Roosevelt Island

Encyclopedia : R : RO : ROO : Roosevelt Island

This article refers to the island in New York City. For the National Park in Washington, DC, see: Theodore Roosevelt Island. For the island in the Southern Ocean near Antarctica, see: Roosevelt Island, Antarctica.

Main Street on Roosevelt Island

Roosevelt Island, formerly known as Welfare Island, is a narrow island in the East River of New York City, lying between the island of Manhattan to its west and the borough of Queens on Long Island to its east. It is two miles (3 km) long, with a maximum width of 800 feet (240 m), and a total area of 147 acres (0.6 km²). The island is part of the Borough of Manhattan and New York County. Together with Mill Rock Island, Roosevelt Island comprises New York County's Census Tract 238, which had a population of 9,520According US Census 2000 the Mill Rock island (Census Block 9000) is upopulated and a land area of 0.722 km² (0.279 sq mi). [link] United States Census Bureau The land is owned by the city, but was leased to the State of New York's Urban Development Corporation for 99 years in 1969. Several of the residences on Roosevelt Island are cooperatives; at least one is considering privatization.

History

The 1889 Chapel of the Good Shepherd in modern surroundings

Before colonization, the island was called Minnahononck["Roosevelt Island." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2006. Encyclopædia Britannica Premium Service] (18 Jan. 2006) (sometimes spelled Minnahanock) by the aboriginal Indians.

In 1637, the Dutch purchased the island from the natives and named it Varckens (Hogs') Island. It was named Manning's Island after captain John Manning between 1666 and 1686, Blackwell's Island between 1686 and 1921, and Welfare Island between 1921 and 1973. Throughout the 19th Century, various hospitals, asylums, and correctional institutions were located on the island. Welfare Penitentiary was closed in 1935 after the completion of a new penitentiary on Rikers Island.

In 1973, the island was renamed again in anticipation of the building of a major United States Presidential Memorial to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The monument was intended - in part - to make the island more attractive to potential residents and visitors. It was planned as a large three-walled granite room open to the sky and facing the water at the island's southern tip, with the Four Freedoms inscribed on one wall. Owing primarily to the untimely death of the architect, the memorial was never built. Some still hope to complete the project despite the construction of a Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial in the nation's capital. An alternative proposal involving calling for a large public plaza at the site also has been mooted.

During the 1980s and 1990s, the island was developed as a residential community with a number of high-rise apartment buildings. Two long-term medical care facilities of Goldwater Hospital are located at opposite ends of the island. Many foreign diplomats live on Roosevelt Island because of its close proximity to United Nations headquarters on the East Side of Manhattan.

Roosevelt Island is sometimes referred to as "The Little Apple" - a jocular allusion to New York City's "Big Apple" moniker.

Transportation

Roosevelt Island Red bus

Although Roosevelt Island is located directly under the Queensboro Bridge, it is not directly accessible from the bridge itself. Between 1930 and 1955, the only vehicular access to the island was provided by an elevator system in the Elevator Storehouse that transported cars and commuters between the bridge and the island. The elevator was closed to the public after the construction of the Roosevelt Island Bridge between the island and Astoria in 1955. It was finally demolished in 1970.

In 1976, the Roosevelt Island Tramway was constructed to provide access to Midtown Manhattan. Access to the F train running on the IND 63rd Street Line finally arrived in 1989. Located over 100 feet below ground level, the Roosevelt Island station is one of the deepest in New York City's subway system.

Roosevelt Island's residential community was not designed to support automobile traffic when it was designed in the early 1970s. Automobile traffic has become common even though much of the island remains a car-free area. The Q102 MTA Bus Company route operating between the island and Astoria obviates the need for automobiles to some extent.

The Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation (RIOC) operates an on-island shuttle bus service from apartment buildings to the subway and tramway for a fare of 25¢. The buses are highly visible due to their bright red livery.

Demographics

The racial makeup of the island was 45% white (non-Hispanic), 27% black, 11% Asian or Pacific Islander, and 0.3% other races. 14% were Hispanic or Latino of any race.

The median income was $49,976. 37% had an income under $35,000. 40% had incomes between $35,001 and $99,999, and 23% had an income over $100,000.

55% of the total households were family households, and 45% were non-family households. 17% of the residents were married couples with children, and 19% were married couples without children. 36% of the households were one-person households, and 9% were two or more non-family households. 3% were male-based households with related and unrelated children, and 16% were female-based households with related and unrelated children.

Education

Residents are zoned to P.S. 217/I.S. 217 Roosevelt Island School.

Nearby high schools include: In Manhattan:

• Eleanor Roosevelt High School
• High School of Art and Design
• Talent Unlimited CES Vanguard High School
• CES-Manhattan International Urban Academy Lab High School

• Long Island City High School

Notable residents and visitors

Prisoners on Blackwell's and Welfare Island

• George Washington Dixon — served six months for libel against Reverend Francis L. Hawks
• Emma Goldman — several times, for activities in support of anarchism and birth control and against the World War I draft.
• Peter H. Matthews — for operating policy games (illegal lotteries) all over New York City
• Madame Restell — for performing abortions
• Boss Tweed — served one year on corruption-related charges
• Mae West — served eight days on public obscenity charges for her play Sex
• Billie Holiday — served on prosititution charges.

Visitors who exposed conditions on Blackwell's Island

• Nellie Bly — went undercover as a patient in the Women's Lunatic Asylum
• Charles Dickens — described conditions at the "Octagon," an asylum for the mentally ill then located on the northern portion of the island, in his American Notes (1842)

Former residents of Roosevelt Island

• "Grandpa" Al Lewis of The Munsters, now deceased
• Kofi Annan current (2006) Secretary-General of the United Nations, moved into Secretary-General official residence in 1997

Modern residents of Roosevelt Island

• Fez Whatley of The Ron and Fez Show

Roosevelt Island in fiction, film, & popular entertainment

• Roosevelt Island appears in F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic novel The Great Gatsby as Blackwells Island, in Chapter Four, when Nick and Jay drive into Manhattan via the Queensboro Bridge.
• A Roosevelt Island Tramway car is held hostage in the 1981 Sylvester Stallone film, Nighthawks.
• In the 1993 film, "For Love or Money," Doug Ireland, Michael J. Fox, wants to buy the "abandoned hotel" at the south end of Roosevelt Island.
• Near the end of the film Spider-Man (2002), the Green Goblin blows up the Roosevelt Island side tram station and leaves a group of children hanging inside one car. He also brings Spider-man down to fight with him in an abandoned building on the island.
• Roosevelt Island is the setting for the 2005 film, Dark Water.
• The old King Kong Tramway ride at Universal Studios, Orlando, Florida featured the Roosevelt Island Tram [link]
• The Emerging NY Architects Committee, AIA New York Chapter, hosted an international ideas competition in the fall of 2005. Winners will be announced at the exhibition opening at the Center for Architecture, March 31.
• Roosevelt Island is the site for the 2005 movie Dark Water where Jennifer Connely moves into a low rent appartment with her daughter and then is terrorized by the ghost of a dead girl that used to live upstairs.

Tram Malfunction

See also

• Theodore Roosevelt Island, Washington, D.C.
• United States Presidential Memorial

References