Hi Neighbor,

Each year around this time, as we celebrate Labor Day and watch summer slip away, memories drift back to a childhood in a little neighborhood Below the Boulevard named Ocean Breeze

Our tiny town, all of three blocks, each just a block long and dotted with summer bungalows, began as a vacation haven at the turn of the last century for city-dwellers looking for an escape from their sweltering neighborhoods.

Staten Island was a different place. Calmer. Quieter. Far fewer neighbors, far fewer cars. Mom-and-pop shops, with a tiny airport and farmers market where a sprawling mall now sits. Wetlands as far as you could see, where now sit duplexes, as far as you can see.

A place where we depended on ferries to get us to faraway places like Manhattan or Brooklyn.

Idyllic, many nat

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