View Seminar walking path in a larger map
Midland Beach, a very popular Staten Island neighborhood, lies along the east-central coast of Staten Island, in the area known locally as the East-Shore. Midland Beach was a well-known Staten Island tourist attraction; with the beach, hotels, amusement parks, casinos, and free concerts, thousands of people made the journey from New Jersey and Manhattan by ferry to visit during the late 19th and 20th centuries. However, while still highly populated, this once renowned tourist attraction has become more suburbanized and recreational. Located at Midland Beach today is of course still the public beach, the Franklin Delano Roosevelt 2.5 mile long boardwalk, the Ocean Breeze Fishing Pier, multiple baseball fields, playgrounds, soccer fields, a skate park, some local restaurants, and many housing developments for families.
Above is a map of our fieldwork walking tour of Midland Beach on March 23rd, 2012. As you have previously read, each neighborhood conducted fieldwork, and here you can see the route we took while learning and studying Midland Beach. We started at the northern part of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt boardwalk, where the Vanderbilt Catering Hall and South Fin Bar & Grill Restaurant is located, and walked about 1 mile south west of the boardwalk. At the end of our walk we made a left turn onto the Ocean Breese Fishing pier, which is the largest steel and concrete recreational pier built in the last 100 years in the Atlantic Ocean. We walked the whole distance of the pier where we saw many fishers enjoying their day and took many scenery pictures of ocean out in front of us. Also, along our walk we passed several playgrounds, playing fields, and many people enjoying there free time. However, because it was only March, the beach itself was not very crowded, yet children, sport players, bike riders, and even some tourists were still populating the boardwalk.
