Grasmere, Staten Island - Definition and Overview

Grasmere is the name of a neighborhood located on the East Shore of Staten Island, New York. The island makes up one of the five boroughs of New York City, the USA's largest city.

One of the earliest settlers of this part of Staten Island was Sir Roderick Cameron, who named it after Grasmere in the UK's Lake District, his birthplace. The fact that there are many small lakes and ponds in the vicinity — most notably Brady's Pond — may have reminded him of his home village.

The neighborhood has always been one of the most prestigious communities on Staten Island, with the zone around Brady's Pond being particularly affluent. This fact was apparently not lost on some high-ranking Mafia members who ultimately settled there; perhaps the most notorious of these was Aniello Dellacroce, who resided in Grasmere at the time of his death on December 2, 1985 — an event that indirectly led to the assassination of his immediate mob superior, Paul Castellano, two weeks later, allegedly on the orders of John Gotti.

The Staten Island Railway stops in the neighborhood, the distance between its station there and that of Clifton to the north being the longest between any two stations on the line. Grasmere is also the location of the executive offices of the Staten Island Advance, the island's daily newspaper.