Learn about Staten Island’s detachment from the transit system of New York City and its impact on the past and present.

Staten Island’s history and culture has been shaped by its lack of subway access. For decades, Staten Islanders have felt isolated, creating an identity as ‘the forgotten borough.’

Kenneth M. Gold, author of The Forgotten Borough: Staten Island and the Subway investigates the impact of transit isolation on Staten Island’s history and identity. Gold chronicles decades of recurrent efforts to build a rail link, using this history to explore the borough’s fraught relationship with New York City as a whole.

Gold demonstrates that the failure to establish a rail link during this period caused Staten Island to diverge culturally, demographically, and politically from the other four boroughs. Drawing on extensive archival research, including maps, city plans, and archival photographs, this presentation shows how transportation infrastructure and politics shed new light on urban history.

About the author:

Kenneth M. Gold is associate professor of educational studies at the College of Staten Island, City University of New York, where he was the founding dean of the School of Education. He is the author of School’s In: The History of Summer Education in American Public Schools (2002) and coeditor of Discovering Staten Island: A 350th Anniversary Commemorative History (2011).

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