North Brother Island

 A stunning set and brief history by the wonderful Mr. Motts, enjoy.

"The Brothers," as the islands are often called, are located in the East River, between Queens and the Bronx, NYC. They were claimed in 1614 and dubbed "duo De Gesellen" (or "The Companions"), and were left unoccupied for quite some time due to the strong and dangerous currents surrounding them. South Brother Island is the smaller of the two, and was only home to a private summer home for a few years until it burned down in 1909; it was purchased by Hampton Scows for $10.00 in 1979 and subsequently sold to the City of New York in 2007 (for around $2 million) to be preserved as a wildlife sanctuary. North Brother was purchased by the town of Morrisania (located in the Bronx) in 1871, and was home to a tuberculosis hospital built by the Sisters of Charity. The hospital was closed when New York City acquired the island in 1885 to build a new hospital for the treatment of infectious diseases. The diseases that were treated here varied as new germs invaded the city - they included smallpox, typhoid, tuberculosis, measles, diphtheria, scarlet fever, and polio.

 Many patients from the Renwick Smallpox Hospital on Roosevelt Island were relocated to North Brother once the new facility was built. A ferry located at 132nd Street in the Bronx transported staff, patients, and supplies to the island, yet it remained very isolated - there were no telephone or telegraph lines installed until as late as 1894. There were also dangers with transporting stricken patients in the winter, and much criticism was voiced after a six month old baby infected with measles perished en route to the island. During the turn of the century, overcrowding was a major issue when an outbreak occurred; everyday medical instruments were in short supply and were not cleaned or sterilized properly between the frequent uses. Tents were used when no more beds could fit in the pavilions; the cloth enclosures were precariously heated with wood burning stoves during the harsh New York winters, and a few eventually wound up in flames. The hospital had about 1,200 people in quarantine during a 1892 typhus outbreak.

Bodies of General Slocum passengers line the shores of North Brother Island, 1904

Tragedy struck off the shores of the island on June 15, 1904, when the passenger ship General Slocum caught fire. Unmaintained fire hoses disintegrated in people's hands when they tried to use them, and the lifeboats were either tied down or painted onto the deck. The life preservers were made of a cheap granulated cork that were brought up to meet minimum weight requirements by placing iron bars inside, and crumbled away through holes in the tattered fabric. The captain continued his course into the wind instead of running the ship aground (his reasons being to avoid spreading the fire to the hospital buildings and oil tank), which fanned the flames even higher. Many passengers who jumped were taken to the bottom of the river due to the heavy garments worn at the time, and those who stayed aboard were consumed by flames or mangled by the still-turning paddle. The Slocum was eventually beached at North Brother, where the living had been pulled from the water by firemen and the staff at Riverside, and the dead were lined up along the shoreline. An estimated 1,021 people perished, with only 321 survivors.

The most infamous patient that resided at Riverside might be Mary Mallon, also known as "Typhoid Mary." Mary was a carrier of typhoid, which means she had the disease but there were no symptoms or side effects, yet she could pass it to others. She worked as a cook at various places in Manhattan and Long Island between 1900 and 1907, where she transmitted the infection to a number of people. As they got sick or died she would find employment elsewhere, and she was soon questioned by health officials. Her response was that she did not believe she had the disease, and adamantly refused to cooperate. In 1907 Mary was taken into custody by police officers, and The Health Department gave her an ultimatum - either have her gall bladder removed (where typhoid carrier germs lived), or be exiled to North Brother Island. She refused the surgical operation, which was risky and unpredictable at the time, and was placed at the hospital for three years. Mallon resided in a bungalow, away from the main hospital buildings, and lived alone except for a dog as a companion.

Mary Mallon's Cottage at Riverside Hospital

After a lengthy court battle, where Mary described her life akin to a prisoner's, she was released from the hospital in 1910. She immediately returned to work as a cook under the pseudonym of "Mrs. Brown" at Sloane Maternity Hospital. An outbreak of typhoid that consisted of 25 separate cases was eventually traced back to the cook, and officials identified her as Mary Mallon. She was sent back to North Brother in 1915 to live the rest of her life there. She began working at the hospital in 1918, becoming a nurse and finally a laboratory assistant. Mary suffered a stroke in 1933, and remained bedridden at Riverside until she died on November 11, 1938. She had infected a total of 47 people, 3 of whom had died from the disease.

In 1943 a large tuberculosis pavilion was constructed on the island, but was never used for that purpose (supposedly due to the lack of staff personnel required to operate it). The passing of the GI Bill resulted in the shortage of housing for the city's colleges, and the building was used as a dormitory while the island was leased to the state. College students were transported to and from the island via the E 134th Street Ferry Terminal, by ferry boats Mott Haven and Greenwich Village.

These same ferries were also used for adolescents being treated for drug abuse when the city took control of the island once again in 1952 and planned its final use as a rehab center for serious cases of addiction. The idea was to get adolescents far away from the overcrowded jails and hospitals filled with time-hardened criminals, with a maximum stay of six months. The TB pavilion was converted to treat 100 boys and 50 girls, placed there by their parents or the court system. New admissions were bathed and searched for drugs, then placed in observation wards as they went through withdrawal "Cold Turkey." If the symptoms were too severe, they were tapered off the drug. The program turned out to be rife with corruption by the 1960s, and Riverside Hospital closed in 1963, leaving the entire island abandoned. It is currently off-limits to the public and patrolled often due to the proximity of a nearby prison complex on Rikers Island, as well as joining the purpose of its brethren as a bird sanctuary.

