Whether or not Staten Island is the new Hoboken it is certainly the hip new place to be

There has been lots of talk these days about all the buzz around what is taking place on Staten Island's north shore.  That buzz began with the opening of BFC's The Rail at the former Stapleton Municipal Parking  lot and quickly shifted to Urby Staten Island - a $150 million project by Ironstate Development Company that has taken urban living to a whole new level.

Urby is billed as a "people shaped" community designed to make living in the city easier.

With a communal kitchen where a chef in residence gives cooking lessons and prepares meals using vegetables grown on the rooftop and in a plot of land called the urban farm, tended by a farmer in residence, Urby is like no other project Staten Island or any other borough has seen in recent years and perhaps ever.

If Downtown Staten Island was on it's way to being the hip, cool place to be - Urby solidified that moniker and is now the anchor attracting other world class eateries, coffee shops and taverns into the district.

Urby Staten Island is reporting 75% occupancy just months following its opening.  As residents move in to this well appointed, compact living space with spectacular view of the harbor, the only requests that they have are to the MTA which has been dragging its feet rehabilitating the Stapleton train station a block away - the key mass transit component that has been attracting millennials to Urby.

With so many private dollars invested into this 900 unit mixed use project that is elevating Stapleton to the mecca it once was, it would be nice to know that the MTA is willing to be a serious partner in the growth of a previously down trodden area into a neighborhood in which everyone wants to live.