Sunnyside is the name of a neighborhood in the Mid-Island region of the

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 ...

borough A borough is an administrative division in various English-speaking countries. In principle, the term ''borough'' designates a self-governing walled town, although in practice, official use of the term varies widely. History In the Middle Ag ...

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 ...

(not to be confused with the neighborhood of the same name in the borough of

Queens Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long ...

History

Sunnyside was originally farmland on either side of Clove Road. As farms gave way to residential housing, the

Vanderbilt family The Vanderbilt family is an American family who gained prominence during the Gilded Age. Their success began with the shipping and railroad empires of Cornelius Vanderbilt, and the family expanded into various other areas of industry and philanthr ...

built homes in the area, including two which still stand at the corner of Victory Boulevard and Clove Road. The area was once known as Clove Valley or Clovenia, and then adopted the name Sunnyside from a boarding house that was established there in 1889. Prior to the advent of

cable television Cable television is a system of delivering television programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This contrasts with broa ...

service, Sunnyside was noted for having the worst television reception on Staten Island. This resulted from its being hemmed in by several hills, including

Grymes Hill Grymes Hill is a tall hill formed of serpentine rock on Staten Island, New York. It is the second highest natural point on the island and in the five boroughs of New York City. The neighborhood of the same name encompasses an area of and has ...

, Emerson Hill and Castleton Hill, the latter separating Sunnyside from neighboring Castleton Corners. Sunnyside was once the home of a campus of the

College of Staten Island The College of Staten Island (CSI) is a public university in Staten Island, New York. It is one of the 11 four-year senior colleges within the City University of New York system. Programs in the liberal arts and sciences and professional studie ...

, located at the foot of Emerson Hill. In 1993 this campus was moved to the grounds of the former

Willowbrook State School Willowbrook State School was a state-supported institution for children with intellectual disabilities located in the Willowbrook neighborhood on Staten Island in New York City from 1947 until 1987. The school was designed for 4,000, but by 1965 ...

, and an advanced-placement

high school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...

, the

Michael J. Petrides School The Michael J. Petrides School is a State school, public school located at 715 Ocean Terrace in Staten Island, New York (state), New York. It was created by Board of Education officials and named for their late colleague and College of Staten Isla ...

, took its place. This center is also an evacuation site for residents during floods or other emergencies. Sunnyside Hospital was located on Little Clove Road and Ontario Avenue, but was demolished in the 1960s to make way for the

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 ...

(I-278). A large percentage of Sunnyside's residents are

civil service The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil servants hired on professional merit rather than appointed or elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leaders ...

workers, this demographic trait being typical of many Mid-Island neighborhoods.

Parks and boundaries

Sunnyside is situated amid several large city parks:

Clove Lakes Park Clove Lakes Park is a public park in the Sunnyside neighborhood of Staten Island in New York City. Clove Lakes Park has a rich natural history with valuable ecological assets and a few remnants of the past. Chief among them are the park's lakes ...

and

Silver Lake Park Silver is a chemical element with the symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical co ...

to the north, and Deere Park to the south. Slosson Avenue forms an unofficial western boundary, separating Sunnyside from Castleton Corners. Clove Road and Ocean Terrace approximate an eastern boundary, separating Sunnyside from

and Emerson Hill.

Transportation

Sunnyside is served by the local buses and the express buses.

References

Neighborhoods in Staten Island {{StatenIsland-geo-stub

History

Parks and boundaries

Transportation

See also

References