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Staten Island

Great Kills

A harbor full of sailboats, a bakery from 1878, and a sandwich the Times couldn't leave off its list.

Great Kills is where Staten Island's South Shore begins. 'Kill' is the old Dutch word for a creek or channel, and the name has been in use since at least 1664, when a French settler recorded the area as La Grand Kills. Parts of it were once called Clarendon and Newtown, and both halves were known for a while as Giffords, after a surveyor; Giffords Lane, where the railway station sits, keeps the name.

The neighborhood stayed half rural until the 1950s, then filled with houses after the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge opened. What makes it different from the rest of mid-island is the water: Great Kills Harbor, crowded with marinas, and Great Kills Park, a stretch of beach, trails and fishing spots that is part of Gateway National Recreation Area.

Eat accordingly. Take the train to Great Kills for a roast beef sandwich with dark gravy at a counter a block from the platform, detour up Arthur Kill Road to a family bakery that has made charlotte russe since the nineteenth century, and end at a glass-walled dining room on the harbor, with oysters at the tiki bar in summer.

Great Kills Harbor's marinas and a waterfront dining deck

A family bakery founded in 1878, still making charlotte russe

Italian sandwich counters on Amboy Road

Beach, trails and fishing at Great Kills Park

Local notes

Great Kills Park

Part of Gateway National Recreation Area, the park at the neighborhood's southeastern corner has a beach, walking trails, fishing and bird-watching spots, ballfields and Nichols Marina. Hurricane Sandy damaged its shorefront in 2012, and it has been repaired since. In 2006 aerospace historians marked the site of a 1933 rocket launch here.

Great Kills Harbor

The harbor forms the neighborhood's southern edge and is lined with private marinas. Mansion Avenue runs down to the water, where a harbor-side restaurant has had its deck since the 1980s.

Holtermann's Bakery

On Arthur Kill Road between Miles Avenue and Giffords Lane, run by the fifth generation of the family that started baking in Richmond Town in 1878. Charlotte russe, crumb cake and Pullman loaves are the classics.

Through the lens

Great Kills Harbor is at its best at sunset from the restaurant decks and the shoreline of Great Kills Park, with masts silhouetted against the sky; the park's beach and trails are good at sunrise. Marinas are private property — shoot from public areas.

Editorial draft — core details last reviewed October 19, 2026. Confirm practical details with the official site before you go.

Where to eat & drink