Arden Heights is a neighborhood of Staten Island, New York City, New York, located in the island's "South Shore" section. The Arden Heights Woods are the site of kettle ponds left behind by the glacial shifts which created Staten Island in prehistory, and are still the site of a lush forest known to be a home for migratory owls and bats. In the mid-17th century, Joseph Bedell, the grandson of English immigrants, settled in the marshlands of Staten Island and built a home there before the start of the American Revolutionary War. At that home, they hosted peace talks between feuding Indian tribes, resulting in Indian leaders becoming frequent guests of the family. During the Revolution, British Army soldiers were quartered at their home. During the mid-19th century, other families began to settle in the area, which was renamed from "Marshland" to "Green Ridge" in 1876. Ten years later, Canadian real estate developer Erastus Wiman renamed the area in honor of the "Forest of Arden", the setting of William Shakespeare's play "As You Like It". During the 1960s, Mayor John Lindsay announced the erection of New York City's first planned community, the Village Greens, in Arden Heights, and the project was completed by 1971. During the 1990s, the neighborhood experienced further development with the construction of "Aspen Knolls". In 2017, Brookfield Park opened, having been transformed from a municipal solid waste facility into miles of rivers, wetlands, marshes, meadows and hiking trails. By 2022, Arden Heights was a mostly white-collar neighborhood of approximately 13,846 residents, of whom 71.7% were white, 11.1% Hispanic, 4.4% Asian, 4.2% Indian, 3.2% others, 2.8% Pacific Islander, 1.4% multiracial, and 1.2% Black.