Historic Richmondtown Individual Landmarks Turn 50
These historic buildings on Staten Island create a “living history town and museum complex” showing how previous generations of New Yorkers lived and worked.
On August 26, 1969, the Landmarks Preservation Commission designated 13 individual landmarks in Historic Richmondtown, Staten Island, preserving a cross section of Staten Island’s 17th- through 19th-century history represented in a variety historic building types. Most were original to the historic town of Richmond, and others were moved there as part of the Richmondtown Restoration, New York City’s only interpretive historic town center. In all, there are 20 individual landmarks in Historic Richmondtown, including the 13 designated in 1969 (check them out on LPC’s Discover NYC Landmarks map).
The town of Richmond was first settled by the Dutch in 1680 and was known as Cocclestown, likely in reference to nearby Native American shell middens. It was renamed Richmond in the early 18th century, and in 1729 became the seat of county government on Staten Island. It began to decline in importance after Staten Island joined New York City in 1898 and its county functions and offices moved to St. George. The Staten Island Historical Society, founded in Richmond in 1854, inaugurated the preservation of Historic Richmondtown in 1939, including the restoration of extant historic village buildings, and the relocation of endangered buildings from other Staten Island sites, to create a “living history town and museum complex.”
The creation of a historic town as a museum and visitor center was a means of preserving and interpreting historic structures employed in America in the mid-20th century in notable places such as Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia, and Plimouth Plantation in Massachusetts. The practice has since been critically debated as an approach to historic preservation, in particular around issues of authenticity and historic context. However, in the sense that important historic buildings — including some of the oldest in the city — have been preserved and can be visited and experienced for educational purposes, and many of the buildings in Historic Richmondtown are on their original sites, its existence is positive and unique in New York City.
The 13 landmarks designated 50 years ago today include an original cemetery and seven buildings on their original sites, and five buildings that had been moved from other parts of Staten Island, where they were threatened by development or were in the path of infrastructure projects such as the Fresh Kills landfill area and the Willowbrook Parkway. They were designated as New York City landmarks during the process of restoration and reconstruction that created Historic Richmondtown, and they reflect a range of dates, types, and styles of construction that together represent, as their designation reports describe, “an unusual survival of an early town and county center.”
Original buildings included among these landmarks are the Voorlezer’s House at 59 Arthur Kill Road, built around 1695; the Treasure House (so named because of the large sum of money found hidden in its walls in the 1850s) at 37 Arthur Kill Road, construction of which began in 1700; the Parsonage at 74 Arthur Kill Road, built c. 1855; the County Clerk’s and Surrogate’s Offices, now the Museum at 303 Centre Street, built c. 1848; the Third County Courthouse at 302 Centre Street, built c. 1837, the Stephens House and General Store at 297 Centre Street, built c. 1837; the Bennett House at 3730 Richmond Road, built c. 1837; and the Van Pelt-Rezau Cemetery on Tyson Court, one of the few “Homestead Graves” on Staten Island, described in the designation report as “private cemeteries set aside on a remote part of a farm for family burials.”
Relocated buildings included among the designations in 1969 include the Boehm-Frost House, built in 1770 and relocated to the original foundations of a similar historic house which had been destroyed in 1883; the Grocery Store on Court Place, built c. 1860; the Cooper’s Shop (Egbert-Finley House) at 3747 Richmond Road, built c. 1790 and moved in 1966 from Egbertville where it stood in the path of the Willowbrook Parkway; the Basketmaker’s Shop (Morgan House) at 3741 Richmond Road, built c. 1810 and moved from the Fresh Kills landfill area; and the Lake-Tyson House at 3711 Richmond Road, built c. 1740 and moved to Richmondtown in 1962 when threatened with demolition by a developer.
By Kate Lemos McHale, Director of Research, Landmarks Preservation Commission
