DOCTOR John S. Westervelt (1799-1869), the first health officer of the port of New York, who had married Daniel Tompkins’s daughter Hannah, purchased a ninety-eight acre tract that formerly had been part of her father’s estate in Staten Island. Westervelt Avenue winds through the former estate at the west end of St. George, or the east end of New Brighton, from Richmond Terrace south to Victory Boulevard and you can find some of Staten Island’s most beautiful residences on it especially at the north end, which attained Landmarks protection status.
Toward the south end, though, there’s another very small district in an enclave called Brighton Heights, at Westervelt and Corson Avenues encompassing four attached homes, #411-417, called Horton’s Row. I am showing the southernmost two, as Google Street View has slapped its Blur of Anonymity on parts of the other two. The four do have Landmarks protection.
The homes were built about 1880 by a successful banker, Harry L. Horton, of whose original 12 buildings five were demolished and three altered. The four remaining were Landmarked in 2009. They have full porches, shallow front yards and angled bay windows and were converted to multifamily units around 1901. Row houses like this are rare in Staten Island, where freestanding builings on wide lots were usually built.
I ran across these homes while researching Mathews Model Flats in Queens in a 2009 NY Times article by Jennifer 8. Lee, who I used to cite frequently; but she seems to have disappeared…
Check out the ForgottenBook, take a look at the gift shop. As always, “comment…as you see fit.” I earn a small payment when you click on any ad on the site.
3/20/25