Wolfe's Pond Park

With a beach, freshwater ponds, a forest, lots of recreation facilities, and even a Battle of the Bulge memorial, Wolfe's Pond Park covers more than 300 acres on the south shore of Staten Island, split across the middle by Hylan Boulevard, one of the island's main thoroughfares. The park includes part of the Staten Island Bluebelt, a huge storm drainage and landscape architecture project that's still in progress.

A Bluebelt sign greeted us as we made an initial stab into the park from its northern end, thinking we might be able to find paths all the way through to the pond and the shore.

The trail was clear, but with neither a map nor the right footwear for the terrain, we decided to drive down to the beach end instead.

If you see berries that look like the ones in the next photo, do not eat them. It's pokeweed. Pokeberries are deadly poisonous to humans, although, according to Outdoor Life, birds and deer and other animals can eat them with no problem.

Can dogs eat pokeberries? Outdoor Life doesn't say. They can have a good time in the Wolfe's Pond Park dog run, though. Because of the clean-looking wood-chip surface (and the absence of dogs) I didn't even realize it was a dog run until I noticed the POOCHES sign on the shed.

Walking a winding path through the high shrubbery gave us our first view of the beach, which looks pretty nice, even though this summer a New Yorkers for Parks report rated it the worst of eight city beaches. (Like other Staten Island beaches, it suffered damage during Hurricane Sandy.)

Basketball courts, tennis courts, even a hockey rink were in use. Absolutely not in use was this fenced-off, overgrown playground . The equipment doesn't look old. Hurricane Sandy shut off the "lights" here, I believe. There's a notation on the parks department website that restoration of the playground and surrounding paths is underway.

Out of nowhere the Plaza of the Battle of the Bulge appears, with its striking memorial. Its dichroic glass star is said to change color throughout the day.

Partly funded by contributions from Luxemburg and Belgium, the memorial, built in 2001, pays "tribute to the 600,000 American men and women who participated in this epic [1944-45] battle," as the Parks Department website explains.

We made our way towards the pond itself across a big grassy area strewn with families and groups of friends. There seemed to be roughly as many ethnicities as groups.

At last, Wolfe's Pond.

The city acquired the area for a park in 1929, but it was already a popular spot for waterside recreation. Prior to that it was owned by the state, which used it as a quarantine site for sick immigrants. Before that, a man named Joel Wolfe who had come up from Virginia farmed it until 1857 (credit goes to an old Forgotten New York post for that hard-to-find tidbit). And before that, Native Americans used the shells of the Quahog clams they found here (later given the wonderful scientific name Mercenaria mercenaria) to make valuable wampum.

The freshwater pond extends south to where, pace the little dam, it sometimes connects to Raritan Bay – and floods with seawater. How fresh, salt, or brackish is the water this summer I have no idea.

Looking northward, you could almost be in a pristine wilderness.

Looking at children chasing geese, well, it's a wild scene, but maybe not so pristine.

One goose had found a more protected spot. Though if it came down to a real fight, I suspect the children would need more protection than the geese.

These guys had secured a quiet little eden too, a shady spot by the water where they listened to one of their number sing and play a stringed instrument. Is this a saz? If anyone knows for sure, please let me know in a comment below.

Lemon Creek Park

A recent excursion to the Seguine Mansion also included a visit to Lemon Creek Park on the shore of Prince's Bay, Staten Island. Not surprisingly, the park gets its name from Lemon Creek, which is wide enough near its mouth for boats to dock and navigate, then narrows further inland.

According to the Parks Department website, the origin of the name "Lemon Creek" is unknown. The waterway was previously called the Little North River, presumably a cutely aspirational reference to the Hudson River, which was in olden times called the North River (and still is on some nautical maps).

Before that, Lemon Creek was designated Seguine's Creek. No mystery to that one.

By the mouth of the creek there's also a quiet pond.

