The Deadly History Behind New York City’s Uninhabited North Brother Island on the East River

Tom Blank of Weird History explained how North Brother Island, which has a location on the East River that could have once been an incredibly valuable piece of real estate in New York City, instead sat abandoned for a very long time.

New York. It's where dreams thrive, fortunes are made, and legends are forged. But not far off its coast is one of the strangest pieces of land in the world.

In 1904, the ship General Slocum, crashed on the shores of North Brother Island. The resulting fire killed over a thousand people. It also was turned a place of quarantine against the spread of tuberculosis and, in fact, the infamous Typhoid Mary was housed at the sanitarium there. Once the threat of TB subsided, in 1953 the island became a center of drug rehabilitation, but it shut down in 1963 due to its expense.

North Brother Island has a long history of disease and devastation. Once home to a rehab facility and a hospital specializing an infectious illness the island lies abandoned today Nature has 1taken over buildings are covered in foliage so dense it sometimes obscure he structures altogether

Since that time, both North and South Brother Island have served as animal sanctuaries. Despite calls to develop the land, the Parks Department took control and from then on, no humans were allowed.

The New York City Parks Department has controlled North Brother since 2001 when it designated the island a bird sanctuary. after North Brother's rehab facility closed in 1963 nature began to retake the land. Flora covered roads, pathways and buildings and the island became a popular stop over sight for migrating herons....Today North and South Brother Island are together designated as a harbor herons regions. They act as protected nesting sites for the herons as well as other shore birds