Hotels in Staten Island, New York

A little about Staten Island...

Staten Island is one of the five boroughs of New York City. Situated on an island of the same name that is the most geographically separate of the city's boroughs, Staten Island is the least populated of the five boroughs.

The Borough of Staten Island is coterminous with Richmond County, the southernmost county in the state of New York. Until 1975 the borough was officially named the Borough of Richmond. However, most New Yorkers had always referred to Richmond as Staten Island. Staten Islanders, then and now, often simply say "the island."

Culture: Museums:
Staten Island is home to a surprising variety of museums: the Alice Austen House Museum, the Conference House, the Garibaldi-Meucci Museum, Historic Richmond Town, Jacques Marchais Museum of Tibetan Art, the John Noble Collection, Sandy Ground Historical Museum, Snug Harbor Cultural Center, the Staten Island Children's Museum, and the Staten Island Museum. It has also been selected to become the future site of the National Lighthouse Museum.

Colleges and Universities:
The College of Staten Island is one of four "hybrid colleges" of the City University of New York (CUNY).
Wagner College is a cœducational private liberal arts college with an enrollment of 1,900 undergraduates and 400 graduate students.
St. John's University has a campus on Staten Island. It is a private, cœducational Roman Catholic university.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the borough / county has a total area of 265.5 km² (102.5 mi²). 151.5 km² (58.5 mi²) of it is land and 114.0 km² (44.0 mi²) of it (42.95%) is water.

Staten Island is separated from Long Island by the Narrows and from mainland New Jersey by the Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull. It is connected to New Jersey via the Bayonne Bridge, the Outerbridge Crossing, the Gœthals Bridge, and to Brooklyn by the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. The Staten Island Ferry connects the island to lower Manhattan. The Staten Island Railway traverses the island from its northeastern tip to its southwestern tip.

In addition to the main island, the borough and county also include several small uninhabited islands:

The Isle of Meadow (at the mouth of Fresh Kills)
Pralls Island (in the Arthur Kill)
Shooters Island (in Newark Bay; part of it belongs to New Jersey)
Swinburne Island (in Lower New York Bay)
Hoffman Island (in Lower New York Bay)
The highest point on the island, the summit of Todt Hill, elevation 410 ft (125 m), is also the highest point in the five boroughs, as well as the highest point on the Atlantic Coastal Plain south of Great Blue Hill in Massachusetts and the highest point on the coast proper south of Maine's Mount Desert Island.

In the late 1960s the island was the site of important battles of open-space preservation, resulting in the largest area of parkland in New York City and an extensive Greenbelt that laces the island with woodland trails.