Grymes Hill, Staten Island

Grymes Hill is a neighborhood, situated upon a hill by that name, on Staten Island, one of the five boroughs of New York City. The east side of the hill is defined by Van Duzer Street and Richmond Road to the intersection with the Staten Island Expressway, which, with Clove Road, defines the southern side. On the west is Victory Boulevard. Some claim Cebra Avenue for the northern border, while others would stop at Louis Street.

The hill is named after Suzette Bosque Grymes, the widow of Louisiana's first governor, William Charles Cole Claiborne, who settled on Staten Island in 1836 (she had remarried a prominent New Orleans lawyer, John R. Grymes, after Governor Claiborne died in 1817).

A local developer, Major Charles Howard, built many of the hill's earliest homes, and his name survives in Howard Avenue, the hill's main street; a portion of this street was known for a time as Serpentine Road due to the hill's bedrock consisting of serpentinite. The neighborhood has many fine homes dating from the 1920s that overlook New York Harbor.

Grymes Hill is best noted currently for being the home of two institutions of higher learning: Wagner College, and the Staten Island campus of St. John's University. The St. Johns campus of 16.5 acre was originally a small Catholic women's institution, Notre Dame College, which closed in 1971, when St. Johns University took over the campus. Also on the hill is Notre Dame Academy, a Roman Catholic elementary and high school for girls. Adjacent to (and owned by) Wagner College is the site of a former Roman Catholic high school, named Augustinian Academy after the order of monks who ran it; the school closed in 1969. Near the foot of the hill, on Foote Avenue, is P.S. 35, the Clove Valley School.

Also located on Grymes Hill is Casa Belvedere, a center for Italian culture and studies in Italian language and culture.

Much of Grymes Hill consists of private homes, but also included are the Grymes Hill Apartments, constructed in the late 1940s by Fred Trump. These are 423 garden apartments along Howard Avenue and Arlo Road. Grymes Hill Manor Estates was built in 1953 as rental garden apartments, and switched to co-op status in 1983. It has 152 apartments centering on Seth Court, with some on other streets. Two high rise apartment buildings at the foot of Howard Avenue converted to condominiums following a major fire in one. There are several apartment buildings on Victory Boulevard. Two new apartment buildings have been constructed facing the Staten Island Expressway. One was turned into condominiums in 2004. The other is being offered as senior citizen housing.

Grymes Hill includes two cemeteries, both located along Victory Boulevard. Woodland Cemetery dates back to the nineteenth century, and some headstones are in German, reflecting the population of the day. Silver Lake Cemetery also dates back to the nineteenth century, and was the original burial site for the Hebrew Free Burial Association.

The S66 bus goes from Saint George Terminal to Highland Avenue via Victory Boulevard, then up Arlo Road and down Howard Avenue before returning to Victory Boulevard via Clove Road, allowing it to serve the two colleges mentioned above, as well as the Grymes Hill Apartments and Grymes Hill Manor Estates. The S53 bus, which runs along Clove Road, crosses the Verrazano Bridge into Brooklyn. During rush hours, the S93 also goes into Brooklyn. In the opposite direction, the S53 serves the neighborhoods of Sunnyside and West New Brighton before terminating in Port Richmond. The S93 runs to the College of Staten Island in Willowbrook via Victory Boulevard.

There are also buses along Victory Blvd. The S61/S91 run to the Staten Island Mall in New Springville. The S62/S92 run to Travis. There are also express buses to Manhattan. The X30 runs along Victory Blvd and Forest Avenue and goes to West Midtown Manhattan via New Jersey. The X14 runs along Clove Road and goes to West Midtown Manhattan via the FDR Drive and Madison Avenue.

Grymes Hill is the second highest point on Staten Island, reaching its greatest elevation of 310 ft above sea level at a point on the Wagner College property behind a parking lot and near the football field. Hero Park, 3 acre in size, is located at the intersection of Victory Boulevard and Louis Street, abutting the Notre Dame Academy property. A portion of the extremely steep hillside dropping down from Howard Avenue to Van Duzer Street is protected from development by the Hillside Preservation District. Some caves extended beneath Grymes Hill from van Duzer Street. Before Prohibition these were used for the production of beer. After Prohibition they were incorporated into a popular bar, at which a scene of the movie "Godfather" was shot. The bar has since closed, and a developer has blocked the caves with a cement wall while building a townhouse complex.

Neighborhoods around Grymes Hill include Ward Hill to the north, Silver Lake to the west, Sunnyside and Emerson Hill to the south, to the southeast is Concord, and Stapleton and Stapleton Heights to the east.

The Staten Island Ninja was suspected in burglaries of several homes in the neighborhood.