Home / New York City / Mobility / Staten Island North Shore Railroad

West Brighton

The ROW narrows in this area and runs through active industrial property, notably the Caddell shipyard. Much of the ROW is being used for storage but no permanent structures have been built on it. Elevation and relocation of the track above grade would presumably be required to preserve the businesses here.

The West Brighton station was supposedly located at the foot of Broadway, presumably someplace on the Caddell Dry Dock facility.

Markham Gardens sits just to the south of the rail line in West Brighton. It was originally built in 1943 as housing for workers in nearby shipyards that were extremely active during WW-II. The 23 two-story buildings were small and frail and were emptied in 2004 to be replaced by subsidized private redevelopment. The new Markham Gardens includes 240 mixed-income rentals, 25 attached two-family homes and senior housing. The hope is that the new buildings will solve the physical woes and the mixed-income structure will solve the spiritual woes, although urban renewal projects invariably involve insensitive displacement in an attempt to dissipate critical masses of poverty. A new rail station just steps away would be a nice amenity as well. (NYC.gov 2009, SILive.com 2009)

By contrast, West Brighton Houses I is an old school post-WW-II high-rise housing project that sits just to the southwest of Markham Gardens. It has 488 units and opened in 1962. West Brighton II was opened in 1965 just to the south with 144 units in one-story buildings. The West Brighton II buildings were boarded up when I visited in 2009.

Next: Port Richmond