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

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Staten Island Staten Island ( ) is the southernmost of the boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Richmond County and situated at the southernmost point of New York (state), New York. The borough is separated from the ad ...

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

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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 philanth ...

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 A boarding house is a house (frequently a family home) in which lodging, lodgers renting, rent one or more rooms on a nightly basis and sometimes for extended periods of weeks, months, or years. The common parts of the house are maintained, and ...

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 bro ...

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,

Emerson Hill Emerson Hill is the name of a hilly area, and the neighborhood situated thereon, in Staten Island, New York, one of the five boroughs of New York City, United States. Some of the roads on Emerson Hill are private, and several gates were prev ...

and Castleton Hill, the latter separating Sunnyside from neighboring

Castleton Corners FIle:Castleton Corners.jpg, 300px, Castleton Corners Castleton Corners (or Four Corners) is an upscale neighborhood of Staten Island, one of the five boroughs of New York City. It is bounded by Westerleigh in the West, West Brighton in the East ...

. 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, United States. 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 pro ...

, 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 in the Willowbrook neighborhood of Staten Island in New York City, which operated from 1947 until 1987. The school was designed for 4,000, ...

, and an advanced-placement

high school A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., ...

, the

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

, 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 C ...

(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 service personnel hired rather than elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leadership. A civil service offic ...

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 and Silver Lake Park to the north, and Deere Park to the south. Slosson Avenue forms an unofficial western boundary, separating Sunnyside from

. Clove Road and Ocean Terrace approximate an eastern boundary, separating Sunnyside from Grymes Hill and

Transportation

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

References

Neighborhoods in Staten Island {{StatenIsland-geo-stub