North Brother Island | Project Statement

North Brother Island: Lost City in the Woods
North Brother Island is one of the last remaining parcels of undeveloped land in New York City. Within its woods lie the ruins of a hospital complex that has been abandoned for decades. Isolated in a northern pocket of the East River near the Bronx, North Brother Island was once home to a variety of institutional uses, beginning with a quarantine hospital in the 1880s. After WWII, it housed veterans attending school on the GI Bill. From the 1950s, it served as one of the first juvenile drug rehabilitation centers until its closure and abandonment in the 1960s.

Currently, North Brother is protected as a nature preserve for the Black Heron. Access by boat is possible only with permission from the New York City Parks Department, and is limited to the nesting off-season (roughly March to September). Like the asylums, the island was once a “city within a city”, and reflects a bygone era when enormous expenditures were invested in civic infrastructure and architecture. The future of North Brother is uncertain, but through photography the history of this community, its buildings, and its inhabitants can be preserved.