Timeline of Roosevelt Island History

1637

Dutch Governor Wouter Van Twiller buys Minnahannock from two Chiefs of the Canarsie tribe. Minnahannock means It's Nice to Be Here or Long Island, the latter readily explained by the dimensions: 107 acres (later expanded to 147), 2 miles long, 800 feet wide at its broadest. It runs North-South, opposite what will become 40 Manhattan blocks from 46th to 86th Streets. The Dutch raise hogs on the island, so it becomes known as Varcken (Hog) Island.

1639

A succession of Dutch farmers works the Island under land grants from the Amsterdam Chamber of the West India Company.

1642

Farmer Jan Claessen Alteras makes a claim for improvements costing 300 guilders: a house, goat-pen, garden. Over the years, he is succeeded by Francois Fyn, Jonas Bronck, and Laurens Duyts.

1652

Governor Stuyvesant declares the Indian sale to Van Twiller void. The Island is granted to Captain Francis Fyn. The Island is seen as "particularly useful for the [West India] Company in the imminent or any future differences with the English, being adapted for fortifications to be built thereon."

1658

Laurens Duyts defaults on his lease for the Island and, in a separate scrape with the authorities, is banished from the province "for selling his wife into immoral slavery and for gross immoralities committed by himself."

1666

After Dutch capitulation to the British, Captain John Manning acquires the island and it becomes known as Manning's Island.

1667

Manning is appointed, on July 24, Sheriff of New York. In the absence of Governor Lovelace, he commands Fort James.

1671

Manning moves to the island.

1673

While in command of Fort James, on August 9, Manning surrenders the City of New York to the Dutch.

1675

Manning is court-martialied, accused of treachery and cowardice. He is publicly disgraced, his sword borken in a City Hall ceremony, and he retires to his Island. The Rev. Charles Wooley later notes in his journal that Captain Manning is condemned to exile "to a small island from his name called Manning's Island, where I have been several times with the said Captain whose entertainment was commonly a Bowl of Rum-Punch."

1676

Manning's step-daughter, Mary Manningham, marries Robert Blackwell. Manning appears to have lived until at least 1685. The will of Matthew Taylor of New York, dated February 20, 1687-8, there is mention of "a mortgage of John Manning, his Island."

1686

Manning's son-in-law, Robert Blackwell, becomes owner of the Island and gives it his name.

XVIII Century

1717

Approximate date of death of Robert Blackwell. His son, Jacob, survives him and marries Mary Hallet. They later have a son, also named Jacob.

1776

Jacob Blackwell is loyal to the American Revolution, so Blackwell's Island is confiscated by the British during their occupation of New York.

1780

Jacob Blackwell dies on October 24. His will leaves "my Island known by the name of Blackwell's Island" to his sons, Jacob and James.

1782

A newspaper notes that "Sir Guy Carlton has visited all the prison ships at New York, minutely examined into the situation of the prisoners and expressed his intentsions of having them better provided for; that they were to be landed on Blackwell's Island in New York harbor during the hot season in the day time."
After the Revolutionary War, the Island is advertised for sale:

For Sale, that pleasant, agreeable situation Island, known by the name of Blackwell's Island, on the East River, about four miles from this City. It is without exception one of the most healthy situations in this state. It is remarkable for the number of fish and fowl that is caught here in the different seasons. There is on the premises two small dwelling houses, a barn, bake and fowl house, cyder mill, a large orchard containing 450 of the best grafted fruit trees, such as Newton & Golder pippins, spitsinburghs, peirmans, bow apples, pears, peaches, plums, cheerries, etc. There are a number of the best stone quarries ready cleared to begin breaking immediately, etc.

There is no sale.

1794

Island again advertised for sale. Again, no takers.

1796

Blackwell house is built. Today, it still stands as the oldest structure on the island.

XIX Century

1823

James and Elizabeth Blackwell sell the Island to James L. Bell for $30,000. He dies on the Island January 12, 1825, and the Island reverts to James Blackwell.

1828

On July 18, City of New York buys Blackwell's Island for $32,500 as a location for charitable and corrective institutions.

1832

A penitentiary is erected using Island stone, costing $16,569.88. Over the years, the prison becomes a focus of scandal and misery.
For more information on use of the Island by the Department of Corrections, click here.

