Description
Book SynopsisA photographic survey of North Brother Island, an uninhabited island of ruins in New York City that was once home to a variety of institutional uses, including a quarantine hospital and juvenile drug treatment center.
Trade Review"In haunting photographs and poignant text, "North Brother Island: The Last Unknown Place in New York City" (Empire State Editions, Fordham University Press) captures the character of this barren East River outcropping roughly between Rikers Island and the Bronx... The lushly illustrated book includes photos by Christopher Payne; a history by Randall Mason, a University of Pennsylvania preservationist; and an essay by Robert Sullivan, the urban anthropologist (the author of 'Rats' and 'The Meadowlands'), who writes that North Brother Island, 'draped in its forgottenness,' is 'a place that helps us see the rest of the city more clearly.'" -- -Sam Roberts The New York Times "Remnants of society's anxieties about immigrants and epidemics still peek from the overgrowth of North Brother Island. Most New Yorkers likely will never get to explore its 40 acres first hand. Yet all should know its story--and the haunting beauty of its ruins. Payne and Mason's North Brother Island: The Last Unknown Place in New York City is an elegant tribute to a secret too good to keep." -- -John Waldman author of Heartbeats in the Muck: The History, Sea Life, and Environment of New York Harbor, Revised Edition "This richly illustrated and aptly titled work takes the reader on a fascinating journey through the remarkable and varied chapters of North Brother Island's history." -- -Edward T. O'Donnell College of the Holy Cross "Among a painter's or a photographer's challenges is to make us perceive three dimensions in an image rendered in only two. But Chris Payne takes us a step beyond. His subject is the fourth dimension: time itself. North Brother Island: The Last Unknown Place in New York City doesn't merely document a forgotten place. It shows past mingling with present, dissolving toward a future that leads not forward, but back-back before we ever marked this world. The circular sensation suffusing this work is at first unsettling, then transcending. We have been here. Gently, we will pass on. In our stead, all will renew-and, as Payne artfully shows, quite beautifully." -- -Alan Weisman author, Countdown and The World Without Us "A gorgeous book: The uncannily moving photographs by Christopher Payne do full justice to North Brother Island's haunting air of mystery, its unique play of presence and absence. The supporting texts helpfully elucidate the enigma of such wildness, abandonment, vegetative luxuriance, and architectural ruin existing in the midst of New York's ultra-urbanist environment." -- -Phillip Lopate author, Waterfront "This stunning book captures a nearly forgotten corner of the city. Seemingly held apart from the urban rush of change, North Brother Island nonetheless reveals its layered history. In its latest incarnation, native and non-native species vie for precious island space. Amid the ruins, we find an essential New York story." -- -David Stradling University of Cincinnati
Table of ContentsForeword Robert Sullivan Wildness, Disease, and the Changing Civic Landscape: The History of North Brother Island Randall Mason The Photographs Christopher Payne Afterword Christopher Payne Acknowledgments
