New York unites five boroughs – Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island. You never heard of the last one borough from the list? It’s normal. Staten Island has always been that way. Different. At the margin. Forget it.
The island does not attract many people, apart from its own inhabitants. When the sky is blue, they are joined by a few tourists, who take advantage of the free ferry crossing, across the bay, where the Hudson River flows into the Atlantic Ocean, to take their picture in front of the Statue of Liberty. , visible in the distance. No sooner has the boat docked on Staten Island than most of the passengers rush to the dock to take the next ferry: quick, quick, we have to get back to Manhattan. The big city. The “real New York”, as they say.
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New Yorkers themselves tend to laugh at Staten Island. Many have never set foot there. They ignore that the island is bigger than Manhattan and speak of its nearly 500,000 inhabitants as one would distant cousins, sympathetic but gruff, who would wear colorful shirts and speak too loudly.
Gel, tan and gold chains
The clichés abound … On Staten Island, men use industrial quantities of hair gel and wear thick gold chains. On Staten Island, tanning salons are never empty (hence the orange complexion of many faces). On Staten Island, gang leaders house their wives, away from the hustle and bustle of Manhattan.
In the primaries, 80% of Republican voters on the island voted Trump.
N. DVIR / POLARIS FOR THE EXPRESS
In recent months, the electoral campaign has hardly improved the image of the island among New York intellectuals, loyal supporters of the Democratic Party. In the primaries, 80% of Republican voters on Staten Island named Donald Trump as their favorite candidate. Rednecks, we tell you.
At 51, Scott LoBaido would almost be proud of it. “Patriotic artist”, as his business card specifies, he assembled in September, in the garden of a local politician, an imposing wooden sculpture in the shape of a “T”. Shortly after, an unknown person set fire to this tribute to the Republican candidate in the middle of the night. The incident made headlines in the local press.
Scott LoBaido, “patriotic artist” with a high love verb.
N. DVIR / POLARIS FOR THE EXPRESS
When LoBaido talks about it, between two cigarettes, the words follow one another like submachine gun fire: “I paint American flags, you see? Assholes cover them with graffiti. No problem, the graffiti: I repaint over them. For my ‘T’, you see, I was expecting something like that. Or egg throwing. But there the guy, he burned it. Burned, you know what I mean? You didn’t. Don’t like my ‘T’, knot head? We talk about it, but burn it? Fuck me? Fuck you! The next day, Trump gave me a call to assure me of his support. I said, ‘Donald, I’m going to do a T again. And you know what? It will be even bigger! ‘ Here. The new one is 5 meters high. We light it up every night. He’s watched by security cameras and all the bastringue. Fuck you!”
Scott LoBaido couldn’t live anywhere other than Staten Island. When he went to Brooklyn, this haunt of leftists, in September 1999, it was to throw horse dung on the front door of the local museum: “I wanted to protest against a work of modern art on display at the inside: a portrait of the Virgin Mary smeared with elephant dung. ” His friends sometimes advise him to flee New York and settle in a state where the Republicans are in the majority, such as Wyoming or Texas. “I always tell them the same thing: ‘No way! No fuckin’ way!’ My family has lived here for four generations. I love New York. I love shouts, excitement, conflict, chicks. So I’m staying, okay? ”
It’s a bit like the New York of yesteryear …
With his banter and his rustic airs, Scott LoBaido perfectly sums up the spirit of Staten Island, which was once that of New York as a whole. In a sense, this remote and unrecognized area of the city retains a trace of the city of times past, when Irish and Italian gangs vied for control of the land. And for good reason.
North of the expressway which crosses the island right through, Americans of Irish origin have long been in the majority. The oldest districts, such as West Brighton, with the appearance of villages, have developed around the port of St. George, the ferry terminal. Further south, the more recent houses and apartment buildings date back to the 1960s, 1970s and even 1980s. Thousands of Brooklyn residents, often of Italian descent, moved here after the construction of the Verrazano Bridge, which opened. in 1964, which connects from the island to the mainland. From then on, other communities joined them: Russians, Poles, Sri Lankans, Nigerians, Liberians … Most of them have rather modest incomes – police officers, firefighters, teachers … Rightly or wrongly, many have the feeling that without them New York could no longer function.
“Despite recent construction and development projects, there is the same atmosphere as in a village,” says Eddie Joyce. Child of the country, this son of a bar owner became a lawyer in a large Manhattan law firm, before giving up everything to write a magnificent novel, published in France a few months ago, Little Consolations (Payot & Rivages). All the action takes place on Staten Island, as it should be.
“When I walk into a bar,” says Eddie Joyce, “not only do I know everyone, but we all grew up together and went to the same high schools! The ones in Manhattan think we are buggers, but that’s wrong. The streets of Staten Island is filled with island-born people and former Brooklynites, smart and resourceful. They are gruff, like all real New Yorkers! Nice, too. They live apart from the rest of the city. , which increases their feeling of insularity, at the risk of turning in on themselves. ”
Like Scott LoBaido, writer Eddie Joyce is a die-hard fan of New York’s five boroughs.
N. DVIR / POLARIS FOR THE EXPRESS
Eddie Joyce remembers driving through Fresh Kills, then the largest landfill in the world, as a child in the 1980s. Sometimes, around a bend, he saw the skyscrapers of Manhattan: “It seemed so close, and yet so far … “The landfill was closed in March 2001 and the municipality is building there the largest park in the whole city, built on the rubbish and buried waste. But it was reopened, on a temporary basis, to accommodate the wreckage of the World Trade Center after the September 11 attacks.
“This episode has heightened the confused feeling among the people of Staten Island that they live in some sort of dump,” said Eddie Joyce. “As if we were second-class New Yorkers, exiled from our own city.” A feeling all the more painful as the police and firefighters of Staten Island paid a heavy price in the attacks: nearly 300 of them died. Since then, like a curse, the tragedies follow one another.
In October 2012, Hurricane Sandy, which came from the ocean, hit the island head-on and caused 24 deaths. More recently, the name of Staten Island has reappeared in the headlines of the newspapers due to drug trafficking which is wreaking havoc among the young people of the island: compared to the number of inhabitants, the rate of opioid overdoses is almost three times higher than the rest of the city.
“The people of Staten Island are exasperated,” continues Eddie Joyce. “They sometimes have the feeling of being abandoned. Personally, I do not see how Donald Trump would represent a good answer to these very real concerns, but it is like This. Trump is a New Yorker. He speaks with his guts. And some here like that. ”
Worth the detour
Manhattan? Already seen! Brooklyn? A catch-sore! In New York, next time, treat yourself to a visit to Staten Island, a neighborhood that is not yet in fashion, but soon will be. The ferry departs every thirty minutes from lower Manhattan. On site, it is recommended to travel by bus or car: the island is larger than Manhattan! Give in to the charm and head off to the wind, or take a stroll in Silver Lake Park: the body of water is magnificent and you will discover, as a bonus, an 18-hole golf course.
Call a cab and head to the upscale Todt Hill neighborhood further south. Along Four Corners Road, in particular, you’ll find wealthy New Yorkers living in a 1930s mansion, nestled deep in a sprawling garden. A little culture? The Every Thing Goes Book Cafe (208 Bay Street, Tompkinsville), run by a cooperative, offers used books. Don’t leave without eating New York’s best pizzas: Italian restaurants abound. All useful addresses on www.visit statenisland.com
Marc Epstein
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