Most tourist interaction with Staten Island involves the few minutes spent at St. George Ferry Terminal in between free rides from Manhattan, so it's no surprise that tourism kiosks advertising life outside the Terminal aren't getting much love. The interactive kiosks (the live person-manned ones were canned in 2008) advise tourists how to get to the aquarium and pointing out area restaurants in the area, but the buggy machines haven't inspired many to venture outside the docks. What's more, the the Staten Island Advance reports that the city's tourism arm, NYC & Co. doesn't even bother keeping track of Staten Island's tourism trends.
Staten Island's tourism website gets just about 2,000 visitors a month—advertising Kayaking tours of the island and the historic Conference House Park—but most of the island's self-promotion attempts have failed. A screen playing a Staten Island highlight reel in the Whitehall Ferry Terminal was smashed by vandals last fall, and a tourism kiosk in the Staten Island Mall has been too expensive for the borough to keep up. Tourists wouldn't even pay $15 for a Gray Line bus tour of the borough. Borough President James Molinaro said, "It's not that we're not trying. It's not easy to get people off the boats." Unbelievable that nobody wants to visit the birthplace of The Situation.
Thus, SINY has recently been attempting to convince Staten Islanders themselves to take advantage of—and support—the borough's "cultural institutions, parks, and other attractions." Molinaro adds that most Islanders don't know how much is going on in their own borough.
Staten Island native, Joshua Zeman, writer and co-director of spooky Staten Island-set documentary Cropsey, gave us some suggestions, besides ghost-hunting: "There's some much to do...I love the Staten Island Zoo, they have a great collection of rattlesnakes... There's also some good thrift stores by the ferry - I usually always find something at Everything Goes, and maybe stop off for some pizza at DeNino's or burgers at The Cargo Cafe."
