Posted Oct 16, 2014, 10:04 PM
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New Yorker for life
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Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Borough of Jersey
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http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/16/ny...park.html?_r=1
On an Island Under Vines, New York City Officials See a Future Park
By LISA W. FODERARO
OCT. 15, 2014
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It has been 70 years since North Brother Island, a 20-acre dollop of land in the East River, was used to quarantine New York City residents suffering from the great contagions of their day, like tuberculosis, scarlet fever and cholera. The hospital, which closed in the 1940s, was later used to house World War II veterans, then as a treatment center for drug addicts until 1963.
Tenacious vines, falling tree limbs and weather have since ravaged the two dozen buildings on the island, including the Tuberculosis Pavilion, the Nurse’s House, a church, a morgue and a coal house. Facades gape open. Copper-clad dormers droop. Trees emerge from third-story windows.
But on Wednesday, in an era highlighted by reinvention of the city’s forgotten infrastructure (think the High Line and Governors Island), three members of the City Council toured the island under spitting skies to see whether North Brother could be recast as public space.
“We want to start building the momentum and constituency for opening this up in some way,” said Councilman Mark D. Levine, the chairman of the parks committee. “I had seen pictures before, but nothing prepares you for the experience of seeing it in person.”
North Brother is one of over a dozen uninhabited islands under the jurisdiction of the city’s parks department, stretching from Hog Island in the Bronx down to Isle of Meadow off Staten Island. With the exception of Randalls Island, a thriving athletic complex, they are mostly frequented by nesting shorebirds like herons, egrets and ibises.
With state and city funds, the parks department this year began a project to replace invasive vines with native species, which will make the island a more appealing habitat for birds.
Given all of the demands on the parks department’s budget, the possibility of stabilizing the red brick buildings on North Brother — some in the Tudor Revival style — as a sort of Gotham equivalent to Pompeii is remote. Just paying for a comprehensive study of the island and its needs would cost many millions of dollars, parks officials say.
In addition to shoring up and cordoning off the buildings, which are mostly beyond repair, extensive work would need to be done on the grounds, which are covered with foot-snagging vines.
The allure of North Brother Island is plain, however. It is where Mary Mallon, better known as Typhoid Mary, was quarantined on and off for a quarter century, until her death in 1938. A healthy carrier of typhoid fever, she spread the disease to households where she was employed as a cook.
The island was also the scene of the P.S. General Slocum disaster in 1904, in which the passenger steamboat caught fire in the East River and ran aground. The accident claimed the lives of 1,021 passengers. Then there are the buildings themselves, the oldest dating from 1885. With their arched doorways, elaborate lintels and diamond-paned windows, they evoke another era.
After studying the ruins, the council members were undeterred. “You don’t need to invest $100 million to open it to the public,” Mr. Levine said. “You build a pier there and do it bit by bit.”
Councilman Fernando Cabrera, who represents the Bronx, had loftier ideas. “I would like to have Disneyland here,” he said. “We already have Governors Island. We need something different.”
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Viewing the ruins...
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