Future island

[hrmjustin]

Ryan Hutchins

The F train shakes and screeches as it hurtles through the 63rd Street Tunnel, its nose diving deeper as it runs under the East River, leaving the bustle of Manhattan behind. At one time this was the “tunnel to nowhere.” Started in 1969 and almost abandoned amid the fiscal chaos of 1970s, it wasn’t until 1989 that it ever served a purpose. A new link to Queens, yes, but also to a forgotten place in New York.

That place is Roosevelt Island. A sliver of land as wide as one avenue block and planted squarely in the middle of the river, it has had many different names over the last millennium: Minnehanak, Varckens, Manning’s Island, Welfare Island and, for more than two centuries, Blackwell’s Island. Over the years it has been a home to people from countless walks of life, with all sorts of reasons for being there. Some had the grimmest of stories to tell.

In the 19th century, prisoners lived there and toiled away in an island quarry, freedom within sight, but never within grasp. Later, it would be used by New Yorkers, for far too many years, as a place for castaways from the diseased to the mentally ill to the “criminally insane.” Later, it became a center of healing, host to Goldwater and Coler hospitals. And, for the small number who have lived in the Islands middle part, it was just their neighborhood.

http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/city-hall/2014/08/8551250/future-island

[NYC_SKP]

1. I lived for a short time on Roosevelt Island, 1984, I believe.

It was a great apartment with a fabulous view of midtown, especially at night.

And it was great fun taking the tram to work and back.

[hrmjustin]

2. I l8ve the tram but after it got stuck a few years ago I never did it again.

[NYC_SKP]

3. I didn't know that it had problems like that.

It would be kind of harrowing, wouldn't it?

I'd never gone to the island until it came up that I needed a place and my friend had this apartment available.

Good old Doug was a long haul truck driver but never home, so it worked for me for two or three months, until I could get back into my place on on the Lower East Side, which was nice and close to the job.

[hrmjustin]

4. Several years back it got stuck with people on board.

It was out of order for a long time before they allowed it to operate again.