The inaccessible and abandoned islands of New York – in pictures

Ferry ‘Ellis Island’, Ellis Island, 1974

Immigration through Ellis Island once connected America to the rest of the world. The story of quotas set in the 1920s – meant to keep out then-undesirable Italians, Poles, eastern European Jews, Chinese and Japanese – is obscured from the main narrative. The immigration station completely closed in 1954 and in 1968 the ferry Ellis Island sank at its dock, eventually being dredged in 2009

Photograph: Phil Buehler

Thunderbolt rollercoaster, Coney Island, 1997

Coney Island was originally an island but became a peninsula when Coney Island Creek was filled in. The Thunderbolt was built in 1925, abandoned in 1982 and demolished in 2000. The Thunderbolt was the rollercoaster with a house underneath and was made famous in Woody Allen’s film Annie Hall. It was demolished by the city in 2000

Photograph: Phil Buehler

Rat Island, 2023

This small island sits between City Island and Hart Island. In the 1800s, people infected with typhoid were quarantined there

Photograph: Phil Buehler

Bannerman Castle, Pollepel Island, 2023

Bannerman’s Arsenal, more well-known as Bannerman’s Castle, was on Pollepel Island in the Hudson River. This was a profiteering storehouse where surplus weapons and material acquired cheaply after the end of one American war were resold at the start of the next. Built in 1901, it was abandoned in 1950 after which the roof and floors burned and the front wall collapsed. The ruins were stabilized in 2014

Photograph: Phil Buehler

Lighthouse, Execution Rock, 2023

The name is said to derive from colonial New York, when slave-owning settlers were said to have murdered enslaved people by chaining them to the rocks during low tide to let them drown. The Manhattan skyline can be seen just to the left of the lighthouse.

Photograph: Phil Buehler

Crematorium Chimney, Swinburne Island, 2023

Swinburne is a man-made island that served as a quarantine station. It was built in 1872 after the old Quarantine hospital on Staten Island was burned down by residents not wanting a contagious disease hospital nearby. Swinburne Island is now a bird sanctuary and managed by the National Park Service.

Photograph: Phil Buehler

The Registry Room, Ellis Island, 1974

The Registry Room, or ‘Great Hall’, is where over 13 million immigrants were processed. The luckier ones were processed in a few hours, while the less fortunate might be held for further inspection or quarantined if they had a communicable disease. It was built in 1900 and abandoned in 1954 when the immigration station closed. In 1974 when the island was forgotten, it sat empty and abandoned. It was restored in 1990 and is now the home of the National Immigration Museum

Photograph: Phil Buehler

Monorail, Steeplechase Park, Coney Island, 1981

Originally opened in 1897, Steeplechase was one of Coney Island’s original parks, which also included Dreamland and Luna Parks. It closed in 1964 and was bought by Fred Trump, Donald Trump’s father, and demolished before it could be landmarked in a failed attempt to build condos. It later reopened with children’s amusement park rides in 1970, was again abandoned in 1980, and torn down to make way for a stadium for the minor league baseball team the Brooklyn Cyclones

Photograph: Phillip Buehler

Fort Slocum Barracks, David’s Island, 2000

David’s Island, where Fort Slocum was located, was the principal embarkation point for thousands of doughboys in the first world war, but only after the US was dragged into the ‘war to end all wars’. During the cold war, the island held the radar control center for Nike missiles stationed on nearby Hart Island, installed to protect against a Russian nuclear attack. The fort was closed in 1965 and sat abandoned until 2008 when the remaining buildings were demolished, with hopes to turn the island into a park

Photograph: Phillip Buehler

Potter’s Field, Hart Island, 2024

Hart Island is home to New York City’s potter’s field, where over a million people are buried, many of whose bodies went unclaimed. Many of those who died of Aids, as well as some casualties of the Covid pandemic, are buried there. The burial detail is made up of inmates from nearby Rikers Island prison. It has been taken over by the New York City parks department and is being turned into a park

Photograph: Phillip Buehler

Nike missile silo, Hart Island, 2023

New York City was once ringed with 19 missile batteries to protect against a Russian nuclear attack, some armed with nuclear warheads. This one was built in 1955 and deactivated in 1960

Photograph: Phillip Buehler