Staten Island

[OKH]

I've noticed that Staten Island isn't exactly the hotbed of geocaching activity it should be, given the miles of pretty decent hiking trails here. What gives? Is it the toll?

[halijusapa]

I think you hit it on the head. It is probably accessibility from most of us. It honestly is easier to go to Staten Island from parts of NJ that it is from say the Bronx or Westchester (and to a lesser extent even Manhattan and Queens.....from Brooklyn I'd say it's simply the toll). Also not as public transit accessible if you don't have a car (though far from impossible.....we kind of have it spoiled).

[addisonbr]

My theory is that it has more to do with chance than anything else. Most cachers place caches near where they live (or work), and I just don't think there are very many cachers who live on Staten Island right now. I don't think it's because SI doesn't lend itself to caching or that people who live on SI are less likely to enjoy it; sometimes network phenomena (like geocaching) just develop differently in different areas randomly.

If more cachers on SI took up the game, I think we'd see lots more caches on SI, and if there were more caches, I think that people from the rest of the Metro area would make more trips.

[lekogm]

the only times i've actually been to staten island other than to get back on the ferry and go back to manhattan, is for a day of work and for the event we had last may. staten island is a nice place, just not practical. if that makes any sense.

[OKH]

I also wonder if its a matter of PR too - a lot of people have a image of Staten Island from TV and movies that are less than kind to us.

Maybe I'll just start putting bridge tokens in my caches

[Tatanka49]

I've done at least 75% of the SI caches. There's not much there. The island is huge! And most is not near any major roads so getting there is a pain as well.

[OKH]

I'm trying to populate it, but I also don't want to fall into the trap of sticking a Hide-a-Key on a stop sign just for the sake of generating a cache. A lot of the park land out here is state owned and you need a permit to hide a cache. I just went through the process and what should have taken a day took 2 months and because they had no idea what they were doing, the permit is only good til December (rather than the 2 years proscribed in the park regs.) If I'm going to hide a cache I'm going to try and make it at least a little fun or interesting. I have a few locations scouted in the Greenbelt and I'll be placing caches there in the future.

[Harry Dolphin]

No. Staten Island isn't easy to get to to from parts of New Joisey either. Andy Bear lives in North Hudson. I live in Morris. We've only made one trip to Staten Island, and that was mostly a benchmarking trip. (Though we did find two caches.) Of course, for us, Brooklyn and Queens are a pain to get to also. But most of Queens, and parts of Brooklyn and the Bronx are on Bear's Ten-Mile List. Staten Island is not. Of course, we don't get to Union County too often either. Just out of the way.

[halijusapa]

[Tatanka49]

MagicSteve has some nice earthcaches there ans some unusual regular caches. There was a prolific cacher (a mom and 2 kids whose name I don't recall) who had many when I started the game 5 years ago, but they seem to have disappeared from the scene. Then there is Splicing Dan...but we won't go there.

[OKH]

[Tatanka49]

Splicing Dan was I believe a charter member...or close to it. When I joined the game late in 2003, there were maybe a dozen NYC active cachers and SI had quite a few. Dan tried many clever micros and some not so micro ones. I think he was a splicer with the telephone company and had a city wide assignment and worked nights. He loved FTF's and would appear at new caches at like 2 am with a comment that he was in neighborhood--would park his truck and grab the cache. Some people even wrote comments in their descriptions (others besides me)( almost taunting Dan to come and find them, or as I said in one of mine, "Dan, the paint is still a bit tacky...try to wait until sun up" Dan was pretty good natured.

But then he started to get weird. He felt that the GC rules were ruining the game. He had many turned down and others received warnings and then were archived. Some were questionable -- very close to RR tracks, in center malls of highways, in places that said "No trespassing." He had one up on the high line before it was a public park. The only way to get there was over a few barbed wire fences, up a rickety stair case and then walking a couple of blocks on the old high line. A newspaper article said something about people beiing hurt up there and that trespassers would be arrested. It was eventually taken down after many DNF's and others who did not want to do what was required. He then discovered Terracaching and was in renegade heaven. His NYC GC caches started to be archived one after another and as I said, I think most are now gone except Fear.

J

[addisonbr]

[splicingdan]

Hey. I heard my name....
It's good to see some familiar people are still around.

What Tatanka states is pretty much accurate.

I thoroughly enjoyed caching in and around NYC - until GC.com became a business and NYAdmin was appointed.
The rampant hypocrisy made it intolerable. Caches placed in areas that are/were questionable, yet ignored (Trollsbane and Wheretogo? Vertigo come to mind), then I get chastised for My Monkey.

CacheNinja was the original NYC cacher and I really took a liking to his style. I exchanged many emails with him and understood why he too became disenchanted with the game.
His caches would get archived simply because there were many DNF's and he got tired of verifying their existences.

TC.com is much more my style. But, the site is pretty much stagnant and people started listing the same crappy pointless caches.

[addisonbr]