Mid-Island communities thus include Graniteville, Bulls Head, Willowbrook, and New Springville, Sometimes the localities situated along the Arthur Kill between the Staten Island Expressway and the Fresh Kills — Bloomfield, Chelsea and Travis — are said to be on the island's West Shore; otherwise they too would fall within Mid-Island as their ZIP Code is 10314.
Like all of Staten Island except for the North Shore, farms dominated the Mid-Island region until the 1960s, when new home construction began to rise sharply.
The opening of the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge in 1964 did much to stimulate this construction, but the effects of this phenomenon were first seen most profoundly on the East Shore, not spreading inland until nearly the end of the decade.
[2] The Mid-Island region's character was transformed dramatically in 1973, when the Staten Island Mall opened in New Springville, on a site that was originally used as an airport.
Besides the Staten Island Mall, other prominent landmarks found within Mid-Island include the former Willowbrook State School (now a campus of the City University of New York), St. Francis Seminary (on the property of which the highest point on Staten Island is located), and the former New York City Farm Colony adjacent to Sea View Hospital and Home, a city-run nursing home.