Grant City, Staten Island - Definition

Grant City is the name of a neighborhood located on the East Shore of Staten Island, New York, USA. The island comprises one of the five boroughs of New York City.

Originally known as Frenchtown, the community was renamed in honor of Civil War General Ulysses S. Grant soon after the conflict began, despite the fact that the war itself was so unpopular on Staten Island that the island was the scene of anti-draft riots in July of 1863.

The community has a station on the Staten Island Railway named after it, and the station immediately to the north is located at and named Jefferson Avenue, this street generally regarded as the boundary between Grant City and neighboring Dongan Hills. To the east of Grant City lies Midland Beach, and a high cliff to the west of Richmond Road separates Grant City from Todt Hill. New Dorp is situated immediately south of Grant City.

Many small, one-family homes were built in Grant City in the 1950s, with a stronger growth spurt occurring after the opening of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in November of 1964 made access to the island from Brooklyn much easier. Today the neighborhood's population is heavily Italian-American by ethnicity and Roman Catholic by religion, and many of its residents were born in Brooklyn. Grant City and the neighborhoods surrounding it are also very conservative politically, with the Republican Party candidates for virtually all elected offices routinely carrying these neighborhoods by large majorities.