Grasmere, Staten Island

Grasmere is the name of a neighborhood located on the East Shore of Staten Island. The island makes up one of the five boroughs of New York City.

Sir Roderick W. Cameron, a founding member of the American Jockey Club, was instrumental in developing the area. He named his summer estate in Staten Island after Grasmere in England's Lake District, his birthplace. The fact that there are many small lakes and ponds in the vicinity &mdash; most notably Brady's Pond &mdash; may have reminded him of his home village. The other pond bears his surname, Cameron. Roderick Ave., another neighborhood street, is also a reminder of this Englishman. His stone manor was built on what is currently Radcliff Rd. He also built five similar, but smaller stone houses (gingerbread-looking) across from his main house (a mote of sorts was built surrounding the back of the house, which has since been remodeled). The gate house to his former estate existed until the mid-1980s on the southeast corner of Steuben St. and W. Fingerboard Rd., where the X13 express bus stop currently picks up commuters to Manhattan. Today three "luxury" townhouses stand on the old gatehouse's property. Sir Cameron's shipping company connected Australia to New York Harbor via a three-masted iron barque sailship he purchased in Glasgow, Scotland in 1887.

The neighborhood has always been one of the most prestigious communities on Staten Island, with the zone around Brady's Pond being particularly affluent. Legend in the neighborhood is that at the bottom of Brady's Pond lays a covered wagon used as a prop in a silent film in the early 20th Century. The name of the film is unknown.Grasmere is also home to the studio of Radio NewYork International (RNI) and John Lightning's 11L Network.

Transportation
The Staten Island Railway stops in the neighborhood, and the distance between the Grasmere train station and that of Clifton to the north is the longest between any two stations on the line. Grasmere is also the location of the executive offices of the Staten Island Advance, the island's daily newspaper.

The S78 (to St. George or Tottenville) and S79 (to Brooklyn via the Verrazano Narrows Bridge) make stops along Hylan Boulevard. The S53 (to Port Richmond or to Bay Ridge, Brooklyn) runs along Clove Road.

Trivia

 * The film Easy Money with Rodney Dangerfield opens with the exterior of a house on Hylan Blvd. near the intersection of Hylan Blvd., West Fingerboard Rd. and Sand Lane. The house is a few doors down from the S78/S79 southbound Bus Stop across the street from a mini-strip mall between Sand Lane and Linwood Ave.

Notable residents

 * In music, second drummer of Twisted Sister, A. J. Pero grew up on West Fingerboard Road.
 * In television, One Day At A Time's Glenn Scarpelli grew up on Normalee Road.
 * The mafioso Aniello Dellacroce resided in Grasmere at the time of his death on December 2, 1985.
 * Former member of the New York State Assembly, Matthew Mirones, is a Grasmere resident and former President of the Grasmere Civic Association.
 * John P. Lightning, legendary former pirate radio personality and long time host of Radio NewYork International, lives in Grasmere, where his 11L network has its studio, offices and vast music and video archive. 11L/RNI programming originates live from Grasmere.