From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Tottenville is the southernmost neighborhood of Staten Island, one of the five boroughs of New York City. Originally named Bentley Manor by one of its first settlers, Christopher Billop (after the ship on which he sailed to America in 1667), the district was renamed Tottenville in 1869, apparently in honor of Gilbert Totten, a local Revolutionary War hero.
Two distinctive landmarks, the Bethel United Methodist Church (built in 1839) and a metal recovery center operated by Lucent Technologies, stand at the northern approaches to the neighborhood, which is bounded on the west and south by the Arthur Kill and on the east by the Atlantic Ocean. At the opposite end is the Conference House, built by Christopher Billop and so named because it was the site of abortive negotiations in 1776 to end the Revolutionary War (it is now the centerpiece of a city park).
Many small factories once dotted the neighborhood's western shoreline, but most of these are no longer in operation. Tottenville is the southern terminus of the Staten Island Railway, and is also served by two full-time and one-part time city bus route. The New York (City) Police Department's 123rd Precinct is headquartered there, and the neighborhood also has a branch of the New York Public Library. Tottenville High School, a public school, was originally located in the neighborhood, but a new campus was opened approximately three miles to the north, in the Huguenot section, in 1972 (an intemediate school, or junior high school, now occupies the original high school building).
Demographically, almost all of the population is white, with extremes of both wealth and poverty being essentially absent, and the neighborhood has a much higher proportion of Protestants than is encountered on Staten Island as a whole, which is heavily Roman Catholic.
During the 1990s, the section of Tottenville east of Hylan Boulevard, until then nearly uninhabited, saw massive new home construction, but the district's population density still ranks among the lowest in New York City, as does the crime rate.
Tottenville is situated at 40°31' North latitude, and 74°15' West longitude.
