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North Brother Island

By lex, on February 2nd, 2012

New York City’s quarantine facility fallen down to ruin in around 60 years.

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February 2nd, 2012 | Tags: | Category: History

10 comments to North Brother Island

  • virgil xenophon
    February 2, 2012 at 8:43 am

    Haunting..

  • Kris, in New England
    February 2, 2012 at 9:14 am

    I found those images to be scary. Especially when you read the stories about the place. I know things back then were different and we know better now; even so – those poor people.

  • Spencer
    February 2, 2012 at 11:08 am

    Reading the story on the Steamer General Slocum was awful. That island has seen many bad things.

  • fliterman
    February 2, 2012 at 11:32 am

    While the results of quarantine were harsh, and in some cases unspeakable, the alternative was often worse.

    In the late 1800s, a failure to quarantine within a few months ravaged a young, growing and vibrant post-war city, turning it into a “city of corpses.” In fact more people died there than in the Chicago fire, the San Francisco earthquake, and the Johnstown flood combined!

    The American Plague. Difficult but fascinating reading.

  • Mike Kozlowski
    February 2, 2012 at 1:57 pm

    I’ve seen this movie. It doesn’t end well.

  • Sarge
    February 2, 2012 at 3:41 pm

    Quarantine is like amputation: horrid to contemplate, but preferable to the alternatives.

    Think on it; if quarantine of the initial half-dozen (or half a hundred, or half a thousand) vectors of HIV had been able to be isolated and quarantined… how many millions of lives could have been saved in the last 30 or 40 years?

    Such a violation of individual rights is abhorrent, but the price paid in innocent blood has been immeasurably worse.

    The primary failure of the “There MUST be some better option!” crowd is a lack of imagination coupled with ignorance of history.

    There doesn’t HAVE to always be a better option, and even if there is, if you don’t know of it when you need it it’s worthless in any case.

  • C-hip
    February 3, 2012 at 9:29 am

    I delivered boats from the Southeast to the Northeast for thirty years and always wondered about North Brother Island. And now I know, thanks.
    c.

    • suzanne galjour
      February 18, 2012 at 11:14 am

      Did you know that actual families lived there? Mine did. I was there with my mom and dad and later a sister. We would pass by Mary Mallen’s hovel and my parents would speak of it in hushed tones. There was a day care, too. I never attended. We stayed in Mezes Hall, and there are no photos of it on any site.
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