Brothers Reunited: City Buys South Brother Island

The city's last privately owned island was sold to the federal government for $2 million. South Brother Island, a 7-acre island (just west of Rikers Island), will be turned over to the city's Parks and Recreation Department and will remain, as amNew York reports, "significant nesting colony for several types of shore birds, including Egrets, Cormorant, and Night Herons."

According to the NY Times, the deal, which was "brokered by the Trust for Public Land and financed with federal money secured by United States Representative José E. Serrano" of the Bronx, was "complex" (non-profit The Point and the Wildlife Conservation Society chipped in money to buy the land). Serrano told AMNY, "You know the way New York is. Eventually somebody would have bought and decided to tear it all up We can have one place in the great metropolis to see how it used to be."

The island was previously owned by Jacob Ruppert Jr., the brewery magnate and congressman who co-owned the Yankees when Babe Ruth was traded from the Red Sox. He had a summer house on the island, but it burned down in 1907 and South Brother Island remained largely undeveloped since. After that, the island had a number of owners, including the city, which sold it to Hamptons Scow for $10 in 1975. The Times calls Hamptons Scow a sand and gravel company, while AMNY says it's an investment company; either way, it now stands to make $1,999,990 in profit on the 32-year investment.

Forgotten NY has a good look at the history of South Brother Island and its neighbor, North Brother Island (North Brother Island is where Typhoid Mary was sent and near where the ship, the General Slocum, in 1904 burst into flames, killing over 1,200 people), as well as some photographs. And Ruppert's great-great-nephew K. Jacob Ruppert told the Times, “There’s no beautiful lagoon. It’s a mound of bird poop. But there are beautiful birds. I never thought I could walk up to a swan on her nest. The ground is nothing but bird droppings and broken egg shells.”

Images from Google Earth

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By Jen Chung in News on November 20, 2007 12:43 PM

Comments [rss]

Dave Hogarty

Randalls and Wards Island used to be separated by the Little Hell Gate Inlet, which is now little more than a gully that runs under a road north of the Manhattan Psychiatric Hospital and terminates in a swampy pool. Robert Moses had the two islands connected with fill a few decades ago when he was in power.

As for the General Slocum, it caught fire around East 90th St. and eventually beached on North Brother Island, with passengers dying along the way by fire, smoke inhalation, and drowning. Semantics about the exact location of the tragedy seem moot.

beaulieu4008

Forgotten NY actually has very little about South Brother Island on its site. I'd like to know more. There are many pictures from North Brother Island, but what is on South Brother Island? What did Hamptons Scow do with it? More info would be appreciated.

Snoopy

Make it affordable housing but make the transportation link to it unaffordable to keep things in balance.

Dude69

I am looking forward to buying a place there when some developer level the land and build several nice condo buildings. We need land to solve the residential supply shortage.

Snoopy

The casual reference to 1200 dead people is to the Slocum disaster. And the boat did not burst into flames there, it was beached there.

No big deal it was only 1,200, mostly women and children. One of the biggest tragedys in America before 9/11. Get the story straight before posting.

JenChungsBaby

Thanks. I'm not surprised. You can walk from the "Wards Island Sewage Treatment Plant" to the "Randall's Island Golf Center" in five minutes.

pik

"It is joined to Ward's Island on the south by landfill." - via wikipedia

nice, huh?

Atomische

Sold by the city for $10 in 1975 ... the year NYC barely avoided bankruptcy? That part of the story sounds fishy, I can't believe the NYT let the article end there.