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NYC’s North Brother Island, Abandoned for 50 Years, Might Finally Be Opened to (Legal) Visitors

North Brother Island is a 20-acre speck off the Bronx in the East River. It opened, in the 1880s, as a quarantine site, where the city shipped and shut away the sick. The hospital converted to a drug rehab center for heroin-addicted teens in the 1950s. Corruption and high costs ended the program a little more than a decade later, around 1963. The patients, the staff — everyone — left. The island has been abandoned since.

Isolated and uninhabited, North Brother’s campus crumbled — New York’s own lost civilization. The elements cracked opened dormitories and hospital buildings. The roads and paths wore away and were swallowed up by weeds. That transformation has turned an unwanted island, now technically off-limits, into the opposite. Only a few privileged people who have gotten permission from the New York City Parks Department — the island has been under its control since 2001 and is now designated as a bird sanctuary — or lawbreaking urban explorers have visited the ruins.

But that may change soon: City Council members are proposing a way for New Yorkers to take legal trips to North Brother Island. “I think the time has come for a plan to open up limited access,” said councilmember Mark Levine, after a rare visit to Norther Brother Island recently. He and fellow councilmembers, including Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverto, Parks employees, and community members loaded up in motor boats — or, in some cases, a raft with a motor attached — for a tour of the abandoned site.

Levine, who chairs the Parks Committee, first floated the idea of opening North Brother after a visit in 2014 . But the island’s biggest draw — its arresting deterioration — is also its big problem: More than half a century of neglect has left North Brother with many hazards. The island’s structures, most of which date back to the late 19th or early-20th centuries, are actively “shedding bricks,” warned John Krawchuk, the executive director of the Historic House Trust, during the tour. He pointed to the chipped smokestack of the old boiler house. Staring up and on the lookout for falling debris means ignoring the dangers below. Off the path, gaping manholes and broken branches are hidden like booby traps by untamed weeds. The poison ivy is inevitable, even on the sanctioned routes.

There’s no easy way to just turn the island into a park. But the City Council has started to tackle that challenge, commissioning a study by the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Design to help find ways to make the island more accessible. “We’re not talking about creating the next Governor’s Island with people running around at will,” Levine said. “This is a way for groups of students and people who care about the history of the city to experience in person something that you just can’t read about. It’s not the same to look at pictures, you have to walk on the island to feel the enchantment.”

The enchantment also comes at a price. Any plan to open up North Brother Island is most definitely going to be costly. The island needs a usable dock to receive visitors: To get to the island last week, each member of the group had to clamber up splintering wooden pylons and hoist themselves onto what was once a service dock. Even worse: Rushing to depart before the tide went out, crouching on the dock’s beams and sliding down, feet first, fumbling for the floor of the boat.

“To restore it, maintain it, and manage it — it would be an very expensive undertaking,” NYC Parks Commissioner Mitchell Silver said after exploring the island for the first time. “But,” he added, “it is tempting.”

So tempting. The island “essentially served as its own city,” Krawchuk explains. At different points in its existence, it had a functioning morgue, a public school, even tennis courts. As a quarantine, the buildings housed patients, mostly poor and immigrant, with yellow fever and measles and tuberculosis. Some doctors, nurses, and their families boarded on the island; others commuted by boat. Typhoid Mary is the institution’s most famous patient; she was quarantined here on and off for 28 years. She died on North Brother in 1938.

The oldest structures date back to 1885 and the most recent is the Tuberculosis Pavilion, a hospital that opened in 1943, just in time to be obsolete. After World War II, North Brother’s buildings were converted to veterans’ housing. Then came its last chapter as an experimental, but ultimately failed, addiction center for teenagers. (It was said to inspire the play Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie? , for which Al Pacino made his Broadway debut. )

The city has tried to figure out what to do with North Brother Island since it emptied in the 1960s. Mayor John Lindsay proposed selling it, Krawchuk said. Mayor Ed Koch wanted to house the homeless there. In the 1990s, the city considered expanding the facilities at Rikers, whose fortress looms off North Brother’s shore.

North Brother has found new purpose as a migration stopover for herons and other wading shorebirds. It’s classified, with its abandoned sibling South Brother Island, as a “Harbor Herons Region,” a protected area for shorebirds to nest. The Parks Department also invests in reforestation projects, ridding the land mass of invasive species and trying to kill the creeping kudzu and poison ivy that are swallowing the decaying structures, and pretty much the entire island.

Those herons have priority over humans right now, and their protection — and other environmental concerns — gets first billing in any future proposal for North Brother. No visitors are allowed during nesting season. It was over at the time of this recent visit, and even knowing this, the island did seem eerily devoid of animal life. It was almost impossibly quiet, except for the interlopers tromping through the brush.

But the island is alive, transforming itself in real time. Our group passed by North Brother’s church, built on the island around 1906. The chapel is made of wood, making it more vulnerable to rot and decay. It was all but gone when the tour passed by — just barbs of wood poking out from the grass. On his previous visit, Levine said, the chapel’s archway was still standing.

Which is why Levine thinks the city has an obligation to find a way for people to visit, and soon. “You shouldn’t have to be a City Council member or a reporter to visit the island,” he said.

Councilman Levine’s office said the UPenn study is being finalized and should arrive in the next two weeks. It will first be presented to the City Council’s Bronx delegation in November, and the Council’s Parks Committee will schedule a hearing in December about North Brother and other restricted spaces like Hart’s Island. The study will sketch out what has to be done to allow trips — the necessities, like building a landing dock and shoring up the structures. It may also include long-term recommendations, such as the possibility of restoring buildings. Again, there are no real plans yet, but past surveys have identified two potential candidates for revival: the male dormitory, which is one of the island’s original structures, and the coal house, which, built in 1904, is in relatively good condition, says Krawchuk.