Information and photos © www.opacity.us 

Mount Rose Cemetery

This remarkable Victorian cemetery rests inside steep hills and valleys created by glaciers during the ice age. It was built in 1837 to alleviate overcrowding in the smaller local cemeteries, and to provide a more remote location for bodies that were infected with contagious diseases such as smallpox and cholera. The site was chosen for its beauty even though the terrain and drainage were expensive issues. Rare and unusual trees were donated by a local nursery, creating a quiet park that was visited by many, and still is to this day. The cemetery holds a great amount of funerary art decorating its vast numbers of monuments and mausoleums.

A Gothic chapel was built in 1863, with a large ornamental fountain placed in front in 1875. A crematorium was added to the chapel in 1912. This chapel and crematory were replaced with two newer structures on the property, one being the chapel with receiving vault and the other being the new crematory and main office. Both the old and new chapels have fell into disuse over the years, but the cemetery is still maintained and many interments still occur in the newer sections. It is now the final resting place to 1/3rd of a million people.

* Note: the name "Mount Rose Cemetery" is a pseudonym; the real name of this location is currently undisclosed.

shaft used to raise coffins up into church during service.

All Photo © www.opacity.us

Halloween 100 years ago

Photograph by Historic Photo Archive, Getty Images

A person in a ghost costume stands with a table full of Halloween decorations in a rural U.S. schoolhouse in 1905. Nature often inspired Halloween costumes and decorations a century ago, with cornstalks (as seen above), vegetables, tree branches, and leaves showing up as common elements, according to Bannatyne.

Photograph copyright DaZo Vintage Stock Photos, Images.com, Corbis

Decked out for Halloween, a masked woman on roller skates—most likely a random addition to her costume—poses in 1910.

Part of an old U.S. Halloween tradition, blindfolded children attempt to put out a candle in a photograph dated to the 1900s. The game, probably called "blow out the candle," is often mentioned in early Halloween party books, Bannatyne said.

Halloween in the U.S. was mainly a celebration for children until the premiere of the 1978 slasher flick Halloween, when the holiday "became paired with contemporary horror," she added.

This new association with bloody violence—and the attendant gory costumes and decorations—"opened up the holiday for adults and older children to celebrate, [and] made [it] more popular."

Published October 29, 2010

Photograph copyright Vintage Images, Alamy

Possibly conjuring a witch, sorcerer, or clown, one woman's 1910 Halloween costume (pictured) has several possible meanings, according to Bannatyne.

The star and moon icons, for instance, may reflect a fascination with mysticism and magic, which have been connected to the "spooky aura" of Halloween for centuries, Bannatyne said. (Related: "Ritual Cat Sacrifices a Halloween Myth, Experts Say.")

Women wearing improvised witch costumes line up for a photograph in the U.S. in 1910.

"Witches and Halloween have been tied together in the public's imagination since at least 16th-century Scotland," Bannatyne said. At that time, "you begin to find poems such as Alexander Montgomerie's 'The Flighting of Polwart,' where witches ride through the night on All Hallow's Eve."

Costumed girls—including one swathed in swastikas—smile for the camera on October 25, 1918, on the way to a Halloween dance pageant. The swastika had different meanings before the rise of the Nazi party in the mid-20th century—for one, it's an ancient symbol for life in some Indian religions, according to Columbia University.  

Source

Toothless "Vampire" Skeleton found in Bulgaria

 Photographs by Nikolay Doychinov, AFP/Getty Images

The discovery of a 700-year-old skeleton in Bulgaria—seen at the country's National Museum of History in June—offers evidence that the fear of vampires is far older than Bram Stoker's Dracula.

The "vampire" was found entombed among church ruins in the Black Sea town of Sozopol (map) earlier in the month. The skeleton had been stabbed in the chest with an iron rod (upper right), which was in the tomb next to the body.

In addition, the skeleton's teeth had been pulled. Scholars believe the rod and tooth-pulling were techniques villagers used to prevent dead men from turning into vampires.

The vampire obsession dates back millennia in countries across Europe.

"In graves thousands of years old, skeletons have been found staked, tied up, buried facedown, decapitated ... all well-attested ways of preempting the [attacks] of wandering corpses," wrote former National Geographic historian Mark Collins Jenkins in his bookVampire Forensics. 

While Bulgarians at the time had their own specific beliefs and rituals for dealing with suspected vampires, Borrini said, the Bulgarian vampire of the era did not differ widely from other conceptions across Europe.

"The background was usually the same in all eastern Europe," Borrini said. "The vampire was the same, and only some small differences could be in the way in which it attacked humans and the exorcism useful to stop him."

Although belief in vampires began to die out in Bulgaria and the rest of Europe by the 19th century, Borrini said it's still significant for archaeologists to uncover evidence of those beliefs.

"These discoveries, as well as mine in Venice, are useful," Borrini said. "They are the evidence of a folkloric tradition, and from them we can physically reconstruct the ancient tradition, and fear, of a country."

 

 

Profane Creation

Lullaby Moon

Lucia Neare's Theatrical Wonders