South Brother Island

South Brother Island is one of a pair of small islands in the East River situated between the Bronx and Riker's Island, New York City and containing seven acres of land. The other island, larger and better known, is North Brother Island. It is uninhabited. As late as the 1960s, South Brother Island was considered part of Queens County, but is now part of Bronx County. It has long been privately owned. Together, the two Brother Islands, North and South, have a land area of 81,423 square meters, or convert|20.12|acre|m2.

History

Both North Brother Island and South Brother Island were claimed by the Dutch West India Company in 1614 and both were originally named "De Gesellen". (The term was translated as "the companions.")

Jacob Ruppert, a brewery magnate and early owner of the New York Yankees (responsible for bringing Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees from the Boston Red Sox), had a summer house on the island that burned down in 1909. No one has lived on the island since then. There are no structures extant.

Ruppert owned the Island until the late 1930s. In 1944 it was purchased by John Gerosa, president of the Metropolitan Roofing Supply Company, who intended to build a summer retreat for his workers on the island. This did not come to pass.

In 1975 the City sold South Brother Island to Hampton Scows Inc., a Long Island investment company, for $10.cite news |first= |last= |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=New York's South Brother Island to be a sanctuary |url=http://www.newsday.com/about/custom/nie/ny-story_112007,0,348371.story |quote=The island, an overgrown, uninhabited convert|7|acre|m2|sing=on piece of land battered by wind in the East River, was sold to the investment group Hampton Scows Inc. by the city in 1975 for $10. Now the federal government is purchasing it from the group for $2 million, a markup of 20 million percent, and turning it over to the city's Parks Department.|publisher=New York Newsday |date=2007 |accessdate=2008-05-26 ]

Hampton Scows dutifully paid property taxes every year but did not develop the island. On November 20, 2007, it was reported that the City of New York would be purchasing the island and preserving it as a wildlife sanctuary. cite news |first= |last= |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=City Claims Final Private Island in East River |url=http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/20/nyregion/20brother.html?ex=1353214800&en=73c01f66adc6cd44&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink |quote=South Brother Island, seven acres of dense forest, bittersweet vines, flocks of wild birds and little else, is a speck in the East River — and a glimpse of what the rest of the city might have looked like thousands of years ago. |publisher=New York Times |date=November 20, 2007 |accessdate=2008-05-26 ] The price is reported to have been in the neighborhood of $2,000,000.

Wildlife

The island's dense brush supports a major nesting colony of several species of birds, notably Black-crowned Night Heron, Great Egret, Snowy Egret, and Double-crested Cormorant. [cite news |first= |last= |authorlink= |coauthors= |title= So, You Were Expecting a Pigeon?; In City Bustle, Herons, Egrets and Ibises Find a Sanctuary |url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E01E2DC173DF937A35751C1A9659C8B63 |quote=By contrast, South Brother and its bigger sibling, North Brother Island, have resisted such an invasion. North Brother's vegetation -- a jungle of thick brush, low trees and tangled bittersweet vines set among the ruins of a dozen quarantine and hospital buildings -- has produced a secure haven for the black-crowned night heron, the city's most populous heron species. More than 230 crude nests of sticks and twigs were counted there last June. |publisher=New York Times |date=December 4, 2003 |accessdate=2007-08-21 ]

References

Further reading

*Seitz, Sharon & Miller, Stuart. (2003) "The Other Islands of New York". ISBN 0-88150-502-1.
* [http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/DTTable?_bm=y&-show_geoid=Y&-tree_id=4001&-_caller=geoselect&-context=dt&-errMsg=&-all_geo_types=N&-mt_name=DEC_2000_SF1_U_P001&-redoLog=true&-transpose=N&-search_map_config=|b=50|l=en|t=4001|zf=0.0|ms=sel_00dec|dw=0.05330623177477046|dh=0.030289650719350046|dt=gov.census.aff.domain.map.EnglishMapExtent|if=gif|cx=-73.88421800202333|cy=40.79177413228427|zl=3|pz=3|bo=318:317:316:314:313:323:319|bl=362:393:358:357:356:355:354|ft=350:349:335:389:388:332:331|fl=381:403:204:380:369:379:368|g=01000US&-PANEL_ID=p_dt_geo_map&-_lang=en&-geo_id=100$10000US360050005009000&-CONTEXT=dt&-format=&-search_results=100$10000US360050001009001&-ds_name=DEC_2000_SF1_U North Brother and South Brother Islands: Block 9000, Block Group 9, Census Tract 5, Bronx County, New York] United States Census Bureau

External links

* [http://www.forgotten-ny.com/YOU%27D%20NEVER%20BELIEVE/brothers/brothers.html Brothers: NYC's worst maritime tragedy] Photos of the islands in 2004, and images of the General Slocum from [http://www.forgotten-ny.com Forgotten New York] .
* [http://www.nycaudubon.org/projects/harborherons NYC Audubon Harbor Herons Project]
** [http://www.nycaudubon.org/projects/harborherons/HHSurveyReports.shtml Harbor Herons Nesting Survey] -recent reports on wading bird, cormorant, and gull nesting activity at South Brother Island
* [http://www.nyc.gov/html/dof/html/property/property.shtml NYC property tax records] See Valuation/Assessment for Bronx Block 2605 Lot 35.
*Geolinks-US-buildingscale|40.796292|-73.898023