auxiliary islands of New York City

What's the one with the hospital where they kept Tuberculosis Mary?

GOOD POLL!!!!!!

I don't know how I can vote when I've only been to like 6 of these. ;_;

Wait - I meant Typhoid Mary!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoid_Mary

North Brother Island apparently.

I spent hours internetting North Brother Island a few days ago. Old abandoned sanitarium there. Officially closed to the public, but apparently you can sneak on rather easily. Lots of urban exploration-type videos on YT.

x-post yeah ENBB that's North BI

That must be where she's housed. I think you can see it from the FDR Dr.? Is that right?

was housed rather

gonna check out those youtubes - I love stuff like that

Ha! One of these, Prall's Island, named after one of my grandmother's ancestors.

I've been to two of them

Randall's Island

and

City Island

Voted City island because it's this awesome enclave of old Italians in the Bronx and you can get good clams there.

http://s3id.com/site/wp-content/images/2011/02/NorthBrotherIsland-500x333.jpg
need more pix! best thread JBR never made.

oooohhhhhh

all of these islands should be boroughs

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:UThantIsland.jpg

U Thant is dope

hey buzza

you must have been to city island, right?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ab/UThantIsland.jpg

^ U Thant

lol aww it's cute

Yeah a bunch of these are like one rock in a harbor somewhere. You can't really "go" to them unless you are a sailer/fisherman.

been to broad channel, city, riker's, wards, randalls, roosevelt, goverenor's, and liberty island

broad channel is cool, only inhabited island in jamaica bay and within gateway national recreation area. governor's island has (or will have) a high school on it, think it would be cool to go to school there.

Er, sailor, I suppose.

Was looking at pics of Broad Channel Isl wondering whether it's awesome to be from there or horrible. Kinda has to be one or the other imo.

RIP tallman island, coney island and other islands that were filled in and became peninsulas

Been to Ellis, City, Governors, Randall's/Wards, Roosevelt. Governors Island is AMAZING but only until the city turns it into something awful, which it will because the land is just way too valuable.

I think I'm voting Randall's/Wards.

Is there anything on Randall's? I've only been there for festivals and don't remember anything else there.

For someone who grew up so close to the City I can't believe I've never been to Ellis.

I have been to Roosevelt though. I knew someone that lived there.

http://ephemeralnewyork.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/swinburneislandhospital.jpg

wanna vote u thant because it reads as incomprehensible internet gibberishing

I've never even been in New York State, much less to any of these islands, but I love reading about them. Obviously Governors has so much cool stuff to look and think about, but after reading the harbor seal article in a recent New Yorker, I'm tempted to vote for Swinburne and Hoffman Island - kind of interesting.

Roosevelt Isl is kind of like a fake planned community, imo? Not much character tbh. The park with the old mouldering sanitorium at the southern tip is cool and all but doesn't rescue the rest of a very boring bike ride.

I've spent fair bit of time on Ellis Island but not actually IN the museum. Would love to some day get onto one of the Forgotten NY tours that goes there but they always fill up in like .3 seconds.

Randall's/Wards has a ton of athletic fields incl the new Icahn Stadium and lots of places for people to play soccer, rugby, baseball, tennis, little more than unimproved fields with some sidelines but all you need for a nice day outside and you can walk right down to the water's edge. I like it.

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~quarantine/history4C.htm#swinburne01

xps

Oh that sounds nice. I haven't been there in at least 10 years so I'm sure it's changed a lot.

Yeah Roosevelt doesn't have much character but it does have a gondola which I always thought was the neatest thing.

Ellis - yeah I'd like to do one of those tours too. One day.

Also you actually bike to Randall's Island across the Triboro Bridge which is REALLY HIGH UP over the isl, not at ground-level. So when the bike lane splits off the main bridge to descend to the surface, it's this incredibly long dramatic spiral with an arched roof of protective mesh over it (to keep you from throwing things off the side, if you're me) so when you fly down it on your bike it looks like you're piloting a spacecraft through warp space.

woah!!

only been to wards island to go to the sewage treatement plant, but it's also the home of john mcenroe's tennis academy, iirc

It also has a fire dept training ground where they like build things just to set them on fire. I've never been any closer to it than the main roads allow but I like the whole idea.

city
governors
roosevelt
liberty
rikers*
randalls

as a vistor!

fully intend to visit ellis island SOMEDAY, kind of embarrassed that I've never got around to it

considering its location, randall's is such an amazingly poor use of space. I mean it's an enormous plot of land in the geographic center of the new york city and it's being used for...some sports fields? and a bunch of freeways. it's basically robert moses' giant tombstone.

