Where the railway ends
Tottenville is the end of the line. The MTA's station data labels the Tottenville stop's southbound direction "Last Stop," lists it as an at-grade station that is wheelchair accessible, and gives the same at-grade, accessible listing for the Arthur Kill stop. Both stations lie in ZIP 10307 and in the city's official Tottenville-Charleston neighborhood area; trains run north to St. George and the ferry.
Waves, not just water
Hurricane Sandy is part of the written record here. The Governor's office, announcing the completion of Living Breakwaters in September 2024, described Tottenville as "the low-lying coastal community of Tottenville that experienced loss of life and property when powerful waves knocked homes off their foundations during Superstorm Sandy in 2012" (Governor's release).
The $111 million project consists of "eight partially submerged structures made of armor stone and ecologically enhanced concrete units that will break storm waves, decrease erosion and help restore the beach along Conference House Park." The release gives 2,400 linear feet of breakwaters, sand replenishment from Manhattan Street to Loretto Street, and a design goal "to reduce the strength of waves reaching buildings and roads near the coast to below three feet in height," with live oyster installation expected by 2027. Funding came from $97 million in federal disaster recovery grants and $14 million in state capital. The release does not say how the structures change flood mapping or insurance, and neither does this page.
Checking a lot
FEMA's National Flood Hazard Layer shows VE, the zone where waves are expected, along the shoreline of the city's Tottenville-Charleston area, and the official area contains or borders AE zones and floodway, Zone A, and shaded Zone X; that last one reflects a 0.2 percent annual chance of flooding and is still mapped hazard. The effective panels date from September 5, 2007. Enter the address on FEMA's Flood Map Service Center, then price the insurance before the contract is firm. On a house near the water, look for signs of past flooding at the foundation, equipment raised or left at grade, and any elevation work with its permits.
Sewers some residents waited years for
In a June 2010 release, the Department of Environmental Protection described an $11.4 million project in "the Tottenville section," in Community Board 3, that brought new sanitary sewers within reach of 107 homes on streets including Nashville Street and Brehaut Avenue (DEP 10-58). The local council member was quoted saying, "Some of the residents in this area have waited for sewers since the 1960s."
A second project began in 2018 along Amboy Road and Page Avenue (DEP 18-031) and was reported complete in 2021 by the Department of Design and Construction, which described it transforming "a swampy marshland" into the 4.4-acre Mill Creek Bluebelt, bounded by Amboy Road, the railway, Murray Street and Pan Street (DDC, August 2021). Its new sanitary sewers let 210 homes connect. During the work, a micro-tunnel was driven beneath the railway's Richmond Valley stop. In all, the records describe two projects: 107 homes in 2010 and 210 homes in 2018–21.
DEP's 2010 release put the connection on the owner: once notified, a household had six months to bring in a licensed master plumber and tie the house into the new sewer. A sewer in the street shows a house could connect, not that it did. For a house older than its street's sewer, the first question is which of the two projects, if either, reached that street, and the second is whether a permit shows the owner tied in afterward. These records stop in 2021.
The official area's housing
The city's tax-lot file (PLUTO) counts 6,529 residential units in the official Tottenville-Charleston area: 52.5 percent in two-family houses, 41.8 percent in one-family houses and 1.9 percent in condos. Units built before 1940 make up 21.3 percent, 1940 to 1979 another 9.4 percent, and 1980 or later 68.1 percent. For one- and two-family lots, median street frontage comes to 45 feet. Those figures cover Charleston too. In ZIP Code Tabulation Area 10307, 1,280 of 5,564 housing units were built in 1939 or earlier, according to the Census Bureau (year-built table).
A house built before 1940 can carry knob-and-tube or other early wiring, balloon framing with open channels from basement to attic, a stone or brick foundation, and decades of additions whose framing does not line up with the original.
Designated buildings, address by address
- The Conference House, at the foot of Hylan Boulevard, built about 1680 and designated in 1967.
- The Aakawaxung Munahanung Archaeological Site in Conference House Park, 298 Satterlee Street, designated in 2021.
- The Henry Hogg Biddle House at 70 Satterlee Street, built in the late 1840s (LPC).
- The Tottenville branch of the New York Public Library, 7430 Amboy Road, built 1903–04 to a design by Carrère & Hastings (LPC).
- Westfield Township District School No. 5, 58 Summit Street, built 1878 and enlarged 1896–97 (LPC).
- The George Cunningham Store, 173 Main Street, about 1892 (LPC), and the Rutan-Journeay House, 7647 Amboy Road, about 1848 (LPC).
- The Bedell House, about 1869–74, and the DeHart House, about 1850.
On a designated lot, exterior work needs Landmarks Preservation Commission approval first.
Zoning and the two local laws
DCP maps the Special South Richmond Development District over this official area. Among its rules: a 50-foot height cap without a special permit, tree credits, and a two-foot cut-or-fill limit measured from grade on November 2, 2023. Staten Island's Lower Density Growth Management Area rules add parking, yard and open-space demands on new building (DCP metadata, 2011). Check each lot in ZoLa. Local Law 152 gas-piping checks exclude one- and two-family homes, with Community District 3's next cycle in 2028 for other buildings (DOB). Local Law 126's basement program remains a proposed rule, and its program area currently takes in no Staten Island district.