In 1918 Harry Avis (pictured right) was one of twelve children in a very poor Bronx family. He sent a friend to Manhattan to sign them both up for medical school. In those days, it was not uncommon to walk such long distances, public transportation being relatively undeveloped. But the friend tired, walking mile after mile, and instead enrolled them in the much closer New York College of Dentistry.  So began the saga of three generations of dentistry in Staten Island.