The Parks Department, which allowed for the study, will consult with the City Council on any of the researchers’ recommendations. It’s unclear if the study will have a budget proposal to take on even the minimal but necessary upgrades. “It if doesn’t, we’ll work with our staff to quickly sketch out a capital plan,” Levine said.

Which is all to say, New Yorkers might be more likely to walk that floating park in the Hudson before they can do so on North Brother. These are just the first and very small steps to opening up an island that no New Yorkers ever wanted to go to – until they no longer could.

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Long off-limits, North Brother Island may finally open to the public

We recently explored the history of  Hart Island , a speck of land north of City Island that's home to the city's largest potter's field; after several decades, it has recently begun accepting visits from the public. Now, it looks as though the city may open yet another long-mysterious islet to visitors. 

Abandoned since 1963, North Brother Island could soon be opened on a limited basis to curious urban explorers,  reports  New York  magazine . The City Council is working on a proposal to allow New Yorkers to check out the 20-acre space, which sits in the East River between Port Morris in the Bronx and Rikers Island.

First, though, the island needs a serious revamp: Its buildings have descended into decrepitude, and falling debris poses hazards to passersby. And on a less dangerous, but potentially unpleasant level, the area is also choked with vegetation, including poison ivy. 

A history of illness

But what the island's buildings once housed is part of its draw, especially if you're a New York history buff. Like several of the city's other islands—including Hart and Roosevelt—North Brother's relative isolation made it the ideal place to build hospitals. Atlas Obscura recounts how the uninhabited island was purchased by the city in the late 1800s to erect Riverside Hospital, a facility for New Yorkers with contagious illnesses.

The hospital's most notorious patient was Mary Mallon, aka "Typhoid Mary," an asymptomatic carrier of the bacteria that causes typhoid fever. Due to her work as a cook, Mallon quickly spread the often-fatal disease among the families who employed her; the city ultimately quarantined her on North Brother Island, where she remained until her death about 23 years later. (Radiolab produced a podcast about Mallon's fascinating story, which you can listen to here .) 

But even before Mallon's tragic end, North Brother Island was touched by disaster. According to the New York Public Library , on June 15, 1904, the PS Slocum, a boat chartered for a day trip around the city, caught fire. Passengers had to choose between plummeting into the East River or remaining on board, and over 1,000 people died. The captain steered the ship to North Brother Island, where it sank, though both employees and patients of the island's hospital helped pull survivors ashore.

(Not just) for the birds

Riverside Hospital closed not long after Mary Mallon's death; the island then became home to World War II veterans who were studying at city universities. In the 1950s, it housed a drug rehab facility for adolescents addicted to heroin, but in 1963, the  New York  article notes, it was closed due to corruption. Since then, the island has remained vacant, save for the occasional (and illegal) presence of intrepid visitors, and colonies of herons, egrets, and other birds . 

Aside from becoming a wildlife sanctuary, nature has taken over in other ways. Back in 2011, blogger Richard Nickel, Jr. of the Kingston Lounge  took a trip to the island—it's reachable by canoe, but note, it is legally off-limits—and found the island's properties in a state of advanced decay: 

An examination room of the former hospital, via The Kingston Lounge

The hospital facilities are overgrown with kudzu in many places. The Kingston Lounge

The BBC reported on the island's history in 2014, and you can see many more images in the video below. 

It's clear that North Brother Island requires a lot of TLC before it's ready to welcome New Yorkers: according to New York , the island needs a new dock, as well as significant repairs and restorations of its buildings, before the Parks Department is prepared to break its 50-plus years of isolation. 

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Contributing editor Alanna Schubach has over a decade of experience as a New York City-based freelance journalist.

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Access to North and South Brother Islands still in question

by Savannah Jacobson

North and South Brother Islands from Barretto Point Park. The North is on the right closer to the foreground, the South, slimmer than its kin, is on the left. Photo credit: Savannah Jacobson

The East River is peppered with small islands filled with larger-than-life New York City history.

Two of them sit at the northern mouth of Hell Gate, a stone’s throw away from Barretto Point Park in Hunts Point. They provide some of New York City’s most enigmatic storytelling: in the north lies the old hospital that once housed Typhoid Mary, and the southern island harbored rum runners during Prohibition.

Today, if any Bronx adventurer wants to visit North or South Brother Island, they’ll probably have to find a Parks Department-approved scientist with spare room in their kayak. An eagerness to find the elusive northern dusky salamander , or being deemed the Greenest New Yorker by the state government might also help. Erik Baard, a regular explorer of South Brother Island and founder of environmental group HarborLAB, falls into both camps.

To adventurers like Baard, the island’s allure remains about the scrappiness required to get there. In the mid-2000s, he bonded with a Parks Department official over their search for the rare swamp-loving salamander. Now, all he needs to get to South Brother Island is some advanced notice.

“In the early days it was a little bit more radical seeming,” said Baard. “But now I’m 50 and I have white hair, and they know I’ve been doing it, so it’s fine.”

The twin isles reside between Rikers Island and the Bronx mainland, their upkeep reliant on a mired-down government that wrestled the land out of the hands of New York elite.

While North Brother Island has been uninhabited since 1963, only a scarce few have seen South Brother Island’s light of day since 1909.

The city has intended to make North Brother Island publicly accessible for decades, but the effort has stalled—the Parks Department only allows for visitation from academics and scientists. And South Brother Island remains strange and vacant, a land strictly reserved for some of the East Coast’s most exotic fauna, or the occasional message in a bottle.