1839

The New York Lunatic Asylum opens. Includes the Octagon Tower, which still stands. Designed by Alexander Jackson Davis (1879 alterations designed by Joseph Dunn). Some 1,700 inmates, supervised by convicts from the nearby penitentiary, were housed here, crowding the facility to twice its designed capacity.

1842

Charles Dickens visits the Island and the Lunatic Asylum. To read what Dickens wrote after his visit, click here.

Labels duplicated
for clarity

1852

A Workhouse is constructed, with some 220 cells, to contain petty violators like "drunk and disorderlies."

1856

Smallpox Hospital opens, designed by James Renwick Jr (who also designed Saint Patrick's Cathedral), built by convict labor.
In the last quarter of the 20th Century, the building becomes known as the Renwick Ruin, and it is lighted at night with lamps salvaged when an island hockey rink is demolished in 1991.

The Small Pox Hospital, known now as The Renwick Ruin.
Click for more photos

1858

Insane Asylum, also built of stone quarried on the Island, burns down on February 13. It is rebuilt on the same site. Cornerstone is laid July 22. Cost of the project this time is $150,000.

Click to read the complete article with full illustrations

Far-seeing minds already speak of the necessity of the city government abandoning Blackwell's, Ward's, and Randall's Islands, and selling them for commercial purpoes, moving the prisons, hospitals and asylums to a locality not so exceedingly valuable ina marine point of view. Blackwell's Island has already been spoken of as ultimately to be destined for the lumber trade...

-Manufacturer and Builder, July, 1872

1860s

Until 1869 and the opening of the New York Foundling Hospital, the City's foundlings are entrusted for their care to poor women living in the Almshouse on Blackwell's Island. Mortality is high. One physician reported that one infant was "regarded as a prodigy because it has managed to attain the age of two months."

1872

Island-dwelling convict laborers build 50-foot Gothic-style Lighthouse at island's northern tip under the supervision of Renwick. Its stone, gray gneiss, is native to the Island. It is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Artist's 1876 depiction of a Blackwell's Island prison scene

1878

The New York Times reports: Yesterday afternoon Commodore Joseph H. Tooker took his slave troupe over to the Island and gave the inmates of the asylum a treat to the songs and dances contained in the modern version of Uncle Tom's Cabin...
Click for more

1888

Journalist Elizabeth Cochrane, writing under the name Nellie Bly, spends ten days as an inmate of the insane asylum on Blackwell's Island, describing it as "a human rat-trap."

Click here for Bly's report.
Click here for more information on Bly.

1889

Chapel of the Good Shepherd opens. Designed by British architect Frederick Clarke Withers, who designed the Jefferson Market Courthouse on 6th Avenue in Manhattan.

Coming and going from prison, hospital, or asylum

1892

Strecker Laboratory opens as a pathology lab for the Charity Hospital.
Designed by Withers & Dickson.

Strecker, July 4, 1997

1893

Anarchist Emma Goldman, sentenced to a year in the Blackwell's Island Penitentiary, does a 7-month stretch, getting time off for good behavior.

1895

Residents of the Insane Asylum are transferred to Ward's Island, and a new hospital population comes to Blackwell's Island, transferred from Ward's. March 26.

In violent contrast to the orderly, attractive hospital which we had just left, we found a building in which the inmates had been given a holiday to celebrate their transfer which was made on the same morning as ours. Chaos everywhere. There was no heat. Practically every floor was wet, having been deluged with buckets of water, and altogether it would be difficult to picture a more depressing or discouraging situation than we found...
The main building of the new hospital was L-shaped and having been designed for the insane contained many small rooms, a fortunate arrangement for the care of very sick patients. The partitions dividing others were removed and open wards eventually appeared. As shortly arranged one wing contained female erysipelas, surgical and medical wards. In the other wing were the male alcoholic, erysipelas, medical, surgical and genito-urinary wards. There was an operating room in each wing. The entire building could accommodate five hundred and fifty patients...
During the first twelve months of our residence on Blackwell's Island, there were no less than three different landing places in use on the Manhattan side of the river. In March 1894 the only means of transportation to the foot of East 76th Street, Manhattan, was by a huge rowboat, manned by twenty convicts bossed by Keeper Foley of the Workhouse staff... Because of the strong East River current, at certain hours of the day it was often necessary for some of the convicts to pull the boat along the shore from the Workhouse dock to our Superintendent's Cottage so that they might more easily approach the Manhattan shore and be reasonably sure of arriving. This service was hourly from 5 A.M. to 9 P.M. In December 1894 a small steamer, the William H. Wickham, was placed in service...

