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Beaches and Bastions

This route leads past Staten Island’s prime coastal defense bastion of Fort Wadsworth, where fortification remnants stand tall beside the towering Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. You’ll then cycle along the island’s sweeping South Beach coast all the way south to Miller Field, a former Air Force airfield turned recreational spot. Bay views and beach breezes accompany you along most of this ride, making it a great option for anyone in need of a city getaway. It’s also a good option for those less confident with city cycling as most of the journey is on separated greenways.

Start: St. George Ferry Terminal, in front of Staten Island Borough Hall

Length: 14.4 miles out and back

Approximate riding time: 2 hours

Best bike: Road, hybrid, or mountain bike

Terrain and trail surface: The trail is paved throughout most of the journey, except for the boardwalk portion. Along the Staten Island beachfront you have the option of taking the paved bikeway or the boardwalk. The boardwalk is made of wooden planks. The terrain is flat, except for the area surrounding Fort Wadsworth, which sits on a bluff and has one steep hill.

Traffic and hazards: About one fourth of this route leads along an on-road bike lane on Bay Street, where traffic is lightest on Sunday mornings. The rest of the route is on a separated bikeway where there’s no traffic.

Things to see: Alice Austen House, Fort Wadsworth, Miller Field, Staten Island Beaches, Verrazano-Narrows Bridge

Maps: New York City Bike Map, National Park Service Gateway National Recreation Area Staten Island Bike Map: www.nps.gov/gate/planyourvisit/upload/Staten_Island_Bike_Map_Low_Rez.pdf

Getting there: By public transportation: Take the Staten Island Ferry from Manhattan’s Whitehall Terminal to Staten Island’s St. George Terminal. To get to Manhattan’s Whitehall Terminal, take the R subway to the Whitehall Street station or the 1 subway to the South Ferry station. By car: If using the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, exit toward I-278 W / New Jersey and take exit 14 on the left toward Narrows Road W/Hylan Boulevard. Turn right onto Fingerboard Road. Turn left onto Bay Street and follow Bay Street until you reach the St. George Ferry Terminal where there’s parking.

If using the Bayonne Bridge, take exit 13 to turn right onto Morningstar Road toward Richmond Terrace. Turn right onto Richmond Terrace, heading east. Follow Richmond Terrace to the ferry terminal. GPS coordinates: N40 38.539’ / W74 04.530’

THE RIDE

The start of your journey leads southward along Bay Street, the main road along Staten Island’s eastern shore. It first leads through the waterfront neighborhood of Tompkinsville, established in 1816 and considered the island’s oldest European village. You’ll pass Tappen Park on your right, a picturesque town square complete with graceful gazebo, elegant brickwork, and wrought-iron lanterns. If you glance to your left along the way, you’ll get occasional glimpses of the elevated Staten Island Railway, which runs the length of the island to its southern tip at Tottenville.

After ducking underneath the railroad, Edgewater Street then leads you through a semi-industrial stretch for a short spurt before bringing you to the panoramic waterfront promenade of Bruno Beach. Here, you’ll have sweeping bay views that are framed by the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in the south, the Manhattan skyline in the north, and the Brooklyn waterfront across the bay. At the end of the road sits the landmark Alice Austen House, where the pioneering photographer Alice Austen once lived. Today it’s a museum that displays selections of Austen’s work. Stop off if you wish. Then continue southward on Bay Street.

Goats grazing and serving as living lawn mowers at Fort Wadsworth, an area first fortified by the Dutch in the seventeenth century. The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge looms overhead.

Bike Shop

NYC Bicycle Shop: 1178 Bay St.; (718) 569-0333

New to Staten Island in 2012, this bike shop branched out from a Manhattan mainstay with a long-established history. Satisfy all your biking needs here, from sales to repairs, from rentals to parts.

Bay Street then soon leads to the gates of Fort Wadsworth, part of the Gateway National Recreation Area. After passing the site’s visitor center up ahead on your left, you’ll reach the enclave’s main sites along Tompkins Avenue. You’ll pass a fort on your left, a battery on your right, and have the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge towering over you. The Overlook at the road’s end gives you a bird’s-eye view of the fort’s main battery at the foot of the hill. Across the water sits Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. You’ll reach the Battery via a steep descent along Hudson Road to your left. Explore the site at your leisure and then scale the opposite hill to go underneath the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. You’ll then skirt the edge of a ball field before turning left onto USS North Carolina Road, which leads downhill to the waterside. You can here access an unprotected beach area across the dunes on your left. Up ahead, keep your eyes peeled for a narrow bikeway that leads off to the left and toward the main boardwalk along Staten Island’s South Beach shore.

When the bikeway reaches the boardwalk up ahead, you have two options. You can either continue along the paved bikeway you’re on or access the boardwalk bikeway for 2.5 miles of boardwalk biking, but boardwalk biking is officially only permitted from 5 to 10 a.m. I took the paved pathway out, the boardwalk back, and this route description does the same. At the Vanderbilt hotel, stay right of the hotel, cycling along the hotel drive to follow the bikeway. The coastal bikeway ends at Miller Field, a former Army Air Force Base that boasted grass runways in its heyday. It’s now a recreational spot operated by the National Park Service. Explore the former airfield along the bikeways that crisscross the field at your leisure before returning to the coast to retrace your route northward.

