“What’s Happening Staten Island” is a periodic series about active construction projects and other community happenings around the borough.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Passersby may have noticed a glaring absence at Freedom Circle recently, but city officials said Friday it’s part of an annual effort to better maintain the Ocean Breeze location.
A spokesperson for the city Parks Department said that each year after Veterans Day, the flags are taken down in an effort to protect them from the harsh winter weather before being restored ahead of Memorial Day.
Freedom Circle, located where the wood and stone portions of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Boardwalk meet, is the site of seven flagpoles, each featuring an American flag from a different time in the nation’s history from the Revolution to the present day.
In warmer months, the modern Stars and Stripes serves as the circle’s centerpiece surrounded by six flags — a version of the First Navy Jack, the Grand Union Flag of 1775, the Betsy Ross Flag of 1776, the first Official United States Flag of 1777, the 15-star Star-Spangled Banner honored in Francis Scott Key’s 1814 poem of the same name, and the 35-star flag that became the official U.S. symbol during the Civil War.
Flags at Freedom Circle in Midland Beach blow in the wind ahead of Tropical Storm Isaias on Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2020. (Staten Island Advance/Paul Liotta)
Former Borough President James Molinaro conceived the idea for Freedom Circle in 2003 as a memorial for the nation’s veterans, and used $750,000 from the Borough Hall budget to fund the Parks Department design and construction, according to Advance reporting from the time.
Molinaro led a host of city officials, including former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, at a ribbon-cutting ceremony of the location June 14, 2005, flag day.
“People left their farms and blacksmith shops to fight for a form of government the Greek philosophers had spoke about for years, had dreamed about but never saw,”…
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