Talk:Grasmere, Staten Island

History

This section needs a rewrite before it is added to the article RJFJR (talk) 18:08, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Cameron, born in Glengarry county, Ontario in 1825 started a shipping line, the RW Cameron Line, to Australia in 1852 and became wealthy servicing the Australian gold rush. In 1861 he purchased a summer estate that he named Clifton Berley on 300 hundred acres encompassing much of Grasmere and parts of South Beach. He established an important stud farm and later became a founding member of the American Jockey Club. in the late 19th century NY high society came to Clifton Berley for events such as the wedding of Cameron's daughter Anne to Belmont Tiffany. Sir Roderick died in 1900. His son, Roderick, the first of the many husbands of the infamous Enid Lindeman, resided there until his death in 1914. The estate was then gradually sold off to developers. The Queen Anne style main house was used by Anne Cameron Tiffany until the 1920s but it was abandoned and destroyed by fire in the 1930s. The caretaker's house and parts of the stable still exist on Radcliff Road. The existing stone houses on Radcliff were built by Ernest Flagg in the late 1920s. The gate house to the Cameron estate existed until the mid-1980s on the southeast corner of Steuben St. and W. Fingerboard Rd., where the X13 express bus stop currently picks up commuters to Manhattan. Today three "luxury" townhouses stand on the old gatehouse's property. Little of Sir Roderick survives in Grasmere. A plaque in his honor is in the nave of St John's Church in Rosebank. Cameron's pond off Clove Road, Cameron Avenue in South Beach and Roderick Avenue off Hylan Blvd all bear his name. The Cameron Club a private recreational club has facilities on nearby Brady's Pond. Brady's Pond is the only spring fed lake in New York City that permits swimming. Legend in the neighborhood is that at the bottom of Brady's Pond lays a covered wagon used as a prop in a silent film in the early 20th Century. The name of the film is unknown. Grasmere is also home to the studio of Radio NewYork International (RNI) and John Lightning's 11L Network.