Forbidden Photography 📷

I really like taking photos of old abandoned buildings. But some of the problems are that you may be trespassing, you may wind up getting injured, or possibly bitten by some weird poisonous spider!

Nonetheless, I guess that's just part of the thrill of it.

Recently, a Google search about Rikers Island brought me to Google maps where I spent some time zooming in and navigating around the Rikers Island shoreline.

That's when I noticed the nearby pair of islands called North Brother Island and South Brother Island.

Both of these small islands are located in the East River off the coast of Rikers Island and about a half mile from the Bronx shoreline.

And both islands are currently off-limits to all but a few select city officials and members of the parks department and the press.

South Brother Island

South Brother Island is the smaller of the two and served as one of the first garbage dumps for New York City. Apparently though, the rich folks who inhabited the luxurious estates in the nearby borough of the Bronx weren't too thrilled about the smell and thus the county court was persuaded to halt the dumping.

In 2007, South Brother island fell into the hands of the Trust for Public Land who subsequently donated it to the NYC Parks Department where it now functions as a wildlife sanctuary, and is off-limits to the general population.

North Brother Island

Given the choice, I'd go with a day on North Brother Island. For one thing, it's much larger than its sibling island. And, it's chock full of really old buildings and infrastructure that has had a good 50 or so years of vegetation, vines, and forest growing up around and over it. Now that makes for an awesome photographic combination IMHO!

The story behind North Brother Island is pretty fascinating. Here are just a few selling points:

Since the late 1800s, it was the home of Riverside Hospital. This historic and bizarrely creepy hospital was conceived as a treatment center for highly communicable diseases like smallpox, tuberculosis, and typhoid fever. A tuberculosis pavilion was added in the early 1940s, but was soon after rendered moot as antibiotics were introduced as a successful treatment. Later, during the 1950s and the early 1960s, it served a drug treatment center, mostly for youth hooked on heroin.

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It was just off the coast of North Brother Island that the steamship (or steemship if you prefer) PS General Slocum went up in flames on June 15, 1904. Over 1000 passengers lost their lives that day and many of the bodies washed up on the shores of North Brother Island. This stood as the largest loss of life in NYC until the tragedy of 9/11/2001.

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As noted by Wikipedia:
"Mary Mallon, also known as Typhoid Mary, was confined to the island for over two decades until she died there in 1938. The hospital closed shortly thereafter."

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And last, but not least, North Brother Island is inhabited by various wildlife, including a large number of barn swallows who nest in the many abandoned structures.

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Strictly Forbidden ...

So which forbidden place would you love a chance to spend a day taking photos of?

For me, North Brother Island is only about 60 miles away and would be an awesome place to capture a heaping helping of urban decay images!

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Ruins of the ferry dock at North Brother Island

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Old Power Plant at North Brother Island

• gothamist.com: Photos: A Rare, Legal Visit To "Spellbinding" North Brother Island, By Jen Chung, October 16, 2014
• amny.com: North Brother Island, NYC's abandoned park, might become more accessible, By Jillian Jorgensen [email protected], October 11, 2016

Image credits:

• No Photography Sign
• Google Map View of North Brother Island
• General Slocum (1904)
• Riverside Hospital
• Mary Mallon
• Barn Swallow
• Locked Gate
• Ruins of the Ferry Dock at North Brother Island
• Old Power Plant at North Brother Island