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| Eric Garner Death Site - Bay Street Google Street Map |
It is hard
sometimes to explain Staten Island to strangers. The area where Eric Garner was
brought down to keep the streets clean of poor people selling loosie cigarettes
or joints is a seedy area about three blocks from the Staten Island Ferry and
Borough Hall.
Downtown
Staten Island if you can call it that is a bunch of public buildings, small
businesses, a Technical High School, an academic High School, courts, all up against the
side of a hill, small mountain, steep as any street in San Francisco.
It is an
area of high foot traffic during the day from those various high schools and courts. The
Ferry building itself is a major transportation hub, the primary one, and
second to that is first stop away from that transportation hub to areas south
and west along Bay Street, the main coastal road to the Verrazano Bridge and
Victory Blvd (the old Philadelphia Pike) - where Eric Garner was hanging out in his local free lance business activities.
Eric Garner
was hanging around a seedy urban strip mall with hair dressing shops, fast
food, Gypsy Cab Co., etc. and the center of activity across the Tompkinsville
Park.
This used to be the center of an
old forgotten Victorian era town when Staten Island was still mostly farmland and small burb towns until 1964 and the opening of the Verrazano Bridge. Even
though looking seedy and having the feeling of a slum, the average house in this neighborhood,
probably an old wood frame shingled house is $400-500K among the many apartment
buildings. Location. Location. Location.
Across the
park is the local Welfare and Food Stamp Office for the Borough in an old car dealership
building on Bay Street.
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| Victory Blvd. Off Bay Street - Tomkinsville Park - Bus Stop Google Street Map |
A whole lot
of activity during the day all about. And a lot of police in police cars
patrolling from the nearby 20th Precinct Building on Richmond Terrace
– same street – Bay street with Borough Hall (local City Hall - Marriage Licenses, building permits etc.) at the Ferry Terminal the dividing line on
that main coastal road on the North Shore of Staten Island.
An area you might walk through if you want to, safe enough, but after 5 PM you don’t want to walk around the area.
A lot of
police and firemen live in Staten Island. No indictment was possible on this Police home turf in their burbs and $700K+ houses beyond this coastal slum town by the
Ferry.
Pan Around
per Google from Eric Garner’s run in with the former mayor’s policy to sweep
all poor people off the streets from 9 to 5 in this local hub of public
buildings and government functions.
Google Street - 360 degree View:
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| Google Maps |
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