Arden Heights, Staten Island

Arden Heights is a name increasingly applied to the western part of Annadale, a neighborhood located on the South Shore of Staten Island, New York, USA. The name "Arden Heights" is found on most maps of New York City, including Hagstrom's.

History

Erastus Wiman, a noted Staten Island real estate developer, coined the name "Arden Heights" in 1886; the neighborhood's name probably refers to the hill that currently looms above the Village Greens shopping center and housing development. (The moniker does not refer to the now-shuttered Fresh Kills Landfill, at the western end of Arden Avenue. The landfill did not exist until the mid-20th Century.)

Long noted for being the site of St. Michael's Home For Children, a Roman Catholic orphanage, Arden Heights underwent a serious transformation when the aforementioned Village Greens, New York City's first planned urban development, opened there in 1971. Ground was broken for the project by Mayor John V. Lindsay, who in the late 1960s proudly announced that travel time from the Greens to Lower Manhattan would average one hour 15 minutes – just about the same when taking a bus in 2007.

The Greens feature clustered townhomes built around looped streets – one way in, one way out. Off the main thoroughfares of Arden Avenue and Arthur Kill Road, these streets – Hampton Green, Forest Green, Dover Green and Carlyle Green – provides a relatively traffic-free environment and ample parking, making Village Greens a...
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