STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — A reader’s Sunday morning news read over coffee stirred memories of Forest Avenue venues, late‑night crowds and a time when live music filled Staten Island. New York’s looser drinking laws once helped draw late‑night crowds over the bridge from New Jersey.
Nostalgic stories often generate a wave of reader mail, and recollections can vary. A recent article about Doc Hennigan drew a particularly detailed response from a former Staten Island musician who spent the late 1970s and early 1980s playing clubs across the borough.
Fred Deats, a regular reader now living outside Staten Island, played in a band called The Screwtones and reached out to share memories of a local music scene that once rivaled the Bay Street clubs of the mid‑1980s, and stretched across multiple neighborhoods. He said he immediately connected with Dr. Craig Campbell, the podiatrist-turned-bar owner of Doc Hennigan’s, which is celebrating its seventh anniversary this week…