BACK in 2019, I walked Victory Boulevard from Clove Road to the Staten Island Expressway as part of a walk that clocked in at over 9 miles. It was intended to be Part 3 in my Victory Boulevard series, the first two parts of which I completed the previous year. However, I got too many photos to use, since I’ve gotten away from doing extra-long posts. I imagine I’ll chop it up into smaller bits, like I’m doing today. And, I still have to walk the third leg, from the expressway west to Victory Boulevard’s ending in Travis.
A brief history: Victory Boulevard was conceived of in the 1810s as a direct route from the Staten Island shoreline to Philadelphia; horses, wagons and carts would be transported over the Arthur Kill by ferry to further routes through New Jersey south. As such it’s one of Staten Island’s oldest planned roads. Following World War I, it was renamed Victory Boulevard in 1918, at its centennial.
On my walk, I noticed several instances of odd architecture, three of which are shown here. The first is the Alba Center, an extremely odd-looking structure at Victory Boulevard and Ingram avenue on the campus of the Society of St. Paul in Westerleigh. I’ll let the Staten Island Catholic take it from here:
[The Alba House] is a major Catholic publishing house run by the Society of St. Paul. The members of this order are known as the Paulines (not to be confused with the Paulists) and, as per the example of their order’s namesake, their mission is worldwide evangelization utilizing all the communication tools available to modern man. As such, they are a major, multingual publishing and multimedia ministry. Chances are some of your Catholic books were published by them here on Staten Island. Their main building is this renowned structure, redolent of an alien mother ship, which was built in 1968, whether for the Paulines or some other purpose (Lex Luthor’s headquarters?), I do not know.
This building houses an excellent book store on the first floor, where you can see the priests and lay workers preparing shipments in an adjacent room. I assume the other floor are devoted to storage and office space, but I can’t say for sure.
I suppose you can call the building Brutalist, but this is the most brutal example of architectural brutality I’ve seen. Right next door is a quiet grotto and some older Pauline buildings, which will make their way to that longer Victory Boulevard page I eventually publish.
Just across Ingram Avenue is the curved office of infectious disease specialist Dr. Scafuri and Associates. On a previous visit, this was home to an ophthalmologist.
Thirdly, there’s the Physicians and Surgeons Medical Building at Victory Boulevard and Albert Street across from Clove Lakes Park in Staten Island’s Sunnyside. Architectural info on Staten Island structures is sketchy indeed as there are few landmarked areas, so I have no idea when the building was built or the architect. It’s completely windowless and looks like Paul Bunyan’s kid could practice his skateboarding on the roof.
[update: see Comments for architect]
Kevin Walsh is the webmaster of the award-winning website Forgotten NY, and the author of the books Forgotten New York (HarperCollins, 2006) and also, with the Greater Astoria Historical Society, Forgotten Queens (Arcadia, 2013)
9/12/24
4 comments
The architect of the Physicians and Surgeons building is Charlie Azzue.
https://www.silive.com/entertainment/2018/11/charlie-azzuethe-designer-who-injected-imagination-into-si-building.html
I always wondered what it was called before taking on the current name and for what reason was it given its current name.
I can never find parking in front of the P&S building. You must’ve been there very early, or on a Sunday.
The Society of St. Paul building takes a LOT of getting used to. I still have trouble warming up to it. That being said, whenever I come back to Staten Island to visit, I make a point of stopping by the bookstore and grotto to feed both the mind and soul. The Physicians & Surgeons building has always been a favorite of mine and reminds me of the UN General Assembly building in Manhattan. There’s a very understated, mid-century charm to it.