Today’s Staten Island Ferry was one I hadn’t ridden on before though TV news reports of my distant youth were redolent with the name of Sen. John J. Marchi. He represented SI in the NY state senate for half a century. Many of the folks boarding with me were intent…

Between the southern shore of Staten Island and the Korean War Veterans Parkway lie several neighborhoods served by the Staten Island Railway, the Forgotten Borough’s only rail line. One of them is Prince’s Bay. Below the train station is a narrow enclave sandwiched between Lemon Creek Park to the west…

I’ll start with a minor housekeeping detail: new phone cam! The Samsung A14 has better color than the A03 I formerly used. Thanks to the miracle of the panorama mode, which I’m starting to get the hang of, I’ve finally gotten the entire Staten Island Ferry terminal sign into one…

The enormity of the Staten Island Restaurant Tour is dawning on me. Just as it’s hard to get the giant freestanding letters of the Staten Island Ferry sign in one unobstructed shot, having a meal near each of the 21 rail stops in New York’s least frequented borough is going…

Arthur Kill. No, Arthur, no! “Kill” is actually the Dutch word for “little stream,” so naming a neighborhood after one is less a horror-movie scenario than a nod to New York’s Dutch heritage — the city originally was Nieuw Amsterdam, after all. This episode of the Staten Island Restaurant Tour…

Sometimes you hatch a plan and it goes awry. My idea was a Staten Island Restaurant Tour: a way to get out of my Manhattan apartment, explore unfamiliar neighborhoods along the borough’s single rail line, and stuff my face with comfort food, knowing that my newly slimmed-down 157-pound senior body…

Yeah, that’s right. I shoot pigeons with my assault weapon. Hardly a day goes by when I don’t blast one off my windowsill. Pigeons are lovely creatures. Under normal circumstances I would not wish to shoot them. Their coloration — a mix of soothing grey, dark blue, and iridescent green…

I have re-established diplomatic relations with the Levi Strauss Corporation. It was touch and go for a while. I wasn’t sure if our old romance would ever rekindle. But that little red tag is back on my ass. Part time, at least. A little piece of my heart still belongs…

People come to New York City from all over the world to see our rats. Well, OK, they come to see the Freedom Tower, Central Park, and noble 19th-century brownstones. But they also see our rats. And our rats are an achievement of sorts. We have what is probably the…