I spent the day exploring some of the more intruguing sites that Staten Island has to offer. This is research for my book on unusual things to see and do in New York City (more on that later). For those of you unfamiliar with New York's outer boroughs, Staten Island is the borough that is really a suburban wasteland of guido Republican Yankee fans masquerading as a part of the city. Still, I completely enjoyed my time on this island of mystery and intrigue. I went to a ridiculous science museum that displayed petrified rabbit turds in a matchbox, a lesbian Victorian era photographer's house, the craziest grotto shrine I have ever witnessed (and that is saying a lot), a museum dedicated to bolstering the case of Antonio Meucci as the true inventor of the telephone (I went in thinking they'd be crackpots, I left cursing that theiving Bell), and finally a labrynth at a Moravian church. Good times.
The thing that truly blew my mind, though, was when I got on a public bus and asked the driver if he stopped at Hodges Pl. (I knew the route went by it, but it was my way of passively asking him to alert me when we got there, a very common practice among NYC bus riders.)
He looked me in the eye. "I don't know the names of the streets this bus stops at."
"Excuse me? You don't know where this bus stops?"
"I only know it goes down Victory Boulevard," he said and smiled.
Now that scares the crap out of me way more than the Staten Island Ferry crowd.
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You should do a CUSS Staten Island Reality Tour!!!!
ReplyDeleteshit, i hope that bus driver was just messing with you since you were obviously a tourist... no big hair, gum smacking, or bad accent gives you away.
ReplyDeleteReason # 52340857384 never to go to SI.
ReplyDeleteOn my infamous trip to NYC (hillbillies do NYC) we rode the Staten Island ferry jsut to see the statue of liberty. We didn't get off and actually tour SI because everyone had already told me it was a waste of time.
ReplyDeleteMy baby sister moved to SI last year with her boyfriend and their son. I'll pick her brain for you next time I see her. (She's def not guido Rep. Just needed affordable housing and found a safer place for the price there.)
ReplyDeleteIf you said this stuff about blacks in brooklyn or latinos in the Bronx, you would be a racist. I guess class bias--in the case, the white working class--is ok. Have a nice day.
ReplyDelete