Welcome

The Board of Directors of the Staten Island Historical Society welcomes you to the Society’s completely revamped website.  Several years ago, during a media interview, I was asked to describe the single most important factor in making the Society a success in the future.  I put technology at the top of my list.  This answer surprised the reporter, who found it odd for people interested in preserving history to be looking at advanced technology.  Facebook, Twitter, Cell Phone tours, iPhones, Flutter, Rectifier.  All of these are ways for my generation to communicate what happened in past generations to the youngest generations.  If we are to keep history alive, not for ourselves as we age out, but for our children and grandchildren, then we must adapt our content to their formats.  I don’t advocate that we abandon our comfort zone – we all must read in the traditional way, particularly when it comes to history, but we must also read in bits and bytes.  We all must be a part of the 21st century if we are to have any hope that what happened in the 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th centuries is to be remembered.  What good is all of this history if no one ever sees it?

Over the last five years, the Society has assembled a highly progressive and aggressive Board of Directors that puts its money, time, energy and expertise to work.  With that Board’s guidance, the Society uses all of its resources, old and new, to deliver the best of Staten Island’s history to you.  We are educators, lawyers, architects, bankers, physicians, dentists, horticulturalists, medical professionals, investment bankers, journalists ... and even an Emmy Award winning television producer.  We bring all of these talents to bear on this gem.  We are locked in to our mission, but, rest assured, we are not locked in to one methodology.

This Island’s history is your history, whether you are a native Islander, a recent addition, a New Yorker or just a plain old American.  We know how to take care of that history, and we take that responsibility very seriously.  And you can help us to fulfill that responsibility.  You may not know it, but the Staten Island Historical Society runs more events in one year than every other cultural institution on Staten Island put together.  If you attend just one of those events, and you enjoy it, share that knowledge with your friends and neighbors.  You are our best ambassadors.  Expand their horizons and expand your own – relearn what you learned as a child if you visited us back then, and bring your children.  Or just experience in a new way something that your children and the children of every council district in the City of New York learn every day, right here in your back yard, right here on Staten Island, right here at Historic Richmond Town.

John Gustafsson

President and Chairman of the Board

Historic Richmond Town

Staten Island Historical Society