This Island . . . Island Of Staten!

I suppose you can be excused for referring to Staten Island as exotic like “Alaska” if you bothered to walk the island’s entire waterfront. Then again, who would want to walk the island’s entire waterfront? No matter:

There is a place in this city where teenagers go crabbing from the old railroad bridge, where people consider themselves residents of a town of half a dozen rather than of a metropolis of eight million, where the waterfront still harbors ancient secrets along with the inevitable clash of development interests.

It’s called Staten Island. It is the fastest growing county in New York State, yet it remains, in pockets, and in its peculiar way, the Alaska of New York City.

That is, a place where nature, however debased, still plays a role in daily life and where there is room to pursue a dream, whether that means amassing a mansion-full of musty antiques or a yard full of cars up on blocks patrolled by roosters, or building an artwork along a quarter mile of beachfront, or simply drinking a beer outside the corner store without having to hide it in a paper bag.

Still, this was a feat, and the mysterious stone cairns at Mt. Loretto (location scout) are explained:

Once around the horn at Tottenville, the waterfront changes from boggy estuary to sandy seaside. This is the South Shore. In 1892, a naturalist, William T. Davis, wrote of it: “Of drift wood there is no end, neither is there of old shoes, mousetraps, brooms and all other household utensils.”

The image still fits, but beneath the cliff in the state park at Mount Loretto, the beachfront has been turned into a miniature sacred city, 150 shoulder-high pyramids of boulders, each capped by a handsome stone turned on end. Douglas Schwartz, a zookeeper at the Staten Island Zoo, has been building the cairns for 10 years, an act of devotion that he likened to “giving flowers to the wife.”

“It’s a concrete, real gesture,” said Mr. Schwartz, 53. “People see this and they think, ‘He must really believe in something.’ They’re not sure what it is, but they know it must be something.”

His work has become well known on the island, if not universally understood. Mr. Schwartz had the mixed pleasure of seeing his art splashed across the front page of The Staten Island Advance beneath the headline “Sophomoric Prank or Cult Activity?”