Parts of New Brighton, Staten Island contain some of the handsomest streets, house for house, in New York City. Other parts are utterly forlorn and downright forbidding in spots. Guess which I’m highlighting today.
The New Brighton waterfront is lined with warehouses and abandoned factories that used to produce such products as gypsum, a material used to make blackboard chalk, drywall and fertilizer. The streets are named for obscure United States Presidents such as Marin Van Buren (who hailed from NY State), Millard Fillmore and James Buchanan.
Tucked between East Buchanan and Van Buren Streets near Franklin Avenue is lowly Minerva Place, named for the Roman goddess of wisdom who leaped, fully dressed for war, directly from the head of Zeus according to the myths. It does not rate an address of its own, nor does it rate even a streetlamp. It has not been paved in years and some of the Belgian block pavement is poking through.
It is the Staten Island embodiment of the old classic…
Mama died and my daddy got drunk.
Left me here to die alone
in the middle of Tobacco Road.
all I had was hangin’ on my back.
Only you know how I loathe
this place called Tobacco Road.
Only you know how I loathe Tobacco Road.
with the help and the grace from above.
Save some money, get rich and old,
bring it back to Tobacco Road.
Only you know how I loathe Tobacco Road.
blow it up, start all over again.
Build a town, be proud to show.
Gives the name Tobacco Road.