Charleston, Staten Island

[2] Charleston, once a small village settled by the Androvette farming family in 1699, bore their name as Androvetteville or Androvettetown through the 18th century.

Charleston once had its own United States Post Office branch, and mail sent there bore the postal code "Staten Island 13, New York".

While neighborhoods on Staten Island do not have universally agreed-upon boundaries, most observers today reckon Charleston as consisting of a triangle-shaped territory enclosed by Bloomingdale Road, the Richmond Parkway, and the Arthur Kill; this gives Charleston a slightly larger area than that which the former post office served.

By the current wider definition, Charleston includes portions of Sandy Ground, settled in 1828 by African Americans who had achieved freedom from slavery, most of whom came to the area from Maryland.

[citation needed] Recent development in the area has spawned a new shopping corridor along Veterans Road West, including Staten Island's first Target and third Home Depot, among many other stores located in Bricktown Centre at Charleston, an open-air lifestyle center.

[7] A Kresicherville Active Adult community is slated to cost $25 million and will preserve the Kreischer mansion as a central landmark for the development.

In September 2017, developers announced the construction of Riverside Galleria, a 600,000-square-foot (56,000 m2) shopping mall in the southern part of Charleston designed by Studio V Architecture.

The Charleston Library features "dedicated spaces for adults, teens, and children and flexible multi-purpose rooms for programs and classes.

"[11] MTA Regional Bus Operations' Charleston Depot, off Arthur Kill Road, opened in January 2011.

[15] Despite having a very low crime rate along with the rest of the South Shore, Charleston was nonetheless home to two notable crime-related figures, one a perpetrator and the other a victim.

In 1990, the neighborhood attracted more media attention when an anti-gay hate crime was committed there: James Zappalorti, a 45-year-old disabled veteran of the Vietnam War, was stabbed to death by two assailants, one of whom also resided in Charleston at the time.

The Zappalorti murder sparked New York State to adopt enhanced penalties for crimes motivated by bias.