Abandoned North Brother Island

   Having grown up on Staten Island in New York, it’s hard for me to believe I never heard of North and South Brother Islands in the East River until it popped up on my facebook feed recently.  Both Islands are completely abandoned since the early 1960’s.  Either that or it was buried in a history lesson at school and distracted youth prohibited me from paying attention. 

Note*  The island and facilities are not open to the public. The  following photos were taken from various photographers and historians who gained permission to access the island.  My resources were found on the internet. These are not my images. Hopefully those affiliated with these images won’t mind the sharing, since no money is made on this blog. 

  A little history –  the North and South Brother Islands are a pair of very small islands located in NYC’s East River between the Bronx and Rikers Island (notorious for it’s hardcore prison).  North Brother island was originally the location of a quarantine facility built around 1885, the Riverside Hospital, and housing among other outbuildings.   

  In it’s day, the Hospital treated a variety of  diseases including typhus, leprosy,  small pox, tuberculosis, scarlet fever, venereal disease and drug addiction.
   

   Have you heard of Typhoid Mary?  Ever wonder where that expression came from?   Mary Mallon was an immigrant cook from Ireland.  Although she was immune to the disease, it was discovered she was a carrier for typhus.  Working as a cook, she spread the disease in New York to approx. 50 people and long story short, ended up quarantined for over 30 years on North Brother Island even though she was “healthy”. 

    Historian and photographer, Ian Ference has been given access to the island and took some incredible photos, some of which are used here. 

   Says Ian…

   “This has got to be one of America’s most important places to visit.  Historically it has had a notorious and sometimes sinister reputation.  It was established as a forced quarantine camp for people suffering from infectious and often fatal diseases such as typhoid, scarlet fever, yellow fever and thyphus.  There were six people suffering from leprosy here in wooden huts. 

   New York was taking in a huge number of immigrants in the late nineteenth and earth twentieth centuries – and new arrivals were forced to live in crowded and unsanitary conditions. Diseases would inevitably spread and once the health authorities identified a person as having a communicable disease they were seized and forced to live on North Brother Island – unless they were rich enough to afford a private clinic. Conditions were bad – the mortality rate among patients was high and the recovery rate low. There was no telephony in those early days so once people were grabbed and taken there – they were often never heard from again by their families.’

   

   Then…. 

 

and now…