On one of his earliest ventures, Baard discovered a bottle with a note inside dating back to the ‘80s.

“He had thrown it from Hunts Point,” said Baard. “It washed up on the island and stayed there. That’s how stable things were before Hurricane Sandy, it hadn’t left the East River for 30 years.”

Indeed, stability defines the history of South Brother Island.

In the early 20 th century, Col. Jacob Ruppert, a brewer and owner of the New York Yankees, owned the island. Stories of booze smuggling in the ‘30s run rampant, but the island’s reigning tale surrounds the intrigue that stems from its emptiness.

Meanwhile, North Brother Island’s history is colored with tumult and tragedy, until it reached its final fate: entanglement in the nests of bureaucracy.

Parks Department sign in Barretto Point Park commemorating the shipwreck. Photo credit: Savannah Jacobson

In 1904, a steamship carried German churchgoers from the Lower East Side to Long Island for a Sunday School jaunt. Somehow, a spark lit in a storage room that kept barrels of oil. The fire spread through the ship just as it reached Hell Gate. The ship captain hurtled forward to North Brother Island, but over a thousand passengers had already perished. 

Several years later, Mary Mallon, an Irish immigrant working as a cook, tested positive for tuberculosis. The Department of Health forced her into quarantine on North Brother Island where, apart from a five-year reprieve, she would live the rest of her life in isolation. The lore of Typhoid Mary’s quarantine attracts the city’s lovers of all things creepy, medical, and abandoned.

An illustration of Mary Mallon featured in a 1909 edition of defunct newspaper “New York American.” Photo credit: Museum of the City of New York, on Instagram

Still etched into the walls of a decrepit hospital lie an inmate’s infamous words: “Help me I am being held here against my will.”

A haunting wall carving in an abandoned hospital on North Brother Island. Photo credit: Ian Ference/The Kingston Lounge

Following the close of World War II, the city rotated through purposes for North Brother Island, from veteran housing to youth rehabilitation centers, until finally shuttering everything in 1963, vacating the island indefinitely and leaving behind 26 empty structures.

Now, after sitting uninhabited for decades, traveling to North Brother Island requires good timing, a permit from the Parks Department, and an advanced degree or elected position.

“We are currently only accepting requests to visit with a rigorous academic focus and institutional association,” said Parks Department analyst Tely Renata. All visitors are prohibited during bird nesting season, from late March to late September.

This restrictiveness contrasts the political rhetoric surrounding North Brother Island.

“What’s wrong with making North and South Brother Islands accessible?” asked Bronxite Jonathan Marin in a Facebook group.

The answer? It depends on who you ask.

Councilman and former parks chair Mark Levine visited the island in 2014, setting off rumors about North Brother Island opening to the public.

“I hope you wouldn’t have to be a city councilman to see this,” he told Gothamist at the time.

Levine’s visit coincided with a periodic study from the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Design to create a responsible plan that would allow for public visitation. The study, released last year, exposed the tension at the heart of the fight over who gets to visit North and South Brother Islands: ecologists are concerned with environmental protection and preservation, while community groups see opening the island as a way to increase access to green space and potentially provide jobs in the South Bronx.

“I am very much opposed to making North and South Brother Island any sort of public park,” said Baard. “I think we’ve eaten up enough land in New York City as a species. I think it’s not asking too much to leave some of it aside for other species.”

At the same time, Baard is sympathetic to the lack of reachable green spaces in neighborhoods like East Harlem, where Randall’s Island is counted as open space: “That’s obscene in a lot of ways to say, ‘Don’t worry, you’ve got your green space, just walk all the way there.’”

The University of Pennsylvania study ultimately recommended a trial period of limited and controlled public access.

“It requires thinking in different terms about what open to the public means,” said Randall Mason, the study’s principal investigator and Associate Professor of historic preservation at the University of Pennsylvania. “It would certainly be seasonal and that’s in keeping with the ecological preservation imperative. It would mean to be deliberate and intentional about the usage of the park.”

Since the study was published, the city has not shown much progress in opening the island. Still, Mason has faith that the Parks Department and a coalition of private partners will find funding for a successful pilot period of public access.

“Parks funding will always be the bottleneck. As long as that could be solved, there are avenues that could be explored.”

Signage in Barretto Point Park from a coalition of groups that helped New York City purchase South Brother Island. The island can be seen on the left. Photo credit: Savannah Jacobson

As for South Brother Island, the Trust for Public Land, a conservation non-profit, negotiated the land from private ownership into full oversight by the Parks Department in November 2007. U.S. Rep. José Serrano, whose district includes the islands, worked with a coalition of environmental-minded nonprofits to secure $2 million in federal grant funds to facilitate the land transfer and preserve the island as a bird sanctuary.

For now, in a borough where locals’ needs are rarely met and on two islands that have lived in obscurity for centuries, it seems that even more so than lacking a PhD in marine biology, boating equipment, or wings, public opinion and bureaucracy are still the biggest impediments to ever reaching the islands.

Baard doesn’t see the problem. Some places, he says, should be left untouched.

“I don’t romanticize things as much.”

Mapping inequity

More stories.

The dark history of North Brother Island, New York’s forbidden place

• Post author By Greg Young
• Post date July 9, 2021
• 12 Comments on The dark history of North Brother Island, New York’s forbidden place

PODCAST There are two mysterious islands in the East River with a human population of zero.

North Brother Island and the smaller South Brother Island sit near the tidal strait known as Hell Gate , a once-dangerous whirlpool which wrecked hundreds of ships and often deposited the wreckage on the island’s quiet shore.

