ALTHOUGH officially, New York City is the southernmost town in New York State, Tottenville, on the southern end of Staten Island, was actually the southernmost village when it was a part of Westfield Township when Staten Island was an independent county prior to 1898. The Totten family owned a large amount of property in the area in the 18th Century, and after a series of names like Unionville, Bentley Dock, and others, the village settled on a name befitting its major property holders.
Tottenville and I are old acquaintances. First impressions mean a lot — I remember the first bus ride I took to Tottenville with my parents in the mid-1960s. True to form, what I remember most is the streetlighting. The bus traveled a rutted road called Arthur Kill Road through most of the southwest end of Staten Island, and though the lengthy route has largely been “tamed” these days and lined with suburban developments and malls, back then it was a rural route illuminated by the occasional incandescent “crescent moon” fixture, and, though I didn’t notice it at the time, passed through the occasional small town like Greenridge, Rossville, and Kreischerville (which produced the light brown brick seen on so many apartment buildings in western Queens).
I began taking rides to Tottenville on my own once I reached my teens, in the early 1970s. I took the very same S74 bus along Arthur Kill Road and I remember being somewhat annoyed that the maps for this part of Staten Island were nearly always incorrect, since they showed streets that city planners and developers hoped to construct. The missing streets would not appear for years, till Staten Island’s population boom forced massive tract housing construction. I also recall the bus driver asking me if I was going all the way to Tottenville — in those days, the drivers apparently felt free to shorten the route if there were no one riding, and I was the only passenger on the bus! When I got out in Tottenville, I noted that many streets south of Amboy Road were still on maps only, and they were just woods at the time.
What you see above is the former “Bentley Dock” ferry landing at the north end of Bentley Street. The Tottenville-Perth Amboy Ferry ran for over a century, ending operations finally in 1963; in Staten Island, only the pilings remain at the foot of Bentley Street, but in Perth Amboy the old landing shed has been retained and restored, even though resumption of service is quite unlikely. The spot doubles as the south end of the Staten Island Railway, which still employs 1970s-era R44 cars (though R-211 replacements are on the way).