The rowboat was still used for replacement and emergencies. As there was no night service, Dr. Stewart procured a small rowboat manned by one Jack Gilligan who was a skillful oarsman as well as quite a unique character, to answer emergency calls which might necessitate a passage to the Island at any time between 9 P.M. and 5 A.M. Gilligan and his one man service continued to operate successfully for many years.

In March, the institution is renamed Metropolitan Hospital.

XX Century

1903

The Thomas A. Edison company makes a film of Blackwell's Island from a boat cruising south in the East Channel, starting at the Lighthouse and progerssing past the Lunatic Asylum, the Workhouse, the Almshouse, incomplete piers for the Queensboro Bridge, the Almshouse Keeper's House, the Penitentiary, and the Charity Hospital. Click at the right to view the film.

RealMedia fomat
MPEG format
QuickTime format

The Queensboro Bridge under construction early in 1908

1909

The Queensboro Bridge opens after a long history of planned bridges that never happened. For an historic overview, click here.

How did travelers reach Welfare Island after the Queensboro Bridge was built? Click here for the answer.

1916

The New York Times reports that Dr. Ernest C. Bishop, who is in charge of the narcotic wards of the Blackwell's Island workhouse, tells a Joint Legislative Committee that he believes the number of addicts in the City is 200,000. "The number of addicts is increasing all the time. I remember when victims sent to us were men, some of them aged, but now they are chiefly young men and boys. Those victims are divided into addicts of the upper world, and addicts of the lower world. The addicts of the upper world are legion. They includes judges, physicians, lawyers, and ministers. You have no idea of the tremendous number of addicts, and most of them have tried any number of treatments. Withdrawal of narcotic drugs is not a cure." Bishop testified that he believed narcotics should be prescribed, for example, for a an 60 years old who had been using drugs for 25 years.

I believe a good deal of the increase in the underworld addicts is a result of scared physicians. I believe it would be a measure of relief if you would open a supply of drugs from which an addict who is honest may get needed drugs his physician is afraid to prescribe for him. You will at least cut off the underworld. An honest man who has become an addict must have drugs to keep in condition to work and support his family. If his physician will not prescribe it for him, he will surely get it through the underworld.

Bishop said that as long as there are men in agony because of the drug need, they would get the drug if it was obtainable.

1916-1917

Margaret Sanger and her sister, Ethel Byrne, are arrested for providing contraceptive advice to poor women in Brownsville, Brooklyn. They are charged and convicted under the 1873 Comstock Law. Byrne is sentenced to prison on Blackwell's Island, where she holds a hunger and thift strike and becomes the first woman to be force-fed in an American prison.

1919

Arthur Simon Flugenheimer, 17, is entenced to a year at the Blackwell Island prison after being convicted on a burglary charge. He is not an ideal prisoner, and is later transferred. After his release, his Bronx buddies give him a new name, "Dutch Schultz," after an infamous gangster of the late 1800s. Schultz gradually grows in brutality and power. By 1928, he "owns the Bronx," controlling numbers, bootlegging, and the protection rackets.

Eleanor Schetlin's Memories of Welfare Island in the '20s and '40s

1921

Blackwell's Island is renamed Welfare Island.

1927

Mae West, sentenced for appearing in her own first play, "Sex," serves ten days in jail on Welfare Island. Complaints arise primarily from her "crude" improvisations on what was otherwise a relatively mild script. She thus became the first of many celebrities to dwell here. (More recently, this has not generally required a judge's decree.)

Click for the play

The Prison in 1932

1935

Rikers Island penitentiary opens, and Welfare Island's last convicts are moved there. Years later, the scandals surrounding the prison are still fodder for the popular press.

