Grymes Hill
Grymes Hill is a neighborhood, situated upon a hill by that name, on Staten Island, in the U.S. state of New York, one of the five boroughs of New York City. It encompasses an area of 0.894 square miles and a population of 8,263 people. The neighborhood includes part of zip codes 10301 and 10304. As of 2015 the median household income was $68,193 versus $60,850 on average citywide. Howard Avenue on Grymes Hill is considered one of the most exclusive and most expensive areas of Staten Island.
The hill is named after Suzette Grymes, the widow of the first governor of Louisiana, William Charles Cole Claiborne, who settled on Staten Island in 1836 (she had remarried a prominent New Orleans lawyer, John R. Grymes, after Governor Claiborne died in 1817).
The area was originally named Signal Hill after a British signal station. Deeds of 1836 and thereabout show that the hill was known as Castleton Heights. Grymes Hill was part of a land grant in 1687 to Thomas Dongan, who served as Governor of the Province of New York. Between the years 1830 and 1833, a local developer, Major George Howard purchased 42 acres, which included all land between Eddy and Louis streets. Major Howard, built many of the hill's earliest homes, and his name survives in Howard Avenue, the hill's main street; a portion of this street was known for a time as Serpentine Road due to the hill's bedrock consisting of serpentinite. The neighborhood has many fine homes dating from the 1920s that overlook New York Harbor.
Grymes Hill is best known currently for being the home of two institutions of higher learning: Wagner College, and the Staten Island campus of St. John's University. The St. Johns campus of 16.5 acres (67,000 m2) was originally a small Catholic women's institution, Notre Dame College, which closed in 1971, when St. Johns University took over the campus. Also on the hill is Notre Dame Academy, a Roman Catholic elementary and high school for girls. Adjacent to (and owned by) Wagner College is the site of a former Roman Catholic high school, named Augustinian Academy after the order of monks who ran it; the school closed in 1969. Near the foot of the hill, on Foote Avenue, is P.S. 35, the Clove Valley School. Also located on Grymes Hill is Casa Belvedere, a center for Italian culture and studies in Italian language and culture which is located in the Louis A. and Laura Stirn House which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2010, and designated a NYC Landmark in 2001
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