The Return of Staten Island’s Secession Movement
But what would actually happen? If the City of Staten Island were created tomorrow, it would immediately become the second largest city in New York State. (Population: nearly half a million.) It would retain much of its bus routes, because the MTA is state-run and Staten Island still falls under the Metropolitan Transit District. (“They do not separate from that” Husock said.) The ferry, however, is operated by New York City. It would probably still operate, but it might not be free.
Individual Staten Islanders may pay more in taxes, but they might like that. Voters in an independent state, Husock said, could choose to pay more for the set of services they want. A report from the Independent Budget Office, dating from 2024, estimates that the secessionists would need to close a budget deficit of at least one hundred and seventy million dollars. He also warned that the island would lose New York’s economies of scale. For example, Staten Island should renegotiate its agreement with Spectrum and Verizon.
In addition to running schools, Staten Island would have to run its own fire department, trash collection, hospitals and snow removal. But other cities too. “Buffalo is a city!” » said Fosella. “It’s smaller than Staten Island. So clearly it can be done. It’s not like it’s the end of the world.”
Sam Pirozzolo, New York State Assemblyman for Staten Island’s Sixty-third District.Photograph by Charly Triballeau / AFP / Getty
The police would be a big sticking point. On an independent Staten Island, the politics of policing seem to be reversed. Lifelong resident Paul Costello, who was one of the Staten Island field managers for the Mamdani campaign, told me that the NYPD would miss Republicans pushing for secession. “As someone who is hypercritical of the NYPD, it’s probably the best-funded police force on the planet,” he said. The ministry’s annual budget last year was $5.8 billion. “For a pro-police person, they have everything they want right now,” he said. “They’re basically saying they want to kneecapped them, which I’m all for. But that doesn’t really make sense.”
There is a utopian model of what Staten Island could be, and that is Yonkers. Yonkers, Husock explained, is a predominantly white, working-class community of two hundred thousand residents, connected to New York by Metro-North and buses, and governed by center-right Democrats. It manages its own police, fire and schools. “I think they have Yonkers envy,” Husock said. “They wouldn’t become Scarsdale, obviously, but they would become Yonkers.”
Not everyone agrees. “It’s not a good idea,” Costello told me. Being part of New York City, he said, means “we literally have the best services available to anyone in the country.” “It’s an old sentiment of secession,” he said, “but it’s not based in financial literacy. »
Thirty-one-year-old Costello grew up on the north shore of Staten Island, attended high school and college on the island, and now lives in St. George, near the ferry. “I love Staten Island with all my heart,” he said. But every time secession occurs, it can feel like a civil war. “It’s like I’m a guy on the border between the Union and the Confederacy. And I’m like, ‘No, I’m part of the fringe that lives here and actually agrees with the North.’ »
