Explore New York’s abandoned islands

Located in the heart of New York, it is an abandoned island. Although it's clearly visible to mutes on I-278 in the Bronx or passengers flying into LaGuardia Airport, few are aware of its existence. If anything, they had only heard that the infamous Typhoid Mary spent the last years of her life on a mysterious island nestled somewhere above the city's horizon. But even that sometimes becomes a rumor.

Until 1885, this 20-acre tract of land was known as "North Brother Island" and was as uninhabited as it is today. That year, Riverside Hospital was built, a facility used to isolate smallpox patients. Workers and patients traveled there by ferry from 138th Street in the Bronx (a one-way trip for many), and the facility eventually expanded into an isolation center for people suffering from various infectious diseases. However, by the 1930s, other hospitals had sprung up in New York, and advances in public hygiene reduced the need to quarantine large numbers of individuals. In the 1940s, North Brother Island was transformed into a housing center for veterans and their families. But by 1951, most of them had tired of the need to commute by ferry to their homes and chose to live elsewhere. During the last decade of its brief human existence, the island became a rehab center for heroin addicts.

Just a few decades ago, North Brother Island was a well-manicured urban development like any other city. Judging from aerial photos from the 1950s, the most desolate areas here have only a few shade trees. Back then, Beige Island was covered with ordinary roads, lawns and buildings, including the towering Tuberculosis Pavilion built in the modern art style.

It was ultimately decided that it was impractical to continue operating there. The official line is that it's too expensive, and there's plenty of cheap real estate on the mainland. In 1963, when the last residents (drug addicts, doctors, and staff) left, civilization's neat grip on the land began to disappear, and nature soon began to take over. Sprouting trees break through sidewalks; thick vines wrap around building facades and spill out of windows like leaking entrails; piles of rubble transform parking lots into forest floors. The East River wound its way around the edge of the island, eventually breaking through the barriers and swallowing a road that once circled the island's outer edge, leaving only a manhole cover and a brick where veterans and nurses once roamed.

The island is somewhat untouched by humans, partly because the city prohibits any visitors from going there on safety grounds. Now, however, New Yorkers and out-of-towners alike have the opportunity to explore North Brother Island. Not by boat and on foot, that is, but through a meticulous photographic study of the place published this month by photographer Christopher Payne

Like many New Yorkers, Payne Eun didn't know about North Brother Island for most of his life. He first heard about it in 2004, while working on a project about closing mental hospitals. North Brother Island seemed a natural progression in his artistic exploration of desolation and decay. In 2008, Payne finally received permission from the Parks and Recreation Department to visit and photograph the island. From that first trip, he was hooked. "It's an incredible feeling," he said. "You see the city, you hear it, but you are completely alone in this space." Over the next five years, Payne made about 30 visits to the island , a friend took a boat out to sea, often joined by city workers. He shoots every season, every tilt of light and every angle he can find. “I think it’s nice to have a place that wasn’t developed by the city, a place that wasn’t overtaken by humans and was just kind of like what it is now,” he said, adding that the city recently declared North Brother Island a Nature Preserve dspe

There are few remains of former residents, but Payne did find a few ghosts, including an English grammar book from 1930; graffiti from various hospital residents; and a 1961 Bronx telephone books; and X-rays from the Tuberculosis Museum. However, most traces of those who once lived in the dormitories, doctors' apartments and medical quarters have been absorbed here, including the island's most famous resident, Mary Mallon. Payne said: "There's really not much left of the Typhoid Mary period, and in some cases the carpet of vegetation has become so thick that buildings hidden underneath are obscured by folds, especially in summer. "At one point, I got really stuck and I couldn't get very far without a machete or something," Payne said. ". "September is like a jungle.

Ultimately, Payne sees the island as a petri dish for what would happen to New York (or anywhere) if humans weren't around, a harrowing thought that Because evidence is mounting that many of the world's coastal cities are likely to be abandoned within the next century or so

Most people see the ruins as a search for "although these buildings are. A thing of the past, but they show where New York is headed in the years to come. ".

"I see these photos like a window into the future."

"If we were all gone," he said, "in 50 years the whole city would look like North Brother Island."

North Brother Island: New York City’s Last Unknown Place is new on Amazon for $28.93. For those of you based in New York City, author Christopher Payne will host a lecture and book signing at the New York Machine Dealers Association on Friday, May 16 at 6:30 p.m.

Payne noted that there are rumors that one or two former North Brother Island residents may attend the event