The Tramway and Blackwell's Island: Arriving on the Island

New York · USA · Urban site · Skrekk 3/5

Roosevelt Island is a narrow strip of land in the East River, barely three kilometres long.

Roosevelt Island is a narrow strip of land in the East River, barely three kilometres long. During the nineteenth century it was called Blackwell's Island and was New York's collected site for institutions: the city's first municipal asylum, a quarantine hospital for smallpox, a prison, a poorhouse and a workhouse, all on the same island. The isolation was the whole point, since the city wanted to keep the sick, the poor and the condemned away from Manhattan. The island was renamed Welfare Island in 1921 and given its present name in 1973. The aerial tramway opened in 1976 and still gives one of the most dramatic entrances in the city, high above the river.

Gliding in over the East River in the tramway is a fitting beginning, because historically the only way here was a ferry that carried you away from ordinary life. Local lore describes the island as a place with two faces: today's quiet residential neighbourhood and the underlying story of everything New York once shipped here so it would not have to look at it. Many who walk the island at dusk describe a peculiar stillness, a sense of standing in a place that remembers more people than it has ever shown. We begin here, at the arrival, in order to understand why the isolation itself was the dark purpose of these institutions.

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The Tramway and Blackwell's Island: Arriving on the Island har en skrekkfaktor på 3/5 ifølge Haunted Places’ verifiserte vurderinger.

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The Tramway and Blackwell's Island: Arriving on the Island ligger i New York, USA.

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