1972, when all there was to Richmond County was woods, woods and more woods — with an occasional house dotting the landscape.
At the tender age of 14 I visited the Isle of Staten for a two-week stay at Cousin Marla and Phil’s house. Pioneers that they were — they moved here when the bridge went up — they lived in a lovely semi-attached house in the middle of bucolic wilderness on a road that had just been paved. After helping with household chores all day, I would sit on the stoop at night and watch as the wasps fluttered across the path. The ubiquitous mosquitoes were the biggest I’d ever seen, some so large they filed a flight plan. And, of course, there was the wildlife. Living in Brooklyn did not prepare me for the raccoons, opossums and ducks that inhabited the forest behind their homestead. At the end of the two-week confinement I swore I would never go back.
But you never know what tomorrow holds and, in 2002, kicking and screaming came I. I clutched the “Brooklyn” sign at the entrance ramp to that blasted bridge. But in the end, I made it over the Big V, paid the toll, and started our new suburban life.
That first year was the hardest. I missed my old home, I didn’t know my new neighbors and I regularly craved a bagel from my favorite corner store.
But I realized things had started to turn in my favor. By the time I moved there, Staten Island was no longer the frontier it had been. Twenty years of development had seen to that. There are more cars, more houses, more stores, and, less wildlife. Native islanders argue that the island is so overcrowded, the wildlife have left town.
Although not completely.
In our first year here we had a family of raccoons under our deck, an opossum found it’s way into our garbage pail and brown spider webs littered our backyard. While the mammals and marsupials have moved on, we still have a pair of ducks visit us each year, taking a swim in our pool every fall and spring.
After eight years, I finally did adjust. Where once the sound of trains and buses filled my mornings, now there is the chirp of birds, the rubbing legs of crickets and the ever-present hum of lawn mowers.
In the end, the move was the best thing we ever did. Our daughter Bri flourished in our suburban environment. She met great kids, she took skating lessons at The Pavilion, gymnastic lessons at Neshos and Victory Gymnastics, dance lessons at New Horizons, and our summers are filled with laughter and fun in the backyard pool.
I got to know my neighbors, my new home is now my old home, and life has settled into a peaceful routine. (Well, not exactly peaceful. After all, our Bri is now a teenager, but it’s relatively peaceful, nevertheless).
As the song says, “Our house is a very, very fine house. With two cats in the yard. Life used to be so hard…”
By the way, it took some time, but I managed to find a great place for bagels, too.
