Rossville, Staten Island

Rossville is the name of a neighborhood of Staten Island, located to the west of Prince's Bay, on the island's South Shore.

History

The area was originally called Old Blazing Star, and later simply Blazing Star, for a tavern located there; by the 1830s it was renamed Rossville after Colonel William E. Ross, who had built a replica of Windsor Castle, known as Ross Castle, on a bluff overlooking the landing of a ferry crossing the Arthur Kill. However, when the Staten Island Railway opened in 1860, most Staten Islanders began referring to neighborhoods along its route on the basis of what station along the railroad line was nearest; hence Rossville became colloquially part of Prince's Bay, the closest station to it.

St. Joseph's Church, the oldest Roman Catholic church still standing on Staten Island, is located on Poplar Avenue in Rossville. St. Joseph's was founded on July 2, 1848, by Father Mark Murphy, pastor of St. Peter's Church, when he celebrated Mass for 58 Catholics in a house on Rossville Avenue as a mission of St. Peter's. In 1851, a small chapel dedicated to St. Joseph was completed on Poplar Avenue. When Father Francis DeCaro, O.F.M., was appointed as first pastor in 1855, St. Joseph's became an official parish--the third oldest of Staten Island's 36 parishes after St. Peter's and St. Mary's.

St. Joseph's Cemetery (located at the end of Barry Street), which dates from the early 1850s, is the second oldest Catholic cemetery on the island. [1]

Like the surrounding area, land use in Rossville was devoted primarily to farming until well into the mid-20th Century, when residential building boom encouraged long time farmers to sell their land to developers.

The Rossville Fire of 1963

On April 20, 1963, Rossville was the scene of the worst of three devastating brush fires to strike Staten Island; the three fires collectively destroyed more than 100 homes, rendering over 500 persons homeless and causing in excess of $2 million in damage. Rossville's character would be transformed permanently by the fire as it turned out, for once the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge was opened 19 months later, it and many other Staten Island neighborhoods would witness massive new home construction (with many of the homes in Rossville which had been spared by the fire actually being demolished to make way for new, often larger ones). The completion of the West Shore Expressway in 1976 fueled a renewed building boom in the area, which has continued unabated to this day.

Woodbrooke Estates and Fawn Ridge

There are 2 large condominium developments in Rossville. One is known known as Woodbrooke Estates which is a 629 unit development with 1, 2 and 3 bedroom condominiums. This development was completed in phases between 1981 and 1987. Woodbrooke Estates is surrounded by Barry Street to the north, Rossville Avenue to the east, Winant Avenue to the west, and Gervil Street (between Balsam Place and Correll Avenue) to the south. The other, slightly smaller, condominium development in Rossville is Fawn Ridge, which borders Woodbrooke Estates to the south. Fawn Ridge, which was constructed by Muss Development Company (the same developer that built Woodbrooke Estates), was built between 1987 and 1989, and is located along Correll Avenue, between Rossville Avenue to the east, and Winant Avenue to the west.

New Firehouse/EMS Station

Rossville is also home to the city's first new fire company in over a decade, FDNY Engine Company 168, which was organized in June 2005. Engine 168 operates out of a brand new firehouse located at the corner of Rossville Avenue and Veterans Road East, which was built in 2004, and is staffed with an FDNY EMS Battalion.

Rossville Today

Rossville has become largely suburban in nature — a fact lamented by its original residents, nearly all of whom have since moved away, in many cases after having been bought out under pressure from aggressive developers.

External links

• Sandy Ground Historical Museum
• Forgotten NY - The End of New York - The Ruins of Rossville
• Undercity.org - A guerrilla historian in Gotham - Tugboat Graveyard on Staten Island