Staten Island is the third largest and least populous of the five boroughs. It is located at the juncture of Upper New York Bay and Lower New York Bay. The island is physically closer to New Jersey, to which it is connected by four bridges, than to the rest of New York City, to which it is connected only by the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge and the world-famous Staten Island Ferry. Staten Island encompasses 151.8 sq km (58.6 sq mi). The southernmost of the five boroughs, Staten Island had 378,977 inhabitants in 1990, or about 5 percent of the population of the entire city.
Overwhelmingly white, Staten Island has dozens of distinct neighborhoods or towns, and it has the highest proportion of single-family housing and owner-occupied housing in the city. Staten Island has many homes dating from the 17th and 18th centuries. Of special interest are the Conference House (1680), where futile peace negotiations were held between the British and American representatives in 1776 during the American Revolution (1775-1783), and the Voorlezer's House (1695), the nation's oldest surviving elementary school building.
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