What is your opinion when you hear of Staten Island, the fifth borough of New York City. It has the highest population of Italian - Americans, Irish Americans. It is the most suburban part of NYC. It is the most Republican borough in New York City, having voted for John McCain in 2008, George W. Bush in 2004, and Ronald Reagan for president in the 1980s. The borough voted for Rudy Giuliani for Mayor in 1989, 1993, and 1997 by ****overwhelming margins Staten Island has a large number of police officers, firefighters, and other civilian workers.
It’s the home of Mandolin Bros, so it’s okay in my book.
I know it got its name when the Dutch sailed into the harbor and spotted land. They asked each other,
“S’tat an island?” 
It’s the home of the Wu Tang Clan, so it’s okay in my book.
It shouldn’t be part of New York City, or New Jersey. Its almost its own stand alone community. Too remote from the rest of New York City to be part of NYC, and too NYC to be part of New Jersey. It really to me is a stand alone municipality. Maybe its own state
I’ve only been to the St. George area. It seemed like a nice enough place. Great view of the Lower Manhattan skyline.
Nice. I think of Mandolin Brothers when I think of Staten Island, too. Unfortunately, owner Stan Jay passed away late last year and his family is looking to sell the business. Tough given it’s lack of accessibility on Staten Island; Stan Jay was considered such a guitar expert and “evangelist” that celebrities and guitar geeks made the trip.
I live in the area but don’t have much of a POV on Staten Island other than references to the Wu-Tang Clan and of course the guitar shop discussed above.
ETA: oh, and that congressman, Mike Grimm, who physically threatened a journalist close to a hot mic, and was later convicted of tax evasion and forced to resign…
I usually drive through it when I have to get to Newark Airport. It’s a thing I have to drive through to get to Newark Airport.
I lived there briefly. I liked that I could go for a walk and see nature instead of just concrete and glass.
Somewhat weird place. You go for a walk and you stroll past two large fancy mansions and then come to a dilapidated house with peeling paint, then an empty lot with chunks of concrete and barbed wire and broken bottles and cardboard boxes all over the place, a small but neatly-kept and newly-painted cottage with prim little flowers in flowerbeds, another mansion with candelabras over the horse stable entrance and a portcullis and moat for the main entrance, then two boarded up abandoned houses and knee-high weeds and grass growing up through the cracks in the sidewalk.
We sailed our ship down the Hudson River
To the wild Atlantic we said farewell
On Staten Island when we landed
There we had our tale to tell
I think of it first and foremost as a garbage dump downwind of Newark.
Having been there I realize there’s a lot more to it than that. But the dump image is hard for me to shake.
In my brain its the “nice” area of NYC; less crime and less poverty and less people stacked shoulder to shoulder with each other. If that picture has any place in reality, I don’t know.
I’m not American – had only a vague idea of Staten Island until, quite recently, I embarked on a project to do with the area, causing me to find out more about it. One feature of this learning of new stuff: though I’d known that SI was quite a way off west of the rest of New York City, I was surprised to discover how close it is to the New Jersey mainland – essentially, divided from it just by a couple of creeks. I had hitherto kind of pictured SI as being out in the watery middle of nowhere.
I went to Snug Harbor in 2003 (I think). I remember really liking it. The Chinese Scholar’s Garden was beautiful. I lived in NYC from 2002 to 2005. I think that was the only time I went to Staten Island, so that’s what I always think of when I hear the name.
Years ago I used to order sf & fantasy books from a book dealer called Dick Whitter, who had a business there.
Apart from that, I know where it is on a map and that’s about it.
My mother grew up there. I’m not very fond of it.
The 1930s mansion used to film “The Godfather” is on Staten island-I always wanted to see it!
I have no opinion of it as I don’t recall ever having been there. It’s just part of a megalopolis.
My husband’s aunt was a nun, and when she retired from teaching, she lived in a convent there. For some reason I thought I’d heard that there are a lot of convents on Staten Island.
Anyway, when I hear Staten Island, I think nuns.