Site Facts (see www.MarkKMorrison.com/roosevelt)

• Roosevelt Island has about 4 miles of shoreline.  It is 2 miles long, 147 acres.  It is 800 feet wide at its widest point.

• The Island is opposite Manhattan’s 46th to 86th Streets.

• Roosevelt Island has 37.4 acres of parks, but one 15-acre site, the location of a 19th-century lunatic asylum, has been approved by the RIOC Board of Directors as a location for a 500-apartment building, which may be challenged legally.

• There are six registered landmarks on the Island.  Two, Strecker Laboratory (1892) and the Smallpox Hospital (1856) are in Southpoint Park.  The others are a lighthouse at the north end of the Island (1872); the Octagon Tower remains from the lunatic asylum (1841); the Blackwell Farmhouse (1796); and the Chapel of the Good Shepherd (1889), in active use as a church, performance hall, and community meeting hall.

• Southpoint is 14 acres, 4 of which are landfill added since 1945.  It’s 9.5% of Roosevelt Island.

• Tides vary 9 feet from highest to lowest.

• The 2000 census put Roosevelt Island’s population at 9,520; since then, two new buildings have gone up, and more are on the way.

• Canada geese breed at Southpoint every spring.

History (see the timeline at www.nyc10044.com)

• In pre-colonial times, ownership passes from a Dutch governor to the English, to a British officer, to his son-in-law, Robert Blackwell, then to his son, Jacob, and then to Jacob’s son (also named Jacob).  During the Revolutionary War, the Island is seized by the British, but it reverts to the Blackwell family at war’s end.

• 1828 – New York City acquires the Island for charitable and corrective institutions.

• 1872 – There are eleven institutions on the Island.

• 1921 – Island is renamed Welfare Island.

• 1969 – Master plan for residential redevelopment.

• 1973 – Island is renamed Roosevelt Island.

• 1975 – A Mitchell-Lama residential building opens, the first of four below-market-rate buildings.

• 1987 – Island’s first market-rate housing opens at Manhattan Park.

• 1989 – Subway service starts.

• 1995 – First Southpoint fireworks viewing.

• 2001 – New residential construction begins on the long-delayed Southtown.

• 2003 – Southpoint Park open daily, dawn to dusk.