In the 1880s North Brother Island was chosen as the new home for Riverside Hospital , a quarantine hospital for New Yorkers with smallpox, tuberculosis and many more hideous illnesses.

The hospital is long gone but ruins peaking out from the canopy of trees hint at a shocking story of mystery and woe.

Greg takes the reigns in this episode and leads you through the following tales featuring North Brother Island:

— A bizarre incident — involving a body found in the waters off the island — which first put the place on the map;

— The experiences of “ Lighthouse Dan” ;

— The nightmarish city policy of ‘forced exile ‘ to battle the spread of disease in the city’s poorest quarters;

— The tragic crash of the  General Slocum  steamship;

— The complicated struggles of Mary Mallon, aka  Typhoid Mary ;

— The implausible tale of a 1950s rehab center for teenage drug addicts.

PLUS : How to see the ruins of North Brother Island without stepping foot there

Listen Now – North Brother Island: New York’s Forbidden Place

Greg’s video of North Brother Island while passing on the ferry to Soundview:

And see the island from a drone’s perspective! Also a egret’s perspective:

FURTHER READING

Damnation Island: Poor, Sick, Mad & Criminal in 19th Century New York by Stacy Horn North Brother Island: The Last Unknown Place in New York by Christopher Payne with a history by Randall Mason The Other Islands of New York City by Sharon Seitz and Stuart Miller Ship Ablaze: The Tragedy of the Steamboat General Slocum by Edward T. O’Donnell Typhoid Mary: Captive to the Public’s Health by Judith Walzer Leavitt

FURTHER LISTENING

After exploring the history of North Brother Island, visit these shows in the back catalog for more information about some of the people, places and events mentioned in this show:

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12 replies on “The dark history of North Brother Island, New York’s forbidden place”

If anyone has futher interest in Blackwell’s Island, I’d recommend Damnation Island by Stacy Horn. And The Changeling by Victor LaValle features North Brother Island in a modern fairytale.

You guys did a great job with this one. Most of what you read about here is about Mary Mallon or the General Slocum. I really enjoyed hearing about Lighthouse Dan and those other earlier casualties. Visiting here was one of the most surreal experiences I have ever had; your podcast really satisfied that part of my brain that needed a revisit with new information.

My parents and I lived on North Brother Island while my father completed medical school on the GI Bill after WW 2. I commuted by ferry, then bus, to public school in the Bronx. I remember this place as Paradise. It is so sad to see it’s current state, but I am grateful for your commentary and film. I am now 78 years old. I would enjoy hearing from others with a similar unique experience of this eerily beautiful place. I am always happy to conjur up such wonderful memories.

that beautiful, do you have any photos. I am a local in hunts point where the island is in sight, growing up I always was curious about the island and was told it was haunted

I was born in 1948, and spent my first 3 years on North Brother Island. My older brother does remember the island. My mother always thought of it as a wonderful place to live.

Marcia, I am a writer and editor based near Boston, and I am researching North Brother Island for a novella I am writing. The novella takes place just after World War II—the time period you indicated your family lived on the island. I’d be interested to learn more about your life on the island—for example, what did children and families do for fun on the island? I believe there were tennis courts…but were there any organized social events? And what were the apartments like—full kitchens and baths, etc? I’ve done a fair amount of research but haven’t been able to find answers to these questions. Any details you can provide would be invaluable! I will plan to check this website periodically to see if you have responded.

Ms Mcgowan- my parents lived on North Brother 1948-49 or 50, a few years before I was born. They loved it, especially my father. He mentioned that he had a garden plot where he grew vegetables. He was never very clear on what sort of housing they had- whether it was a small cottage or an apartment in a larger building. I have an addressed envelop that I found that says “Low Hall, North Brother Island”. Would be very interested if you had any recollections or photos.

Hi Marcia! Could you please contact me at [email protected] ? I’m a documentary filmmaker working on a project regarding North Brother Island and I would love to speak with you about your experiences. Been trying to find you for the past few months and didn’t realize I could reply to you on here! Please get in touch if you can. Thanks!

North Brother Island is the setting for a recent fiction novel, The Vines, by Shelly Nolden. As it is historical fiction, part of it takes place during the Slocum disaster and continues up to today.

I discovered that while doing my research. And the author has a very nice website ! I’ll have to read her book this summer.

[…] La source : histoire de boweryboys […]

Fascinating. I grew up till 6 on 101st street between first Ave and the drive. We walked our dogs on wards island and for years I had the nightmare of the foot bridge opening from the middle and me falling in. The bridge actually went up by the entire middle section. North Brother island was north of wards island and was always ominous passing the hospital so closely on Triboro bridge. Nothing good ever happened there I’m sure. Draining the east river would be another amazing discovery. We always wondered how many cement shoed skeletons are down there! Excellent work to all. Thanks!

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Nov 15, 2011

The New York City Parks Department would probably want me to start this way: North Brother Island is a ruin. It hasn’t been occupied, nor used for anything by anyone except nesting herons, since the early 70’s. Thus, it’s dangerous.

At best, you’ll probably walk away with a case of poison ivy. (We were spared somehow.) At worst, you could fall down an open utility shaft. The disused hospital where the city used to isolate tuberculosis patients is crumbling and may be rife with asbestos. Same with the other former medical buildings on the north end of the island. Even walking around is a chore. The whole place is choked with kudzu and porcelain berry. North Brother Island is what will happen to the whole of our civilization when humanity is dead.

