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| Roosevelt Island from the tram |
Whenever we would drive along the FDR, I always imagined a scene from One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest in what I thought were psychiatric hospitals across the river, at the skinny island under the 59th Street Bridge. Is that where they put all the crazy people?, I thought to myself. Yes, it was once filled with hospitals but was reinvented into residences that we see today, and in a few years, home to a graduate university center (Cornell Tech).
It's
even had several name changes over the years: the Lenape referred to it as
Minnehanonck, Varkens Eyelant by the Dutch, Blackwell's Island by the
British, Welfare Island when hospitals were its main tenants, and
finally in 1971, Roosevelt Island.
We decided to begin the summer hopping on NYC's only tram and checking out the island.
As soon as we got off the tram, the free red bus that loops around the island took us from the newer, modern high rises, passed the well-preserved Blackwell house, through the Soviet bloc style apartments that were built in the 70's, and ended at the newly renovated Octagon, a former lunatic asylum. Whether it's Main Street's pavers or the towering apartment buildings, you definitely feel that sense of being somewhere else. Alex was immediately struck by how quiet the streets were. My only experience has been in its 2 schools which appeared spacious, well-thought out, and filled with caring teachers and eager students.
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| Blackwell House c. 1804 (Just like our house!) |
Then
we hiked to the portion south of the bridge along the western
promenade. Here you have prime views of the Empire State, the Chrysler,
and Niemeyer's/Le Corbusier's UN Secretariat.
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| The gothic, abandoned small-pox hospital next to Four Freedoms Park |
Finally, you reach FDR's Four Freedoms Park, Louis I. Khan's vision in 1973. The project was resurrected after nearly 4 decades, and the park opened to the public in 2012. It's a garden whose apex brings you to a granite room, the southern most tip of Roosevelt Island. Aside from a few stray tourists, we were nearly the only ones there. It's a peaceful place designed for reflection. His 1941 state of the union speech rings truer today more than ever, a message calling for human rights.
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| Perfectly-lined Linden trees |
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| Jo Davidson's 1933 sculpted bust, a WPA work. |
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| FDR's favorite pup: a Scottie named Fala |