1939

John Garfield stars in a 71-minute black-and-white Warner Brothers movie, Blackwell's Island, directed by William McGann. Also in the cast: Victor Jory, Rosemary Lane. Screenwriter: Crane Wilbur.

Click here for a plot summary or here for another.

1939

Goldwater Memorial Hospital opens as a chronic care and nursing facility.
Today: 986 beds - 442 chronic care patients, 544 nursing patients. Seven connected buildings on 9.9 acres.

Click for publication about nursing on Welfare Island

1952

Bird S. Coler Hospital opens. Another chronic care & nursing facility.
Today: Two patient residences, each 5 stories, connected to a 6-floor administration building. 1,025 beds; 775 nursing, 250 hospital.

1955

Metropolitan Hospital moves to Manhattan. Its building, the former Lunatic Asylum, is abandoned.

1955

The Welfare Island Bridge to Queens opens. An elevator (for people and vehicles) at the Queensboro Bridge later ceases operation.

Historic overview

1965

A map of the island dated 1965 shows its principal structures and the state of plans for the island at that time.

1965 Map

1968

Delacorte Fountain opens. An artificial geyser, it sprays salt water 250 feet into the air opposite the United Nations.
Letter from the architect

1968

The island is now occupied only by Coler and Goldwater Hospitals and a training facility for the city's Fire Department. Mayor John Lindsay appoints a committee to plan uses for Welfare Island. The committee recommends a residential community.

1969

New York State's Urban Development Corporation (UDC) takes a 99-year lease on the island. Architects John Burgee and Philip Johnson (who had been a member of the committee) create a plan calling for 5,000 apartments housing 20,000 people.

1973

Welfare Island is renamed Roosevelt Island.

1973

Blackwell House renovated.

1974

Architect Louis Kahn designs FDR Memorial Park for the three acres at the southernmost tip of Roosevelt Island. Not yet built, it would be the only Kahn work in New York City. Cost estimated at $13 million.

1975

Island House opens as RI's first residential building. A $24.2 million building.

1975

Roosevelt Island Day Nursery opens.

1976

Eastwood opens. $46.7 million project Includes 283 apartments for the elderly and physically challenged among its total of 1,003 units.

1976

Rivercross opens.

1976

Westview, a $21.7 million building, opens. 361 rental units.

1976

Phase I is complete: 2,141 apartments.

1976

The Tramway opens as a temporary transportation measure pending completion of the island's subway stop, but it quickly becomes the symbol of Roosevelt Island and a tourist attraction, even appearing as the setting for a comic-book adventure. A quarter-century later, in 2001, a movie about the publication's superhero will be filmed, in part, using the Tramway, part of a long line of Hollywood films using the Tram as a setting or a New York City icon.

1977

Sportspark opens.

1977

Rivercross goes coop.

1979

Roosevelt Island Library opens after three years in the Herman and Dorothy Reade apartment, then a community room.

1979

Lighthouse restored.

1980

Youth Program founded.

1981

Island Kids starts to provide 12 week-long sessions for about 150 children.

1982

In one of the island's singular acts of vandalism, the dome of the Octagon Tower is torched.

1984

The Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation (RIOC) is created by the state legislature. Its 9-member Board of Directors is appointed by the Governor, including 2 members recommended by the Mayor, and 3 residents.

1985

1986

Lottery held for access to Rivercross apartments.

1989

Subway service begins 13 years late.

1989

Manhattan Park opens on 8.5 acre site with 1,107 market-rate apartments for rent, completing Phase II. A third of its residents work at the UN, mostly on contracts of 1-2 years.

1989

The Southtown plan for 2,000 new mixed-income apartments, on a 19.3-acre site, is produced. RIOC's request for proposals attracts no developers.

1990

The census shows 8,190 residents in 3,200 apartments in 5 complexes.
Eastwood
Rivercross
Island House
Westview
Manhattan Park

1990-1995

The AVAC system is repaired.

Octagon Park is created.
Blackwell Playground renovated.
Promenade & Seawall completed.
Tram updated.
Motorgate repaired.

Automated Vacuum Collection System (like one once used in Disney World) transports refuse at 55 mph through underground tunnels to a building where it is compacted to 1/5 its size, sealed in containers, and carted away by New York City's sanitation department. It's the USA's only AVAC system serving a residential complex.

