Tompkinsville, Staten Island : NYC Tourist Guide

Tompkinsville

Tompkinsville is a neighborhood in northeastern Staten Island in New York City in the United States. Though the neighborhood sits on the island's eastern shore, along the waterfront facing Upper New York Bay - between St. George on the north and Stapleton on the south - it is reckoned as being part of the North Shore by the island's residents.

Tompkinsville is the oldest European village in eastern Staten Island. It was the site where early explorers replenished their water supplies and was known in colonial times as the "Watering Place". In 1815, a settlement was established in the neighborhood next to the existing quarantine station by Daniel D. Tompkins, who was elected Vice President the following year. In 1817 Tompkins built a dock at the foot of present-day Victory Boulevard and began offering steam ferry service to Manhattan.

In the early 1900s, the telephone exchange that served Staten Island's eastern North Shore was named after the neighborhood; the name of this exchange became "Saint George" in the mid-1920s, and "Saint George 7" when New York Telephone upgraded telephone service throughout New York City in December of 1930 (the prefix "727" still exists on the island today, and is the only one of the designations that existed in the 1920s that can still be found there).

The neighborhood is mixed commercial and residential. Like many areas of the northeastern part of the island, it suffered a decline following the construction of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in 1964, which shifted the commercial actiivty of the island towards its interior. Recent plans have called for the redevelopment of the harbor front area. The population is racially diverse, primarily made up of African-Americans, Hispanics and Italian-Americans (the latter once being dominant), with recent arrivals including immigrants from such countries as Albania and Sri Lanka. Unlike many other North Shore communities (and like Port Richmond), there are no public housing projects in Tompkinsville, the housing stock of which is dominated by single-family homes built in the first few decades of the 20th Century. Though Tompkinsville's crime rate is not as high as that of those neighborhoods on Staten Island which do contain public housing projects, public intoxication and similar behavior is a problem, leading to signs being posted along the first few blocks of Victory Boulevard to the effect that "Drinking in Public is a Crime - Violators Will Be Prosecuted."

The neighborhood is along the Staten Island Railway, one stop south of the terminus at St. George.

Tompkinsville was the site of a Naval Frontier Base of the US Navy for many years.