Sean on North Brother Island

But I’m actually going to start this way: North Brother Island is more fascinating by accident than most intentionally fascinating places are. It feels as though one day, everyone living and working there just dropped everything and left. It feels as much like that day was yesterday as it feels like it was 100 years ago. The hospital smells medicinal, maybe from all of the x-ray film piled up on the floor of the x-ray room. Random fire hydrants and lamp posts stick up through the thickets and weeds – but soon you realize there’s nothing random about it. There are roads under all that thick overgrowth. And curbs. A curb is so urban a thing this place can’t have ever claimed one, but it did. Roofs and basements should never meet each other, but they do here.

A collapsed building on North Brother Island. Mary lived in a cottage near this spot while under quarantine.

We visited this island for our story on Typhoid Mary . She was quarantined here and we wanted to find her cottage. (It doesn’t exist anymore.) North Brother Island is so close to the city I figured you could just canoe to it. And you can. If you want to be arrested. To visit the island you must:

1) Contact the parks department. They don’t even let themselves visit the island most of the time. March to October is off limits. That’s when the herons nest.

2) If the parks department gives you permission, you have to charter a boat, which can be really expensive. To make it more affordable, find other folks who need to visit and split the cost with them.

3) Thing is, a big group requires a big boat and a big boat can’t dock on the island. There’s no dock. We had to tie off on a rotting piling, motor over in a smaller boat, three by three, and beach ourselves onto the sand. In short, to get to North Brother Island, you have to mildly shipwreck yourself.

We think these quarters were used by nurses on the island.

What to do first:

If you’re pressed for time, explore the buildings first. From the spot where you beach, the hospital is straight ahead and to the left. (Ignore the broken, tilted awning above the entrance that says “Christian Center Sanctuary of Hope.” It’s a practical joke/art project.) But the hospital isn’t even the creepiest place. The creepiest place is (what we think was) the “Nurse’s Home.” Bullet holes perforate an outer door – all exit wounds. All the theater seats in the entertainment hall have collapsed. The curtain runner above the stage would still work were there a curtain. The wall switches still move up and down, with that loud, mid-20th century “tock.” 

The abandoned theater.

A porch in disrepair.

Still, the hospital is pretty incredible. We walked through the wards where TB patients were quarantined. Private rooms were available too, including one with bars on the windows and a door slot through which maybe food was delivered. Whoever was treated in there can’t have been very stable. In one of the offices, there are mimeographed handouts strewn across the floor as though a receptionist had an apoplectic fit and quit on the spot. “STUDIES ON ADDICTION FROM RIVERSIDE HOSPITAL,” they say. After this was (in essence) a leper island, it was a drug rehab facility.

Sean inspects a hospital room.

The view from the hospital room.

What to do next:

Walk south toward the lighthouse, past the smooshed chapel that looks like the house that landed on the witch in the Wizard of Oz. Keep an eye on the water until a sparkling view of Manhattan emerges. Seeing the city from this remove is a little like seeing Earth from the moon – especially if you imagine you’re Mary Mallon and aren’t allowed to go home, no matter how much you plead or cajole the doctors who are constantly testing your stool. It doesn’t feel like any place in the East River should ever have been so built up and inhabited, let alone so abandoned and allowed to melt down like this.

View of Manhattan through a broken fence.

Whatever you do, remember you’re one of a rare breed of people who have seen North Brother Island. So count yourself lucky. Oh, and take lots of pictures. Like our producer Lynn Levy did. This is Lynn:

Lynn Levy braving the ruins.

Thanks Lynn.

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Test the outer edges of what you think you know

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There's a mysterious, abandoned island less than a mile from Manhattan and almost no one is allowed to visit — here's what it's like

• North Brother Island is a 22-acre piece of land in New York City that has been abandoned since 1963.
• The island, which is next to the infamous Rikers prison, was a quarantine location 150 years ago.
• Business Insider visited the island and photographed the dilapidated state of its 25 buildings.

Less than a mile from Manhattan — one of the priciest and most densely populated places in the world — sits North Brother Island, a mysterious island that people abandoned more than half a century ago.

New York City owns the 22-acre plot, which pokes out of the East River between the South Bronx's industrial coast and a notorious prison: Rikers Island Correctional Center.

It's illegal for the public to set foot on North Brother Island and its smaller companion, South Brother Island, without permission from the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. Even then, access is only granted in rare cases . Even birds seem to avoid its crumbling, abandoned structures.

In 2017, producers for the Science Channel obtained the city's permission to visit North Brother Island, and the crew invited Business Insider to tag along. The story of our small expedition premiered in season four of " What on Earth? " a popular TV show about satellite images. (Our segment closes out episode 12 .)

Here's what we saw and learned while romping around one of New York's spookiest and most forgotten places.

North Brother Island is accessible only by boat. Leaving from Barretto Point Park in the South Bronx is one of the quickest ways to get there.

Watch your step — the boat ramp is covered in slippery algae at low tide.

This small aluminum boat was our ride.

The East River was crawling with police, probably because Rikers Island Correctional Institute is less than a mile away — and they are wary of anyone visiting North Brother Island.

No one is permitted to visit the island without permission from the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, which manages the site as a bird sanctuary. One of their escorts also has to tag along everywhere you go.

Source: NYC Parks

Pulling up to the island, we navigated around rotten dock supports. The ferry dock and its rusted derrick looked ready to collapse at any moment.

The island was first claimed in 1614 and inhabited in 1885, and its history is checkered with death, disease, and decay.

In June 1904, for instance, a steamship called the General Slocum burst into flames and sank in the East River. Though 321 people survived, the bodies of 1,021 passengers who died washed ashore for days.

Source:  New York Public Library

The arc-shaped Hell Gate Bridge on the East River is visible from North Brother's western shore.

The island's buildings used to run on a coal-fired power plant. Workers loaded the bituminous fuel onto this dock — but during our visit, it was sinking, covered in kelp, and totally submerged at high tide.