1991

Roosevelt Island Raquet Club opens in two bubbles: 12 green clay regulation courts, clubhouse, locker rooms, cafe, baby-sitting service. 600 members include former Mayor David Dinkins and former Manhattan borough president Andrew Stein. Designed by David Specter & Associates, designers of the National Tennis Center in Flushing, home of the U.S. Open.

Tennis bubbles under construction, under the Queensboro Bridge.
In the background, the Sportspark, then Goldwater Hospital,
the East River, and the U.N.

1991

Lottery held to establish sequential numbers for access to Rivercross apartments. Many on the 1986 list for 2 and 3 bedroom apartments still wait.

1992

A consolidated PS/IS 217 building opens, combining various Island locations previously used for the school into one location serving about 600 students in the K-8 grades.

1993

Cultural Center completed by island residents to serve as home for Main Street Theatre and Dance Alliance, home for the Island's Jewish congregation, and other activities.

1993

Sculpture Center opens at Motorgate.

1994

Consultants urge stabilizing the Octagon Tower, calling it a beautiful remnant of a rich architectural past.

1995

Tram passes the 20-million passenger mark.

1995

July 4 - First Annual Southpoint viewing of Macy's fireworks show draws 2,500 at $10 each, an event repeated in 1996 for an even larger audience.

1995

Hundreds attend Urban Professional Volleyball League tournament on 20 courts set up all over Roosevelt Island.

1995

RIOC holds an investment workshop, Roosevelt Island in Future Focus, to develop ideas for increasing revenue.

Much of the content of this TimeLine is adapted from the briefing document for this workshop.

1996

Governor George Pataki's budget slashes funds for Roosevelt Island.

Click here for a look at the state budget provisions for the island, 1995 vs 1996.

1996

Rivercross begins planning for privatization.

1996

Island House and Westview residents start planning to go coop.

1996

Jerome Blue, PhD, takes over as President of the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation, appointed by Governor George Pataki. He soon alienates the Common Council of the Roosevelt Island Residents Association by ignoring its recommendations and treating it as just another "one of 56 organizations on the Island," despite the fact that its officers and representatives are formally elected in a vote for which all adult Island residents are eligible.
Related:
Town Meeting
Letter to Officials
RIRA's FOIL Effort
Grannis Threatens
Residents Complain

1996

Labor Day Website NYC10044, www.NYC10044.com, begins operation.

1997

Governor Pataki's budget eliminates all funding for Roosevelt Island, after the President of RIOC, Dr. Jerome Blue, fails to submit a request for funding. This means the state's subsidy for operation of Roosevelt Island has dropped from $6.5 million to zero in the space of two years.

1997

Residents learn that RIOC has been negotiating to sell the Tramway, considered the Island's icon, to the Metropolitan Transit Authority, for figures ranging from $500,000 to $1,000,000. The President of RIOC doesn't reveal with whom he is negotiating, and ignores Residents Association demands for a place at the table in any such negotiations.

1997

Developers (The Related Companies and The Hudson Companies) are conditionally chosen to prepare a new plan for Southtown. On May 12 , they meet to hear resident ideas in what they promise will be a continuing dialogue.

Allan Bell, Hudson
David Wine, Related

1997

RIOC issues a new Request for Proposals (RFP) for Southpoint. It offers a nearly blank slate in order to attract developers unwilling to work within the terms of the General Development Plan (GDP). For a story on the history of Southpoint, click here.

courtesy Langan Engineering

1997

Triggered by RIOC attempts to cut back Tramway hours , the Roosevelt Island Residents Association votes to seek recall of Jerome Blue, President of RIOC, and to stage a Rally for Democracy on July 4, demanding representative government for the Island.

July 1997

RIOC attempts to take over scheduling the Chapel of the Good Shepherd. Residents protest. RIOC President Jerome Blue continues to meet with a small group of supporters and ignore the Residents Association.

Editorial cartoon

July 1997

The Main Street WIRE announces formation of a group to propose a new approach to governing Roosevelt Island, asking, "If we could start over again, how would you want to organize the government of Roosevelt Island?" The Maple Tree Group meets July 7 "under the Maple Tree, Blackwell House."