Rat island is privately owned and apparently for sale! 2.5 scenic acres off the Bronx shoreline

http://gothamist.com/attachments/arts_jen/phpYctVZyPM.jpg

new yorker article from last week about how some of these islands are being re-colonized by harbor seals (specifically swinburne and hoffman islands)

iatee, I am usually totally down with your urban planning arguments but I like Randall's for exactly that reason. Also this is partly the city's compromise to keep sports out of city parks and off the grass, because you aren't ALLOWED to kick around a soccer ball in almost all of Central Park, for instance. Forget youth leagues or even adult sports leagues needing fields to play on -- there is no way there's room for them anywhere else except the far, far outskirts of the city.

I mean you could hold all sports inside buildings somewhere but it would kind of defeat the purpose of telling your kid to go outside and play, also once a company has put money into a place for construction and safety permits and to hire instructions and trainers and everything that goes into a sports facility, you have Chelsea Piers and no one can afford to use it.

The city already owns Randall's Island, I'm sure there's a lot of lost-opportunity cost in them not developing it any further right now but I don't guess there's too much outlay...?

I think I'd be cool with the fields if it weren't so hard to actually get to them for the majority of residents in the nearby neighborhoods! this was done more or less on purpose too.

That is an excellent point that I'd never have thought of.

Aha!

If this :http://transit.frumin.net/trx/TriboroRX were ever built, the island could take on a new life. (even if it remained mostly fields.)

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Voted for Ellis Island. Would also vote The Pentagon as the best building in Washington, DC.

I wonder what it would cost to run power and water to Rat Island if you wanted to build there.

Also I would demand garbage pickup.

Apparently the whole island goes underwater during high tidal storms.

I never knew 90% of these existed ..but I have only been to NY one time so far. Awesome thread tho

lol @ U Thant

Every time I see "U Thant" I want to go "But whyyyyy?"

ellis and liberty islands are auxiliary islands of new jersey imo

Truth. Ellis is actually connected by a bridge!

when i was in middle school there was a jurisdictional dispute over those two and my whole class wrote letters to... the governor? i dunno. i feel fiercely partisan over it, its my kashmir.

from an old new yorker:

http://k.min.us/jkEitE.png
http://k.min.us/jkEk1M.png
http://i.min.us/jkEAbu.png

been reading about the New York Pop festival in 1970 on Randall's Island - shit sounds crazy!

I was at this show, captain funk is right, people just waltzed in, I paid $15 for a useless ticket. the lineup was john Sebastian, Grand Funk, Steppenwolf, Jethro tull, & Jimi. This footage is from a film called "Free" made of the show. The next night was Cactus, who were fucking KILLER, Ten years After, and the NY Rock Ensemble, feat. the late, great Michael Kamen. Miles Davis, Tony Williams lifetime, and Delaney & Bonnie were slated but didn't show up. The promoters split with the cash!!
SCROOBA12345 2 years ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2-m6QRiEO0

voted Randall's bcz the 07 Arcade Fire/LCD/Les Savy Fav/etc show I saw there was all-time.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/27/nyregion/no-traffic-no-noise-on-an-island-off-the-bronx.html?_r=1&smid=tw-nytimes&seid=auto

http://www.csmonitor.com/var/ezflow_site/storage/images/media/images/1005-us-latestnews-ratisland/10794958-1-eng-US/1005-us-latestnews-ratisland_full_380.jpg

It was owned by a Brooklyn lawyer until 1972 when it was sold to Edmund "Red" Brennen. He said he bought it to do salvage work and store equipment. For many years crane buckets and lattice booms and other equipment were visible.[1] In March 2009 Brennan put Rat Island up for sale for $300,000. On September 26, 2011, The New York Times published an article about the island, stating the property would go up for auction on October 2, 2011.[3] It was sold at that auction for $160,000 to 71-year-old retired Port Authority worker Alex Schibli, a resident of nearby City Island.[4] Schibli said he has no immediate plans for physical changes to the island, but is considering renaming it Malina Island after his granddaughter.[5]

After the 1893 storm, some redevelopment occurred on the now-reduced Hog Island. It is believed to have submerged entirely in 1902.[2]

spent time on Roosevelt Island last summer teaching my son how to drive. road looping around the island, 15 mph speed limit and presence of buses & delivery trucks and a few other cars made a good entry-level course though he mastered it after half-dozen times. nice view of manhattan and the river on the island's east side. super clean and suburban-futuristic in a 70s planned community way. would be weird to live there but i guess it's a tranquil retreat from the city. maybe the next hipster outpost?

they would have to build more buildings for retail/restaurants/bars for that to happen

there's room but i actually doubt it would happen. hospital and rehab facility take up probably one third of the space.

oh yeah they're building that Cornell tech campus there too. idk how big that actually is.