Sea levels could rise by as much as 2.5 feet in the next 35 years around New York City. If and when a large hurricane rolls through as the waters rise, the surges will swallow the island's habitats, ecology, structures, and history.

Source:  Business Insider

After we arrived on shore, we stowed camera equipment, food, and other supplies inside this old transformer vault.

It was falling apart, like everything else on the island, but was one of the most stable structures with a functional roof — and rain clouds immediately began to threaten our day trip.

Streets and sidewalks are almost unrecognizable due to the overgrowth.

But there are signs of previous habitation everywhere, like this corroding trash can.

Invasive kudzu vines, which come from Asia, crawl and infiltrate many nooks and crannies of the island.

The island sub-canopy is covered in native plants both small and impressively large.

One of the first buildings I saw was the morgue, seen right. The fractured chimney of a coal-fired boiler room, seen left, is also visible from miles away.

At every turn, the decay is both eerie and beautiful.

Parks and Recreation officials do not let anyone into most buildings, since they are in a dangerous state of disrepair.

You have to look where you're going, or you'll run into spider webs big enough to boggle the mind.

From the 1880s through 1943, the city quarantined people sick with highly contagious diseases on the island, including the infamous "Typhoid Mary" Mallon. Those who died were stored in the morgue.

Much of the equipment was left when inhabitants abandoned the island in 1963.

But signs of illegal visitation are peppered about, including this graffiti on a wall ball court.

Some facilities are almost unrecognizable. Ivy has completely choked out this double tennis court.

Rather than take the ferry each day, some hospital workers opted to live in the Nurse's Home. Bathtubs have fallen through the ceiling of the 40,000-square-foot Victorian-style mansion, which was built in 1905.

Coal-fired steam heated many of the island's dwellings.

The Staff House is one of the oldest and most dilapidated structures. It was constructed in 1885.

During our 2017 visit, it looked ready to collapse.

Further down the main road is the Male Dormitory.

It was also built in 1885, and has trees growing through its roof.

The dormitory became a nursery school for veterans' families who lived on the island during the post-World World II housing crisis, from 1946 through 1951.

After 1951 and until the island's abandonment, the building was used as a drug rehabilitation center.

So many structures hide among the wild vines, trees, and fronds.

It feels like wandering around an post-apocalyptic playground at times.

Few animals seem to live here, and a Parks and Recreation official said that mammals are practically nonexistent — no rats, chipmunks, or mice.

The largest building on the island was one of the last to be completed: the Tuberculosis Pavilion.

It is a sprawling four-story, 83,000-square-foot building that was designed to house people sick with tuberculosis, but then World War II broke out.

The $1.2 million facility was finished in 1943 and never treated a tuberculosis patient; instead, it housed World War II veterans.

It is a large, looming, and creepy building that we wanted to explore, but couldn't.

But like at many of the structures, we were able to peek through broken or missing windows.

The south end of the tubercular ward had a kitchen.

The island is a place few people would dare spend a night on, but it seemed more sad than spooky to me the more I explored it.

The structures, like the Physician's Home, built in 1926, were on the verge of collapse during our visit. But they were probably once beautiful, and might have even been useful today — had they been maintained.

The island struggled to find its purpose after a tuberculosis vaccine emerged in 1943, and soldiers found places to live on the mainland.

Owners of the island tried to reinvent it as a rehabilitation camp for troubled teens, from 1952 through 1963. But patients didn't get the help they needed when returning home after three- to five-month stays. The program was considered a failure.

Everyone left in 1963, and then the city took custody of the island. A lack of close management made it a looting grounds for vandals. To this day, the city has yet to figure out if and how it will let the public set foot there again.

North Brother Island might never reopen to the public, though: It's ground-zero for rising sea levels and storm surges. According to extreme climate-change projections, it may be entirely underwater by 2100.

This story is an update to the original version  published on October 8, 2017.

• Main content

About North Brother Island

Quick links, introduction.

Stepping into the interior of North Brother Island is like entering another world. In this seemingly alternative dimension, it’s as if you’ve been simultaneously transported to the island’s actual tragic past as well as a possible post-apocalyptic future for our civilization.

At least that’s how I imagine it feels to walk among the ruins of Riverside Hospital, located on a twenty-acre, forested atoll in New York City’s East River. Because access to the island, now a federally-protected bird sanctuary, is restricted, I’ve never been there.

Instead, I’ve learned everything I could from those who’ve been fortunate enough to experience the surreal, decomposing quarantine facility firsthand, and gracious enough to then share it with the rest of us. As nature continues its destruction of the remaining evidence of the quarantine facility, where thousands died and many more suffered, all that will remain will be the accounts of those who’ve been there, and their photographs and videos.

The history of North Brother Island—both rich and dark—belongs to us all. And it’s even more relevant now that we’ve been living through our own generation’s pandemic. I invite you to explore the resources I’ve aggregated here as well as contact me with any additional information I can add (and use in The Vines Series).

Happy exploring!

I’m always looking for additional resources and photographs, as well as details about people who’ve lived on the island.

If you have any leads for me, i’d love to hear from you., north brother island map.

Click on the image below to see a larger version.

North Brother Island Timeline

10,000 to 20,000 Years Ago

The Wisconsin glacier deposited the material that became North Brother Island.

Native Americans may have visited the island but likely did not dwell there, as North Brother Island contains no fresh water source.

Dutch navigator Adriaen Block named North Brother and its smaller neighbor to the south “duo de Gesellen” (the two “wayfarers” or “brethren”).

