Roosevelt Island - History

History

The following is a timeline of the history of Roosevelt Island since European colonization:

  • 1637 – Dutch Governor Wouter Van Twiller purchases the island, then known as Hog Island, from the Canarsie Indians
  • 1666 – After the English defeat the Dutch, Captain John Manning seizes the island, which becomes known as Manning's Island.
  • 1686 – Manning's son-in-law, Robert Blackwell, becomes the island's new owner and namesake
  • 1796 – Blackwell's great-grandson Jacob Blackwell constructs the Blackwell House, the island's oldest landmark, New York City's sixth oldest house and one of the city's few remaining examples of 18th-century architecture
  • 1828 – The City of New York purchases the island for $32,000 (equal to $677,236 today)
  • 1832 – The city erects a penitentiary on the island.
  • 1832 - Penitentiary Hospital is built to serve the needs of the prison inmates.
  • 1839 – The New York City Lunatic Asylum opens, including the Octagon Tower, still standing. The Asylum, which was designed by Alexander Jackson Davis, at one point holds 1,700 inmates, twice its designed capacity.
  • 1852 – A workhouse is built on the island to hold petty violators in 220 cells.
  • 1856 – The Smallpox Hospital, designed by James Renwick Jr., opens.
  • 1858 – The Asylum burns down and is rebuilt on the same site. Penitentiary Hospital is destroyed in the same fire.
  • 1861 - Prisoners complete construction of Renwick's City Hospital, which serves both prisoners and New York City's poorer population.
  • 1870 - City Hospital is renamed Charity Hospital.
  • 1872 – The Blackwell Island Light, a 50-foot (15 m) Gothic style lighthouse later added to the National Register of Historic Places, is built by convict labor on the island's northern tip under Renwick's supervision.
  • 1889 – The Chapel of the Good Shepherd, designed by Frederick Clarke Withers, opens.
  • 1895 – Inmates from the Asylum are transferred to Ward's Island, and patients from the hospital there are transferred to Blackwell's Island. The Asylum is renamed Metropolitan Hospital.
  • 1909 – The Queensboro Bridge, which passes over the island but does not provide direct vehicular access to it, opens.
  • 1921 – Blackwell's Island is renamed Welfare Island
  • 1935 – The penitentiary on Riker's Island opens, and the last convicts on Welfare Island are transferred there.
  • 1939 – John Garfield stars in the Warner Bros. film Blackwell's Island.
  • 1939 - Goldwater Memorial Hospital, a chronic care facility, opens, with almost a thousand beds in 7 buildings on 9.9 acres (4.0 ha).
  • 1939 – The New York Cubans of the Negro National League play their home games on a baseball diamond on the Island, known as the 59th Street Sandlot.
  • 1952 – Bird S. Coler Hospital, another chronic care facility, opens.
  • 1955 – Metropolitan Hospital moves to Manhattan, leaving the Lunatic Asylum buildings abandoned.
  • 1955 - The Welfare Island Bridge from Queens opens, allowing automobile and truck access to the island.
  • 1968 – The Delacorte Fountain, opposite the United Nations Building, opens.
  • 1968 - Mayor John V. Lindsay names a committee to make recommendations for the island's development.
  • 1969 – The New York State Urban Development Corporation (UDC) signs a 99-year lease for the island, and architects Philip Johnson and John Burgee create a plan for apartment buildings housing 20,000 residents.
  • 1973 – Welfare island is renamed Roosevelt Island in honor of Franklin Delano Roosevelt
  • 1976 – The Roosevelt Island Tramway opens, connecting the island directly with Manhattan.
  • 1984 – The New York State legislature creates the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation (RIOC), with a nine-person board of directors appointed by the Governor, two suggested by the Mayor of New York City, and three of whom are residents of the island.
  • 1989 – Subway service to the island begins, 13 years after originally scheduled.
  • 1998 – The Blackwell Island Light is restored by an anonymous donor.
  • 2006 – The restored Octagon Tower opens, serving as the central lobby of a two-wing, 500-unit apartment building.
  • 2010 – The Roosevelt Island Tramway is modernized.
  • 2011 - Southpoint Park opens, south of Goldwater Memorial Hospital near the island's southern end.
  • 2012 – The result of an initiative begun 38 years earlier, Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park is dedicated and opens to the public as a New York State park.

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