Westerleigh is a residential neighborhood in the northwestern part of

Staten Island Staten Island ( ) is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Richmond County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located in the city's southwest portion, the borough is separated from New Jersey by the Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull an ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

Geography

Westerleigh is located in the northwest quadrant of the borough and is bounded in the east by Manor Road, the west by the Martin Luther King Jr. Expressway (

New York State Route 440 New York State Route 440 (NY 440) is a state highway located entirely on Staten Island in New York City. The route acts as a connector between the two segments of New Jersey Route 440, running from the Staten Island community of R ...

), the south by Victory Boulevard and to the north by

Forest Avenue Forest Avenue (formerly known as Green Street; colloquially known as Forest Ave) is a major street in Portland, Maine, United States. It runs for around from Bridgton Road in the northwest to Congress Street, in downtown Portland, in the south ...

. Westerleigh occupies high ground on Staten Island. While not as high as

Todt Hill Todt Hill ( ) is a hill formed of serpentine rock on Staten Island, New York. It is the highest natural point in the five boroughs of New York City and the highest elevation on the entire Atlantic coastal plain from Florida to Cape Cod. The summi ...

(the city's tallest point), from certain vantage points Westerleigh affords views of

Newark, New Jersey Newark ( , ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey and the seat of Essex County and the second largest city within the New York metropolitan area.Staten Island Expressway Interstate 278 (I-278) is an auxiliary Interstate Highway in New Jersey and New York in the United States. The road runs from US Route 1/9 (US 1/9) in Linden, New Jersey, northeast to the Bruckner Interchange in the New York ...

is Ingram Woods, a remnant of a larger forest that has been preserved as an undeveloped park.

History

PETER HOUSEMAN HOUSE, WESTERLEIGH, RICHMOND COUNTY, NY

Westerleigh attracted notice when a

temperance Temperance may refer to: Moderation *Temperance movement, movement to reduce the amount of alcohol consumed *Temperance (virtue), habitual moderation in the indulgence of a natural appetite or passion Culture *Temperance (group), Canadian danc ...

group, the National Prohibition Campground Association, bought 25 acres (10 ha) of land there in 1877, and named the property Prohibition Park — noted chiefly today for the fact that the official

climate Climate is the long-term weather pattern in an area, typically averaged over 30 years. More rigorously, it is the mean and variability of meteorological variables over a time spanning from months to millions of years. Some of the meteorologic ...

records for Staten Island are compiled at the site. Many of the local streets are named after early leaders of the

Prohibition Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic ...

movement (Neal Dow, Clinton B. Fisk), or for states that supported anti-liquor laws (such as

Maine Maine () is a state in the New England and Northeastern regions of the United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec to the northeast and north ...

and

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

). Some of Westerleigh's earliest residents excelled in letters including

Isaac K. Funk Isaac Kaufmann Funk (September 10, 1839April 4, 1912) was an American Lutheran minister, editor, lexicographer, publisher, and spelling reformer. He was the co-founder of Funk & Wagnalls Company, the father of author Wilfred J. Funk (who founde ...

, co-founder of

Funk and Wagnalls Funk & Wagnalls was an American publisher known for its reference works, including ''A Standard Dictionary of the English Language'' (1st ed. 1893–5), and the ''Funk & Wagnalls Standard Encyclopedia'' (25 volumes, 1st ed. 1912).Funk & Wagnalls N ...

, and poet

Edwin Markham Edwin Markham (born Charles Edward Anson Markham; April 23, 1852 – March 7, 1940) was an American poet. From 1923 to 1931 he was Poet Laureate of Oregon. Life Edwin Markham was born in Oregon City, Oregon, and was the youngest of 10 children; ...

. Heiress

Amy Vanderbilt Amy Osborne Vanderbilt (July 22, 1908 – December 27, 1974) was an American authority on etiquette. In 1952 she published the best-selling book ''Amy Vanderbilt's Complete Book of Etiquette''. The book, later retitled ''Amy Vanderbilt's Etiquet ...

also once lived there. The neighborhood gained much local attention for the abundance of patriotic decorations festooned on its homes in the aftermath of the

September 11, 2001 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial ...

. One of the oldest

Boy Scouts of America The Boy Scouts of America (BSA, colloquially the Boy Scouts) is one of the largest scouting organizations and one of the largest youth organizations in the United States, with about 1.2 million youth participants. The BSA was founded i ...

groups, Troop #2, was formed in 1912 and operates out of the Immanuel Union Church on Jewett Avenue. Westerleigh is also home to the oldest tennis club in the US, tennis having been introduced to the US (from England, via Bermuda) at the home here of Mary Ewing Outerbridge. She played the first game in the US at the

Staten Island Cricket Club The Staten Island Cricket Club (SICC) is a cricket club on Staten Island, New York that was incorporated as the Staten Island Cricket and Base Ball Club on March 22, 1872. It became the first tennis venue in the United States.Morris, Ira K. (1 ...

on an hourglass shaped court. The location, on College Avenue, still sports a tennis court. The

Peter Houseman House Peter Houseman House is a historic home located at Westerleigh, Staten Island, Westerleigh, Staten Island, New York. It consists of two sections, one built about 1730 and the second about 1760. The older section is a -story, stone wing built o ...

was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1982.

Education

Schools

Many Westerleigh residents are zoned for PS 30, IS 51, Susan E. Wagner High School and

Port Richmond High School Port Richmond High School is a public high school on the North Shore of Staten Island, New York City, New York. It is located in the Elm Park neighborhood, at 85 St Josephs Avenue between Innis Street and Charles Avenue. It has approximately 10 ...

Library

The

New York Public Library The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second largest public library in the United States (behind the Library of Congress ...

(NYPL)'s Todt Hill-Westerleigh branch is located at 2550 Victory Boulevard on the border between Willowbrook and Westerleigh. The three-story branch opened in 1991.

Transportation

Westerleigh is served by a number of local and express buses. The local bus and the express buses to

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

run along Watchogue Road. The local buses travel along Victory Boulevard, while the local bus travels along Jewett Avenue. Farther north, the local buses and the express buses serve Forest Avenue, and the SIM35 also serve Manor Road at Westerleigh's eastern edge.

References

{{coord, 40, 37, 05, N, 74, 08, 13, W, display=title Neighborhoods in Staten Island