Sinking of the British frigate Hussar in treacherous Hell Gate. The ship was rumored to be carrying gold coins for the British army’s payroll as well as 80 shackled revolutionary soldiers.

To address a growing smallpox epidemic the New York Board of Health began efforts to move Riverside Hospital from Blackwell’s Island to North Brother Island.

The new Riverside Hospital facility, designed to treat New York City’s indigent ill, opened on North Brother Island with three of its ten planned wooden pavilions completed.

An increase in infectious disease outbreaks in New York City spurred the addition of more pavilions and tents.

Early 1900s

To combat fears of being sent to Riverside Hospital, which resulted in families hiding their ill from authorities, efforts were made to improve the facility’s campus as well as its reputation.

June 15, 1904

The PS General Slocum steamship caught fire south of North Brother Island. Its captain ran the ship aground at the southwestern end of North Brother Island. Over 1,100 people aboard perished, many of whom were women and children who’d been on their way to a Sunday school church outing at Locust Grove Picnic Ground.

The Department of Health gave Mary Mallon, an asymptomatic carrier of Salmonella Typhi, a choice – to have her gall bladder removed (where the bacteria were believed to reside) or be exiled to North Brother Island. She refused the surgery, which was dangerous and not guaranteed to work.

1914 to 1942

Riverside Hospital primarily treated tuberculosis and venereal diseases, as hospitals within the boroughs had become more adept at treating contagious diseases and smallpox had been eradicated in the US.

1918 – 1919

Riverside Hospital treated returning soldiers with drug addictions (using isolation).

Other hospitals and new developments in public health, epidemiology, and pharmaceuticals reduced the need for the isolation facility.

Mary Mallon suffered a stroke and remained bedridden at Riverside Hospital until her death on November 11, 1938.

The Tuberculosis Pavilion was completed (designed by Electus Litchfield) but never used for its original purpose due to lack of funding / staff.

The Tuberculosis Pavilion closed, along with the rest of the complex, due to a shortage of workers. It was, however, briefly used as a barracks in the later years of WWII.

Post World War II

Several of the larger buildings, including the Tuberculosis Pavilion, were repurposed as apartment buildings for students (and their families) who were studying at NYC colleges under the GI bill. A grocery store, cafeteria, library, and movie theatre were added.

Following the veterans’ completion of their degrees, the families departed and North Brother Island was temporarily abandoned.

July 1, 1952

Riverside Hospital was reopened as an experimental rehabilitation treatment center for heroin-addicted juveniles.

Riverside Hospital was closed. All electricity, phone, and ferry service to the island was discontinued.

1965 to 1980s

Plans were made (and then abandoned) to turn the facility into a “Center for Derelicts.” Other alternatives considered over the years include a maximum security prison, landfill, homeless shelter, and a quarantined facility for AIDS patients.

The New York City Audubon Society and the NYC Department of Environmental Conservation determined that the island had become heavily populated by several species of colonial wading birds.

Lightning struck the smokestack on the boiler house.

The New York City Department of Recreation acquired the island and designated it a “Forever Wild” resource with no public access.

A group of students from the University of Pennsylvania, led by Randall Mason, surveyed the island with ecologists and biologists at the NYC Parks Department.

The black-crowned night herons abandoned the island for unknown reasons.

Superstorm Sandy ravaged the north side of the island but left the buildings largely undamaged.

The New York City Department of Parks and Recreation stopped accepting applications for approved access to the island due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Additional Resources

Photography, books / studies.

These on-line articles provide both insight into the island’s grim past as well as haunting images that influenced my writing of The Vines.

North Brother Island

Forgotten New York. 2004, September 11

Riverside Hospital (North Brother Island)

Opacity. Kirsch, Tom. 2005

North Brother Island – Riverside Hospital

Kingston Lounge. Ference, Ian (2011, January 13)

Inside the Lost Island of New York: Eerie Pictures of the Abandoned Leper Colony Just 350 Yards From the Bronx

DailyMail.com. Hazelton, Liz (2012, February 4)

Getting Lost on North Brother Island

AbandonedNYC. Ellis, Will (2013, October 9)

Exploring New York City’s Abandoned Island, Where Nature Has Taken Over

Smithsonian Magazine. Nuwer, Rachel (2014, May 14)

The Mysterious New York City Island You’ve Never Heard Of

Slate. Teicher, Jordan G. (2014, May 14)

This Island In New York Has A Dark And Evil History That Will Never Be Forgotten

Only in Your State. Monroe, Lea (2016, July 15)

New York City Owns a Creepy Island That Almost No One is Allowed to Visit — Here’s What It’s Like

Business Insider. Mosher, Dave (2019, June 3)

Photos: A Rare, Legal Visit To “Spellbinding” North Brother Island

Gothamist, Jen Chung (2014, October 16)

The Secret of North Brother Island: The Abandoned New York City Island Where Typhoid Mary Was Held Captive

The Daily Beast. Robin, Josh (2017, December 29)

The Tragic History of North Brother Island

History 101. Kennedy, Rose (2019, December 30)

North Brother Island – Abandoned Quarantine Facility in New York

Dark Tourists. (2020, September 29)

Lighthouse Friends: North Brother Island

Lighthouse Friends

The General Slocum Disaster of June 15, 1904

New York Public Library. (2011, June 13)

The videos below provide more information on North Brother Island, its history and current status.

PBS MetroFocus

These photograph collections give a haunting, yet beautiful perspective on the forbidden North Brother Island. Look carefully and you’ll find details within these images that are referenced in the novel.

Christopher Payne

North Brother Island Photography Collection

Deborah O’Grady

Ian Ferrence

These great books and studies were invaluable resources to me while researching North Brother Island and other topics related to novel. I highly recommend you check them out!

