Literature Relating to Staten Island 59 



refreshment rooms on the balconies. In these over a thousand 

 persons can at one time be served by the Purssell Company, the 

 famous caterers. . . . On these grounds the famous Metropohtan 

 Base-Ball Club . . . will play all their home games . . . and at 

 evening . . . series of open-air concerts will be given ... by 

 Cappa's Seventh Regiment band . . . and at the further end of 

 the park the wonderful fountains, illuminated by electric light 

 . . . will throw their many-hued jets a hundred feet in air, etc., 

 etc." 



All this has completely vanished to make way for freight trains 

 and trolley terminals, but a fragmentary reminder of the past was 

 to be seen until quite recently when the cement tank and iron 

 piping of the electric fountain were unearthed in excavating for 

 the retaining wall along Jay Street. 



The illustrations include some scenes and pictures of buildings 

 that are familiar to us at the present time — Sailors' Snug Harbor, 

 Seamen's Retreat (now the Marine Hospital), St. Paul's, St. 

 John's, and the old Moravian churches, — but others are mere 

 memories, such as the Pavilion Hotel, St. Mark's Hotel (later 

 the Hotel Castleton), the Cove at West New Brighton, before it 

 was filled in, showing the shore line curving around at the side 

 of the road, and a horse car where the trolley cars now have the 

 right of way. 



In regard to the hotels the description states that " the Pavilion, 

 the Belmont, the Mansion House on Richmond Terrace, and the 

 St. Mark's upon the hill above them, have long been filled to over- 

 flowing, during the summer months, while of late one or more 

 of them have found it profitable to keep open throughout the 

 winter as well, giving weekly hops and germans for the benefit 

 of their guests and neighbors." 



On the inside of the back cover is a time table of the boat ser- 

 vice between St. George and New York, " fare, ten cents," and 

 a schedule of the home games of the " Mets " on the ball grounds. 



To those who know Staten Island only as it is to-day this little 

 pamphlet will prove exceedingly interesting, but to the older gen- 