The Maple Tree Group's first meeting

July 1997

An ad in The Main Street WIRE announces a Fourth of July Rally for Democracy Now on Roosevelt Island and asks, Bring a flashlight.
Light the Way for the Tram to Stay.

September 1997

Governor Pataki removes resident Willard Warren from the RIOC Board of Directors and appoints a non-resident, Frank McKenna.

WIRE report
Interview with Warren

October 1997

The Maple Tree Group issues a report concluding "Island government is broken."

October 1997

Neglect and decay are taking a toll on the Island's oldest building, Blackwell House.

October 1997

The Residents Association mounts a protest against the Blue regime at RIOC.

Assemblymember Pete Grannis addresses a rally at Tramway Plaza,
October 27, 1997

November 1997

The Maple Tree Group presents draft legislation to revise Island government.

December 1997

In a first step to cope with discord brought on by the RIOC Presidency of Jerome Blue, Commissioner Joseph Lynch of the State Department of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR) meets with a trio of Island residents.

February 1998

A construction crane working on the Queensboro Bridge hits a Tram cabin. RIOC lays off Tramway staff, anticipating a long shutdown. A Town Meeting calls for the ouster of Jerome Blue at RIOC The Residents Association claims a victory when Tram service is restored long before RIOC claimed was possible.

April 1998

Island merchants are pinched by expansion of product lines at Gristede's "megastore." RIOC retires Tramway tokens, saying it cannot account for all the tokens in circulation.

April 1998

Responding to an RIOC RFP (Request for Proposals), a developer proposes building an eldercare facility on the Island's Octagon Park, arousing anger. The plan is praised, but its location is criticized.

Story,
cartoon

May 1998

Responding to RIOC's Waterfront RFP, SSJ Development proposes a twin-tower hotel for Southpoint.

June 1998

NYPL takes over Roosevelt Island's Community Library as a new branch.

July 1998

Assemblymember Pete Grannis introduces the Maple Tree Group's legislation for democratic local rule of the Island.

July 1998

Descendants of the Blackwell family visit Roosevelt Island. Deterioration of their ancestral home continues.

August 1998

The RIOC Board of Directors rules out Octagon Park as a site for an eldercare facility.

August 1998

Ron Vass, a resident member of the RIOC Board of Directors, resigns, slamming RIOC President Jerome Blue.

September 1998

RIRA puts an advisory question about self-governance on its November ballot. Assemblymember Pete Grannis holds a Town Meeting to explain its provisions and discuss its prospects.
Shall the present governance of Roosevelt Island, consisting of political appointees, be replaced by a popularly-elected Board of Residents empowered to hire professional management, as proposed in legislation introduced in the New York State Legislature by Assemblymember Pete Grannis?

November 1998

Self-governance wins a ballot question by a vote of 92% to 8% (WIRE report ). Patrick Stewart, a symbol of opposition to the RIOC regime of Jerome Blue, is reelected President of the Residents Assocation. U.S. Senator Al D'Amato, considered Blue's patron, loses his bid for re-election. The RIOC Board takes some moves toward curbing Blue's scope of power (WIRE report ).

November 1998

The plans for Southtown are revealed by its developers. The plan is immediately criticized for the way it interfaces with the rest of the community.
Plan review by Elie Gamberg

December 1998

State Senator Olga Mendez agrees to back the Island's bid for self-governance (WIRE report). DHCR Commissioner Joe Lynch seeks applicants to serve on two new planning committees that will report to the RIOC Board, not to RIOC President Blue.

February 1999

The RIRA Common Council backs the Maple Tree Group as the Island's prime mover toward self-governance, 19-0. RIRA President Patrick Stewart and two others abstain.
WIRE report

March 1
1999

Residents walk out of a RIOC Session on a plan to add a second story to the Island's west-shore mini-schools.

April, 1999

Architects propose to make the derelict landmark Octagon tower the centerpiece of new apartments on the footprint of the old Metropolitan Hospital.
WIRE report
and
Octagon history

April, 1999

New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, holding a Town Hall Meeting on the Island, tells residents he's willing to help "liberate" Roosevelt Island.

