NPR’s All Of It Puts Staten Island’s Food and Folklore on the Map—Again

Even often-overlooked enclaves like Staten Island can offer New Yorkers—and outsiders—a lesson in the city’s capacity for cultural reinvention and neighbourhood pride.

On a recent afternoon, listeners to NPR’s “All Of It” found themselves enticed by tales of clam pie, nature trails and the borough where Manhattan’s skyline remains a distant, hazy promise: Staten Island. The live discussion, featuring borough boosters and everyday callers, was a gentle rebuke to the received wisdom that New York City’s outer reaches are little more than footnotes—a little-heard reminder that not all that matters in the city happens on the island at its geographic and psychological centre.

Staten Island, the city’s so-called “forgotten borough,” is used to being overlooked. Tucked behind the tourist-friendly facade of the free ferry, it has often seemed less a sibling to Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens than a grudging relation—out of sight, out of mind. The recent NPR segment, which celebrated its culinary finds, historical oddities and close-knit communities, aimed to correct that misperception. Locals rang in to recall family-run pizzerias, shorelines untouched by condo developers, and the peculiar energies of a borough that still sometimes feels like a small town awkwardly wedged inside a megalopolis.

For New York, this renewed attention to Staten Island is more than just a public relations effort or a feel-good radio segment. Reviving or remaking borough identities carries the promise—and peril—of economic and social transformation. More visitors and curiosity may mean more revenue for teetering local businesses, but also a risk of unbalancing what gives such enclaves their appeal. If a few words on national radio spark demand for, say, Joe & Pat’s thin-crust pizza or a walk through Snug Harbor, will Staten Island’s gentle eccentricity endure?

The economic calculus is as intricate as any spaghetti alle vongole recipe. Staten Island’s working-class businesses, already reeling from pandemic-era aftershocks and the relentless gravitational pull of Manhattan and Brooklyn gentrification, could use buoyant new streams of foot traffic. According to the New York State Department of Labor, local food and accommodation sectors saw overall employment dip more steeply (by 14%) than the citywide average following 2020’s closures; small spikes in weekend visitors—even if ferry-driven and fleeting—are not to be sniffed at. Yet if the borough loses the heterodox, rough-around-the-edges character that inspires local loyalty, its small shops may wind up as imitations rather than originals.

The political resonance of a revived “forgotten borough” should give the city’s mandarins pause. Staten Island’s perennial underdog status sometimes masks a more potent mood: the stubborn, occasionally fidgety independence of a community whose voting patterns, attitudes toward City Hall, and local activism defy Manhattanese expectations. If, as seems likely, more media attention increases the borough’s cultural self-respect, political operators in Gracie Mansion may find it harder to take their constituents for granted—especially when budget allocations or transit decisions are up for debate.

Beyond the five boroughs, the portrait drawn by “All Of It” speaks to a larger trend. As megacities grow and their cores swell ever denser and more expensive, the cachet of well-kept secrets rises in tandem. Urban peripheries the world over—from Croydon’s curry houses to Tokyo’s Ota district—now vie for cultural cachet and tourist wallets by trading on their “hidden gem” status. Staten Island’s retelling of its own narrative is not a parochial tic, but evidence of a broader metropolitan strategy: one in which districts reposition themselves as guardians of authenticity.

Still, the Staten Island story is a caution as much as an invitation. Urban “discovery” is a double-edged proposition. Overexposure has toppled many a previously cohesive enclave, whether it be Williamsburg’s now $1-million condos or San Francisco’s Mission District, where artisan bakeries have supplanted taquerias. Staten Island’s proximity to Manhattan and lack of subway service have so far spared it the full force of real-estate speculation, but history assures that as soon as a neighbourhood is “rediscovered”, outside interests are never far behind.

Preserving roots, courting change

The balance between cultural celebration and preservation matters. The appeal of Staten Island, as listeners related, is precisely its imperfect mosaic—a borough where immigrant-run bakeries share blocks with Irish pubs, and longshoremen rub elbows with naturalists. But authenticity, at least as marketed by city tourism boards and guidebooks, often precedes commodification. The challenge for Staten Island, and similar enclaves, is ensuring local prosperity does not mean an end to local control.

Technological shifts further complicate the matter. With even the most modest “best bagel” list now able to attract remote influencers and business-hungry landlords alike, even a single radio show can serve as a potent accelerant of change—or, perhaps more charitably, adaptation. Consumer data flows and digital recommendations replace word of mouth as the engines of city exploration, making every small business or quiet park only a swipe away from fame or oblivion.

If there is a lesson for New York, it is that civic pride and urban reinvention work best not as marketing slogans, but as self-willed projects. Staten Island’s defenders stand to gain not only customers but allies—provided they retain the right to chart their own course amid wider metropolitan currents. The tendency of city fathers and private speculators alike to view such places primarily as “untapped markets” ought to be checked by the knowledge that the borough’s value lies in its difference, not its conformity.

This moment of modest celebration, then, comes with responsibilities. Local government can bolster neighbourhood economies by prioritising services that benefit residents first; city planners must ensure that transit, housing, and environmental initiatives do not flatten what remains idiosyncratic. Above all, the rest of the city might learn to see Staten Island not as a joke or afterthought, but as a reminder that New York’s polyphony depends on many distinct voices—however off-key they may sometimes sound.

For now, the borough can bask in a rare sliver of limelight even as real estate agents, foodies, and city planners circle hungrily. If New York is to retain its metropolitan soul, the face it shows the world should not be only one of glinting skyscrapers and tick-boxed tourist attractions, but also that of a shore lined with modest clam shacks and stubborn pride. Staten Island’s story—like its clam pizza—may not be to everyone’s taste, but it is quintessentially, irreducibly, New York. ■