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Like millions of tourists who visit New York City every year, Jens Bergstrom stepped onto the Staten Island Ferry on a sunny afternoon in the Battery recently with only one goal in mind: to get a better look at the Statue of Liberty and the Manhattan skyline.
"I heard I should just get off [the boat] and get right back on," said the Swedish tourist. "I've never heard anything about Staten Island."
Residents of the unsung borough are betting that will change in a little more than two years. That is when a 625-foot-high Ferris wheel and a 350,000-square-foot outlet mall are slated to open on the waterfront near the ferry terminal in St. George. Those attractions are expected to prompt as many as 7 million people a year to get off the ferry and to stay off long enough to enjoy themselves - and maybe even make their way 1.2 miles down the road to the borough's leading tourist destination.
There, they will find the Snug Harbor Cultural Center Botanical Garden, an 83-acre preserve that features 26 historic Greek Revival- and Victorian-style buildings housing four museums and three performing-arts venues. There's also a farm and an acclaimed Chinese Scholar's Garden. True, several previous attempts to get more tourists through the iron gates...