May 4 1999

RIRA plans for a legal fund to fight twin-tower hotels at Southpoint. $10,000 is raised at a May meeting.

June 1999

After barely three years in the job, Jerome Blue is out as RIOC President. His replacement is Robert Ryan, who ran George Pataki's campaign for re-election as Governor.

Summer 1999

Self-governance legislation, watered down by the Governor's office, is put on hold and fails to make it through the legislative session, which adjourns late after long delays in creating a State budget.

July 1999

Bigelow Pharmacy will close, buffetted by competition from Gistede's and unable to wait any longer for construction of Southtown.

September 1999

Labor Day fire ravages the Octagon.

September 1999

Southtown developers Hudson/Related get "final designation," giving them control of the Southtown site.

October 1999

Assemblymember Pete Grannis returns to the Island to talk about ways to get an acceptable self-governance law passed.

XXI Century

August, 2000

The Main Street WIRE completes its 20th year of publication as Roosevelt Island's Community Newspaper. WIRE is capitalized because it is an acronym for the first four residential buildings on the Island: Westview, Island House, Rivercross, and Eastwood.

September 5,
2000

Matthew Katz announces he will run for the Presidency of the Roosevelt Island Residents Association (RIRA), based on a platform calling for legislation to allow residents to elect a majority of the members of the Board of the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation (RIOC).

WIRE report

October, 2000

Patrick Stewart announces he will run for a third consecutive term as the President of RIRA, paired with Joan Christianson, RIRA's current First Vice President, seeking a second consecutive term.
WIRE report

October 11 2000

Voting 13-8, the RIRA Common Council puts self-governance on the election day ballot for the second election in a row:
I urge immediate passage of legislation that grants residents of Roosevelt Island the right to elect a majority of the RIOC Board of Directors, replacing the current system in which the entire Board is composed of non-elected members appointed by the Governor.
I understand that the new Board will select, hire, and direct professional management to run Roosevelt Island.

October 25
2000

Katz and Stewart, with Gaspard and Christianson, debate before an audience of 100 in the Chapel of the Good Shepherd.

Full transcript of the debate
WIRE report

November_7 2000

By a 9-5 margin, Matthew Katz, convener of the Maple Tree Group (MTG), wins the Presidency of the Roosevelt Island Residents Association. Byron Gaspard, running on a slate with Katz, wins the First Vice Presidency.

The self-governance referendum passes with 80% approval by those voting on the question.

November_8 2000

For lack of a quorum, Patrick Stewart adjourns, at its start, the last Common Council meeting of his second term as President of RIRA. No meeting takes place.

November 2000

At the suggestion of a new member of the RIOC Board of Directors, the agency adops a market-driven plan for development. Leo Kayser's idea is to market parcels of the Island to developers on a pre-capitalized basis, to yield up-front funding to solve Island problems.

Meanwhile, the Island's Catholic parish is reporting serious shortfalls in collection of funds due to a lack of growth the Island's lack of a stable family-oriented population. In a letter to parishioners, Fr. Luke McCann points out that RIOC plans for development are not likely to bring church-oriented families.
Series of WIRE reports

January 2001

A plan for apartments at Octagon Park is revived, this time as housing for biomedical research personnel. (WIRE report) At a public meeting, some residents object (report),

saying the Island's General Development Plan, part of the Lease between City and State, does not provide for residential development on the park site.

Meanwhile, preliminary construction starts at Southtown, with an appeal of the Southtown opposition cases still pending.

February 2001

The RIOC Board gives six months site control of the Octagon to Becker and Becker to refine its plan for apartments there.
WIRE report.

Preservation magazine article
The Board also withdraws its earlier authorization for negotiations with developer Diane Wilson for luxury condominiums for the minischools.
WIRE report.

The RIOC Board also conducts a free-wheeling Town Hall Meeting, responding to questions from residents on matters ranging from Motogate parking rates to development and Island finances.
WIRE report.
Transcript.

RIRSD, represented pro bono by LeBoeuf Lamb, files its appeal in its Article 78 action against RIOC aimed at forcing revision of plans for Southtown, and construction moves forward on the site.
WIRE report

Analysis of the legal cases