The New York State public auction took over the well-appointed ballroom of the Hilton Garden Inn Staten Island on May 10. The participants, facing the podium in neat rows of cushioned chairs, had come mostly in pairs and trios: families, friends, and business associates. All were united in their eagerness to walk away with one of the 62 residential properties at auction, mostly single-family bungalows on the East Shore of Staten Island that had been damaged during Superstorm Sandy in October 2012. ... by the end of the day, all New York City properties were off the block, and the State had netted more than $9.1 million.

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If the bungalow was heaving its last gasps in 2012, it drew its first breaths in 1880. That year a group of local boosters, seeking to compete with developments across the bay in Coney Island, began to marshal public opinion for a railway link between the ferry to Manhattan and Staten Island’s South Beach. The plan was shortly realized, and the shore soon became a magnet for summer tourists — the Times heralded “tremendous crowds” in the years to follow, noting that the area had “grown wonderfully in popularity” due to improved transit. By 1902, two more railroads served the area; on a single Sunday in May, a combined 13,000 visitors came to the East Shore to escape the City’s heat. 

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As for those bidding on bungalows in May, their backgrounds ran the gamut, as did their personal visions for the area’s future. Certainly, several were builders with an eye toward profit, sometimes purchasing several homes at a time. Others were hoping to make an income-generating investment, but had a real stake in the neighborhood too. Angela, of Great Kills, successfully landed a nearby home on Wiman Avenue for her son to manage as an investment property. While she hoped that he could make money off of the house — even with the cost of elevating, she believes, “with real estate, you’ll make out in the end” — her bid was an investment not only in a single home, but in the whole community. “The property has been vacant for how many years after Sandy, and you know, the properties around that house — the value goes down,” she explained. “So if I can improve that property, then the value of the properties around that house increases. I live in that same community.”