And then there's Prince's Bay itself, an indentation in the larger Raritan Bay, with Keyport, New Jersey across the way. My van once broke down in Keyport, New Jersey. That's all I know about it.

To get to the shore from the parking lot, you pass a picturesque pagoda and walk through a wide grassy field.

Or you can take a rougher route.

Yes, I said "parking lot." This is Staten Island, remember – an exotic mysteryland to many New Yorkers from the other boroughs. A place where people drive to the park. In a car.

A small crowd of islanders was enjoying the beach.

According to the Parks Department, the borough and city have bestowed over $5 million on Lemon Creek Park over the past 20 years, money that appears to have been well spent, as this is a lovely park, unprepossessing, but unique in a number of ways.

Given that history, a modest allotment for the continued preservation of Seguine Mansion shouldn't be too much to ask.

All photos © Jon Sobel, Critical Lens Media

Twin Oaks Seguine Burke Plantation (Seguine Mansion)

As advertised in its latest brochure, the Seguine Mansion is "one of the grandest 19th century homes on Staten Island." But together with its contents and its grounds, this former farmhouse in the Prince's Bay neighborhood near the island's south shore is a good deal more than that.

Built in 1838 by James Seguine (pronounced to rhyme with "benign"), whose grandfather purchased land in Prince's Bay in the 18th century, this spacious and beautifully restored Greek Revival house is actually the farmhouse, and not the original mansion, which crumbled decades ago.

The well-appointed farmhouse was about to do the same when, in 1981, George Burke, a longtime family friend of the Seguine family, purchased it.

Over the decades since, Burke has dedicated himself to bringing the building and grounds back to opulent life, and filled the house with his extensive collection of European and American art and furnishings.

George Burke admires "Judith" by Rembrandt Peale at Seguine Mansion

Every room is crammed with paintings and other objets-d'art, many on beautifully reproduced historic wallpapers.

Burke maintains the peacock-patrolled grounds as lovingly as he does the interior. The Parks Department and the Historic House Trust of New York City now hold sway over the house and land – on paper, anyway. But unlike most of the city's other historic houses, which employ caretakers who live in one room, the Seguine house in its entirety remains Burke's home as long as he lives.

Burke is 85. What will happen to the Seguine Mansion and its grounds, more formally known as the Twin Oaks Seguine Burke Plantation, after he's gone is an open question. As yet the Parks Department isn't providing the budget to keep it going in its present, glorious state.

The adjoining Seguine Equestrian Center was active on the day of our visit. As Burke told the Staten Island Advance a few years ago, "Horses had always been kept at the mansion in the past, and I said if I'm going to recreate an 1830s plantation, you've got to have horses."

From the large rear garden you can glimpse Prince's Bay and the vessels of the Princess Bay (not Prince's Bay, confusingly enough) Boatmen's Association, by Lemon Creek Park (the subject of my next post).

With its structural preservation (a labor of personal rather than institutional love), its remarkable private art collection, its grounds, its location, and its history, the Seguine Mansion and Twin Oaks Seguine Burke Plantation are unique in many ways. It would be terribly shameful if the city and the borough of Staten Island didn't find a way to continue to preserve them for posterity.

By no means can we assume this will be done. Just look at the wrecked state of the Olmsted-Beil House up the coast a ways. That's Frederick Law Olmsted's farmhouse, or what's left of it.

In addition to designing Central Park, Prospect Park, and many other sites in and out of New York City, Olmsted laid out these very gardens behind the Seguine Mansion.

A new book, The Seguine House: A Nineteenth-Century Working Estate in Twenty-First-Century New York City, has just come out full of history and beautiful photos. But you can see the house in person. Arrange a tour or find out about parties and performances hosted by the Seguine Mansion/Twin Oaks Seguine Burke Plantation by calling 718-980-2565 or emailing lindaBSL10@aol.com.

All photos © Jon Sobel/Elisa Peimer, Critical Lens Media