When you reach Freedom Circle, the circular, flag-bedecked platform along the boardwalk, veer right to stay on the boardwalk. Follow the marked bike lane and yield to pedestrians as you head north toward the ever-larger Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. Stop off along the boardwalk benches or boardwalk cafe for a break before retracing your route to the ferry terminal.

Alice Austen: A Pioneer

One of the earliest women to document life on the streets with a camera, Alice Austen (1866–1952) was a pioneer in many realms of life. As a young girl, she’d carry her glass plates and prints from her family’s home to a water pump in the backyard to rinse them in frigid water because the home lacked running water. Later she’d lug her camera equipment, weighing up to 50 pounds, by horse carriage across Staten Island, photographing life at large. In the early twentieth century, her travels took her beyond the bounds of the boroughs to Vermont, Illinois, Massachusetts, and perhaps Europe. She also cowrote a book, Bicycling for Ladies, and was the first woman on Staten Island to own a car. She spent fifty years of her life living with a female friend, Gertrude Tate, and never married.

MILES AND DIRECTIONS

0.0Cross to the west side of Bay Street to turn left, going south on Bay Street.

1.7Veer left onto Edgewater Street.

2.2To explore Alice Austen Park, dismount and explore the park straight ahead. To continue, turn right, going uphill on Hylan Boulevard, followed by a left onto Bay Street.

3.0Enter the gate to Fort Wadsworth and continue straight as Bay Street becomes New York Avenue.

3.3After passing the visitor center parking lot, turn left onto Tompkins Avenue.

3.5At the Overlook, turn left onto Hudson Road, going downhill, and make a U-turn as soon as you can onto Battery Weed Road.

3.9Arrive at the Battery. To proceed, continue south on Battery Weed Road, going uphill toward the bridge. Turn right onto Hudson Road, skirting the ball field.

4.2Turn left onto USS North Carolina Road.

4.8Turn left onto the narrow bikeway.

5.4Veer to the right of the beachside Vanderbilt hotel—through what resembles the hotel driveway—and return to the beachfront paved bikeway thereafter.

7.5The bikeway ends at Miller Field. Explore the former airfield at your leisure along the bikeways that crisscross the space. To proceed en route, return to the beachside bikeway.

8.6At Freedom Circle, stay right to stick to the boardwalk.

10.0Exit the boardwalk back onto the bikeway, continuing north toward the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.

10.2Turn right onto USS North Carolina Road.

10.8Turn right onto Hudson Road, followed by a quick left to return underneath the bridge to Fort Wadsworth.

11.0At the Overlook, turn left onto Tompkins Avenue.

11.1Turn right onto New York Avenue.

11.5 Continue straight onto Bay Street.

14.4Arrive at your starting point.

RIDE INFORMATION

Local Events/Attractions

Alice Austen House: This landmark house houses a permanent collection of photography by the pioneering early-twentieth-century female photographer Alice Austen. 2 Hylan Blvd.; (718) 816-4506; aliceausten.org

Miller Field: A former Army Air Force Base with more than 187 acres of open recreational terrain and ball fields galore. www.nyharborparks.org/visit/mifi.html, www.nps.gov

Fort Wadsworth: A Revolutionary War–era fortification. www.nyharborparks.org/visit/fowa.html, www.nps.gov

Restrooms

Start/End: Restrooms and water fountains are located in the St. George Ferry Terminal.

Mile 5.3–10.3: There are numerous restrooms and water fountains along the boardwalk.

Going north along the South Beach boardwalk toward the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.

A Fort with a Continuous History

Fort Wadsworth stands tall atop the Narrows, the narrow straight between Staten Island and Brooklyn that forms the entrance to New York Harbor. The area was fortified by the Dutch in the seventeenth century and distinguishes itself with a prolonged uninterrupted military role.

Most of the structural remnants you can see today were built by the British in the eighteenth century and had a prime defensive function throughout the Revolutionary War. After the war, the US military took over the fortification and it served the armed forces in the Civil War.

The fortification comprises innumerable smaller structures, most significantly Fort Tompkins and Battery Weed, and is today known as Fort Wadsworth, renamed in 1865 to honor a fallen Major General Wadsworth. Touring Fort Tompkins allows you to explore cavernous corridors that protected the city for centuries. At the bottom of the hill that Fort Tompkins stands upon, you can visit Battery Weed, a four-story military fortress that faces the water.

The fort continued in the hands of the US Army or Navy until 1994, when the Navy submitted it to the National Park Service. It now forms part of the 26,000-acre Gateway National Recreation Area, which also comprises Jamaica Bay in Queens and Brooklyn (see ride 26), and terrain at Sandy Hook, New Jersey.

During summer months, you might come upon a flock of goats grazing on the steep slopes surrounding the fort. A sustainable resource project began employing goats as living lawn mowers here every summer in 2007.