Borough President Vito Fossella Honors Sylvia Moody D’Alessandro For Her Dedication To Preserving Sandy Ground

​Borough President Vito Fossella presented a proclamation to Sylvia Moody D’Alessandro in honor of her steadfast commitment to preserving the story and legacy of Sandy Ground, the nation’s oldest free Black settlement in the United States still inhabited by its original descendants.

As she steps down from her role as the executive director of the Sandy Ground Historical Society, Sandy Ground Historical , the proclamation declared May 22 as “Sylvia Moody D’Alessandro Day” on Staten Island.

Sandy Ground was first settled by free Black New Yorkers as a farming community in the 1820s. In the 1850s, free Black oystermen from Maryland, Virginia, and Delaware came north to work the abundant shellfish beds of the Raritan Bay.

Borough President Fossella called the story of Sandy Ground an American story.

“Unless you have that person, that devoted servant, the person who believes that the story needs to be told, sometimes people forget,” said Borough President Fossella. “There’s always one person who everybody turns to in order to keep the story alive -- who’s going to tell the next generation the significance and the importance of Sandy Ground, and that’s this lady right there.”

Sylvia's daughter, Julie Moody Lewis, offered her thanks for “the affection, the consideration, and the recognition” reserved for mother and referenced the free Black men who settled on the sandy shores.

​“Sandy Ground is her heart,” she said. “That community out there in Sandy Ground is an authentic historic site, and Staten Island has to make sure that it remains intact and that the historical society stays there, in that place, so we can continue to re-live that history. Take your shoes off and rub it in that sand and get some of that determination that they had.”