The 1874 Atlas of Staten Island has Dr. O. Rotton as the owner of record for the property surrounding this geocache. He had a small house with a shed out back further up Saw Mill Road (now Rockland Ave.). The area was wooded and most land owners at the time used these properties as summer homes or for rental. Across the street and up the hill the Heyerdahl's were running their winery. Through this property ran a line of the Central Railroad of SI, a section of it most likely buried by Moses Mountain. The train line crossed Egbert Ave. (now Manor Rd.) on it's way toward Richmondtown. In the past Brielle Ave. used to be named Manor Road.
In the early 1900's the Sea View Hospital was constructed. It opened its doors in 1913 as a sanitarium treating individuals suffering from the most feared disease of the time, tuberculosis. It was at Sea View, 39 years later, that physicians developed the drug that would ultimately cure the disease. This gas house was not found on a 1911 map of the area. It was most likely built about 100 years ago to provide a gas line for the hospital up the hill from here. The train tracks of the Central RR of SI were gone by this time.
If you are at the GZ you are standing where a highway interchange (Willowbrook and Richmond Parkways) would have been built- dramatically altering the landscape. Moses Mountain was the start of this transformation some 40 years ago. I grew up not far away in New Dorp and we used to ride our bikes up here before any trees were on it. At that time we didn't know what it was for. Of course you wouldn't be here for geocaching if they were built- it would not be allowed. As of the end of 2013 all of our hides so far are along abandoned highway right of ways. Please enjoy your time in these woods, a gift from past efforts against Robert Moses wishes.
This is our first hide and any comments or suggestions would be appreciated. Now it is only one of two hides of it's type that we know of on Staten Island. We used one of the new "Mighty Mega Cache Container" for the container, it is a camo container. It can hold geocoins, we did get a pencil into it, but I would bring a pen anyway. It's not huge but we put some starter swag items in it. There is a FTF pin in the log baggie for.....- you guessed it- FTF!
It's not far off the main trail. There is NO REASON TO HURT YOURSELF TRYING TO GET TO THE GAS BUILDING!!!!!! But if you smell gas call 643-4050, it's a Keyspan number so I guess National Grid doesn't care! LOL.
Congratulations to Rant and The-Shadow for FTF!!!