LAB 257: The Disturbing Story of the Government’s Secret Germ Laboratory

Carroll, Michael Christopher – William Morrow Paperbacks, 2005

Fever: A Novel of Typhoid Mary

Keane, Mary Beth – Thorndike Press, 2013

The New York City Long Range Sludge Management Plan Generic Environmental Impact Statement III: North Brother Island Phase IA Archaeological Assessment

Kearns, Betsy and Kirkorian, Cece – Historical Perspectives Inc., 1991

North Brother Island Conservation and Access Study

Mason, Randall – PennPraxis, 2017

Ship Ablaze: The Tragedy of the Steamboat General Slocum

O’Donnell, Edward T – Broadway, 2003

North Brother Island: The Last Unknown Place in New York City

Payne, Christopher – Empire State Editions, 2014

In The Children’s Hospital

Riis, Jacob A

How the Other Half Lives: Studies among the Tenements of New York

Riis, Jacob A – Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1890

Riverside Hospital New York City North Brother Island

Riis, Jacob A – Cosmopolitan Magazine, July 1902

North Brother Island: Balancing Ecology and Cultural Heritage

University of Pennsylvania Historic Preservation Program 2005, New York City Department of Parks and Recreation – University of Pennsylvania, 2005

Microbe Hunters

Paul De Kruif and F Gonzalez-Crussi – Houghton Mifflin, 2002

These Locations Are Off-Limits From Visitors But You Can Get Pretty Close To Them

M any countries and places rely on tourism as part of their economy. And they are happy to promote their most desirable locations. There are some areas, though, that people aren't allowed to visit at all. Here are some of those forbidden places and the reasoning behind the restrictions they imposed upon potential visitors.

In some cases, you can get very close to each area's main attraction(s) and in other cases, their true state has been completely shut off from most of the world.

The Grand Shrine of Ise

The Grand Shrine of Ise was first established all the way back in 4 BC. The shrine is meant to honor Amaterasu, one of Shinto's most renowned Deities. Over the last 2,000 years, there have been many updates to the shrine which is located in the Mie Prefecture in Japan. It is now rebuilt every 20 years to celebrate death and rebirth.

While visitors are welcome to come and see the forest that surrounds the shrine, they will not visit the inside. Tourists and pilgrims can only view the roofs of the building as the shrine is enclosed by 4 tall fences.

North Brother Island

North Brother Island, located in New York City, was uninhabited until 1885 when Riverside Hospital was moved there. The hospital was primarily used to isolate patients with infectious diseases. The most famous of those patients was Mary Mallon, who was also known as Typhoid Mary.

Over time, thanks to medical advances, there was less reason to isolate patients. The island was used to house soldiers during World War II and to treat young drug addicts in the 1950s. The hospital has been out of use since the 1960s and North Brother Island is now a bird sanctuary with no public access.

Niʻihau Island

The island of Ni'ihau, located in Hawaii, is actually owned by the Robinson family. They initially purchased the island from the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1864 for $10,000. The island has been passed down through the family line since then.

While people may have heard of the island due to World War II's Ni'ihau Incident, they are not able to visit. In 1915, Aubrey Robinson closed the location to almost all visitors. Even members of the Robinson family need to get special permission. The current owner, Keith Robinson, is an environmentalist who takes special note to make sure the flora and fauna of the island thrive.

Ilha da Queimada Grande (Snake Island), Brazil

It is unclear why anyone would actually want to visit Snake Island in Brazil. One of the world's most terrifying places, the island is home to thousands of golden lancehead pit vipers. The snakes were stranded on the island during the last ice age. They took over the area, making it near uninhabitable.

There are people who do visit Ilha da Queimada Grande, though, scientists and researchers. While the venom of the lancehead is incredibly poisonous, it can also be used in medication. In fact, according to a 2019 60 Minutes episode, the venom has been used to create a life-saving blood pressure medication.

North Sentinel Island, India

The Sentinelese people have lived on North Sentinal Island for tens of thousands of years. The first contact was made with the indigenous people in 1867 when a merchant's vessel crashed into the island. They were soon attacked by the natives.

The Sentinelese have frequently attacked anyone who has attempted to visit the island and desire to be left alone. In 1956, the Indian Government granted their wish and made it illegal to travel within 3 nautical miles of it. Photography of the island is also prohibited.

Bohemian Grove, California

Bohemian Grove is a massive 2,700-acre campground located in Monte Rio, California. And in order to stay in one of the sleeping quarters there, you need to be incredibly important or incredibly rich.

In order to become a member of the Bohemian Club, one must be a male and also rich and powerful. The members enjoy multiple events over the course of the year. Members can also book time at the camp throughout the year and invite their friends and family.

Svalbard Global Seed Vault

There are a number of different reasons that the world's seed supply could be diminished. These include war, natural disasters, and disease. If something is to happen, however, scientists in Norway have a plan. On the island of Spitsbergen, there is a giant vault that contains samples of all the world's seeds.

The location was specifically chosen, there are no tectonic plates and the island is more than 400 feet above sea level. In addition, there is strict security. Obviously, visitors are not welcome there and very few people actually have access to the building.

If we ever do experience a disaster on a grand scale, this location could help turn our planet green once again.

Diego Garcia

Diego Garcia, was at one time, a thriving island nation. In 1964, only 3 of the 964 residents were unemployed. The main focus of commerce was coconut plantations.

Beginning in 1968, the British Government began to forcibly expel people from the island. Many were sent to live in Mauritius or Seychelles. By 1973, the forceful evacuations were completed and the United States built a military base on the island. That base is still active and obviously, visitors are not welcome there.