I have a whole batch of Tottenville photos fired off in October 2025 I have not used yet. I have been there often over the years; I remember a bus ride out there (I believe my parents were meeting someone) in the 1960s, and I next took a bus ride there in 1972. After getting out at the last stop I found most of the north-south streets trailed off to dead ends south of Amboy Road. Those streets were mapped but not yet developed, but they were in subsequent years. Even at age 15, I noticed these things. On another ride, the driver asked me where I was getting off. Apparently he was going to turn around and go back to St. George, expecting no passengers south of where we were.
In 2025 I meandered off east on Amboy Road from the center of town, and as I do each time, checked out Tottenville’s Andrew Carnegie library. In 1901, the Scottish philanthopist/industrialist Andrew Carnegie Foundation gave $5.2 million to New York City for its libraries across the five boroughs. This started a remarkable project that would go on to build 1,680 Carnegie libraries across the United States and another 800 plus in Canada, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere in the world. Carnegie paid for the buildings, but the city would have to buy or acquire the land, buy the books, and provide for maintenance and upkeep, in perpetuity. Carnegie helped set up the library commissions and boards.
When Tottenville was still a small oyster fishing village in 1904, it got its very own world-class Classical Revival library at 7430 Amboy Rd, building thanks to millionaire philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, whose donations were the springboard that helped the New York Public Library expand to its present 85 branches. The Tottenville Library was designed by the prolific firm of John Carrere and Thomas Hastings, who also masterminded the great main branch at 5th Avenue and West 42nd Street and the Staten Island Borough Hall. Tottenville was the home of Staten Island’s first public library in 1899, a rented house on Johnson Avenue holding 230 volumes.
This day, I couldn’t go in as it was on a Sunday, but the library was accommodating in the past when I requested permission to shoot a photo inside.
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.
4/13/26