Contact: Colleen Roche (212) 788-2958
Jennifer Chait (212) 788-8479
Alice Austen was born in Staten Island on March 17, 1866. At the age of three, she and her mother moved to "Clear Comfort," a family home on Pennsylvania Avenue (now Hylan Boulevard in Rosebank).
Alice Austen attended Miss Errington's School for Young Ladies and was an active youngster, who loved to engage in various sporting activities. When Alice was ten, her Uncle Oswald, a sea captain, brought home a large, bulky camera for Alice to play with, and her fascination with photography began. By the age of eighteen, Alice was an accomplished and experienced photographer. She eventually became one of the country's first women photographers to record the people, places and events of her time as they really were. Her photos are famous for their documentation of the social life in Staten Island and the street life of Manhattan.
After Alice's family lost its fortune in the stock market crash of 1929, Alice sold off her belongings in order to survive. Shortly before her death in 1952, her work in photography was finally recognized and her story and some of her photographs were published in LIFE magazine. As a result, Alice Austen's photographic plates were saved by the Staten Island Historical Society. In 1952, Alice Austen died at the age of 86. An exhibition of her works is on display at the Alice Austen House in Staten Island.
To honor Alice Austen and her legacy of historic photographs of Staten Island, its people and the visual chronicle that they provide for us, it is fitting that Hylan Boulevard, between Bay Street and Edgewater Street, adjacent to the Alice Austen House, be called "Alice Austen Way."
For the reasons previously stated, I will now sign the bill.