Henry Hudson’s ship, a trio of possible oystermen, and a helmeted woman bearing sword and shield.
They’ve been elements of the unofficial borough flag for Staten Island for more than a decade, hanging at City Hall in Manhattan and Borough Hall on the island. On Thursday, it became official.
City Councilmember Frank Morano’s bill to formally adopt the flag passed unanimously, 42 to 0, making it one of three borough flags, including those of Brooklyn and The Bronx, to be officially codified.
To the Council member, the Island’s flag is more than just a flag.
“I think that there is something meaningful about symbols, whether you love being a part of New York City or whether you want to secede,” he said of his borough, which has flirted for decades with separating from the city.
The newest design came out of a suggestion from designer Emil Micha, who joined former Borough President Jimmy Oddo’s administration in 2014.
The ‘Allegorical’ Island
Micha had a decades-long career as a designer, studying under famed graphic designer Milton Glaser at the School of Visual Arts and then working for the New York Times, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and at Sotheby’s. While at the auction house, he designed the print materials that accompanied the auction after Sotheby’s acquired the estate of former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, he said.
He met Oddo through his son, and designed some of the material for Oddo’s campaigns before joining him when he was elected borough president in 2014.
Micha suggested they “refreshen a bunch of things and one of them was pitching a new flag,” Oddo told The City Reporter. Neither liked the flag they had, which was selected through a contest in 1971. The most prominent feature were two seagulls hovering over a large mountain.
“It reminded me of the seagulls over the mounds of garbage on Fresh Kills,” the gargantuan, 2,200-acre garbage dump that once blighted the island, Oddo said.
For Micha’s new design, he pulled from an existing seal that was on the floor of Borough Hall, and refreshed it, he told The City Reporter.
The imagery is “allegorical,” he said, not a full historical rendition.
Hudson went off looking for another route to Asia when he sailed the Half Moon into lower New York Harbor in 1609 and found Staten Island instead. The smaller boat represents the indigenous Staten Islanders at that time, who harvested oysters, he said.
The woman, her sword pointed down, is a symbol of the city. Her shield features two doves, for tranquility. She represents “the city and the notion of a peaceful atmosphere,” he said.
After designing it, the flag began “showing up, it started to reproduce itself,” he said. It was hung at City Hall, and before the start of the New York City Marathon on Staten Island.
“It’s been in existence now for 10 years as a kind of unofficial flag but nevertheless it’s all over the place,” Micha said.
Morano looks forward to its official designation in New York City.
“I’m hopeful that every school that I go to, and every park that I visit in my district, will be proudly displaying the Staten Island flag now,” he said.
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