The President and CEO of the Historic Tappen Park Community Partnership is a key player in making Staten Island cool again

by JENNIFER VIKSE • Photos By Alex Barreto

Kamillah Hanks was a reluctant community activist. A public relations and marketing professional in Manhattan for several years, she grew up in Stapleton and took the ferry daily to her job, raising her children and sending them to school in the neighborhood.

“The truth is, I didn’t care,” she confessed. “I got on the boat and could have cared less about potholes and community boards.”

Hard to believe, given Hanks’s position now as President and CEO of the Historic Tappen Park Community Partnership (HTCP), which she founded in 2012—its mission to revitalize and promote Tappen Park and the greater community of Stapleton, using art, community events, and branding to drive the economic development and commercial revitalization of the Stapleton business district. “We are a marketing and PR firm for Stapleton,” she said. “We work with restaurants, artists, and Tappen Park itself, and it all happened quite by accident. I was one of those people—I did the bus…the ferry, but wasn’t really tethered to the community. It took me about a decade to become one of those people who really cared.”

It wasn’t until her ferry commute was showcased in the documentary film Ferry Tales in 2003 (which detailed daily meetings among a group of commuters in the women’s room of the Staten Island Ferry) that she was, in a way, forced to step up for the borough.

“Interestingly enough, I was a part of the film” she recalled. “We had this culture—we’d get on the boat and put our makeup on. Then I got my first gig doing PR for SIEDC [Staten Island Economic Development Corporation]. I worked on their first film festival, then realized how much I loved Staten Island. I later was picked up by the Downtown Staten Island Council, and that’s where I figured out what economic development really was.”

Stapleton has a fascinating history. Located along the waterfront of Upper New York Bay, bounded on the north by Tompkinsville at Grant Street, on the south by Clifton at Vanderbilt Avenue, and on the west by St. Paul’s Avenue and Van Duzer Street, it was built in the 1830s and was once considered the commercial center of the island. There, grand Victorian homes and detached houses mix with apartment buildings and townhouses to complete a neighborhood’s landscape which is home to a vibrant art community and an array of restaurants, including Sri Lankan, West Indian, Mexican, and Italian eateries. Its park is the second oldest on Staten Island, built in 1819.

“This was the shopping hub when I was young, before the ’80s when it became needle park,” she explained. “Jersey Street, Port Richmond, Stapleton…that’s where your mother took you to shop. It’s a very villagey kind of borough. Now you have a situation where it’s being developed.”

There are 11,000 people in 10304—the zip code that encompasses Stapleton, with a median income of $38,000. It’s a diverse group, Hanks pointed out, both economically and culturally. “They like a little bit of grit; it’s an urban/suburban combo.”

Along with the excitement of the URL Staten Island development—a $150 million mixeduse Ironstate Development project being built on the former Navy homeport that will eventually contain 900 apartments and 30,000 square feet of retail space—there are a lot of questions, Hanks acknowledged. “Staten Island is in the spotlight really for the first time,” she noted. “People have realistic concerns, mostly quality of life issues: parking, traffic, schools.”

One of her group’s focal points is to make sure all those who want to know what’s happening have access to that information. She also wears a second hat as president of the Van Duzer Street Civic Association, regularly packing its meetings with interested residents who want to hear the latest from Ironstate about the project and about the city’s plans to manage the potential boon to the Island.

In essence, Hanks said, after 30 years of talk, the Downtown Staten Island everyone wanted is finally happening. “The residents have always had one eye open,” she said. “This is [like] Braxton Hicks contractions before you have a baby. There’s no baby yet. [But] you know it is finally happening.”

She credits the leadership of Ironstate with being cognizant of their concerns. “They want to integrate and keep the neighborhood kind of the way it was; that makes the coolness level rise,” Hanks explained. “They think Tappen Park, for example, is an integral piece of their project. They have gotten to know me and what I do in the neighborhood and value my presence here. They want the neighborhood to do well. We have mutual interests; it’s a symbiotic relationship at this point. We all want Stapleton to become the next best neighborhood.”

In order to do that, she said, it’s imperative to keep the park active. “We have to have good things happening. Few people appreciate how much they can impact their communities and control their neighborhoods. If an entire neighborhood is really focused on making things better, there is nothing they can’t do.”

In fact, the park will host a district marketing campaign called “Illuminate Stapleton” on October 10 and 11th. “[This event will] showcase all Stapleton has to offer by tapping into the creative talents of our community. These artists will help us illuminate our story so that we can continue to further define and promote our neighborhood,” she explained.

The underpinnings of a great community, Hanks said, are education and law enforcement. While the area had suffered with a failing school, the new Eagle Academy is making a noticeable difference. “It’s changing the foundation of the neighborhood—it’s an eye opener to see how schools affect neighborhoods,” she said.

While the HTCP uses several avenues to support its mission of promoting public and private partnerships, encouraging investment, and getting youth involved in taking care of the physical park, all roads lead to one common destination.

“We are answering real needs. Taking ownership of their neighborhoods is so important. We have to decide who we are before someone else comes in and does it for us,” she said.

A native of Park Hill, Hanks added that, “I’m very, very proud to be a Stapletonite. I love Staten Island. I could live anywhere I want, in this city of amazing options, but I choose to live here.”

A mother of four, Hanks considers her neighborhood an extension of her family. And who doesn’t want their kids to succeed?

“We’re creating that brand…like Red Hook,” she quipped. “We’re not St. George, We are Stapleton…an amazing and unique place all our own.”

Historic Tappen Park Community Partnership
111 Canal Street, Staten Island / 917.757.8851 / historictappenpark.com