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Annadale, Staten Island
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Annadale is a neighborhood or section of Staten Island, New York, USA, situated on the island's South Shore.
The community received its present name circa 1860, and is named after Anna Seguine, a descendant of French Huguenots who were among the South Shore's earliest settlers; this settlement is also responsible for the neighborhood immediately to the southwest of Annadale being named Huguenot, and the Seguine family also lends its name to Seguine Avenue, the principal north-south thoroughfare on the east side of Prince's Bay, the neighborhood next southwest of Huguenot.
In 1929, immigrants from Spain purchased land along the Annadale shoreline, and founded a settlement that became known as the Spanish Camp, or Spanish Colony. First tents, and later bungalows, were built at the site; social activist Dorothy Day purchased one of the bungalows in 1972. By the mid- 1990s, land developers had begun aggressively seeking to purchase the property, and finally succeeded in 1999. The buildings at the site were then demolished so that several large, upscale homes could be constructed.
Annadale once had abundant woodland, but much of it was cleared in the last three decades of the 20th Century to make room for new homes. However, a city park in the heart of the neighborhood was converted into a wildlife preserve; known as Blue Heron Park, it covers 222 acres (898,000 m²), much of it consisting of ponds, swamps and small streams which empty into nearby Raritan Bay.
In the 1980s, the corner of Annadale Road and Arden Avenue, located at the northeast edge of the neighborhood, was the scene of many traffic accidents; this led to a public outcry, and subsequent action taken included the pruning of several trees near the corner plus the installation of a traffic light, and since then the number of accidents at the spot has been greatly reduced.
The northwestern part of Annadale is now often regarded as a separate neighborhood known as Arden Heights.
