The Island Inside New York City That You've Probably Never Heard Of

And you don't see big black bags of trash. The buildings have a pneumatic trash collection system.

I spent nearly three years living there. It is a very nice town. Good transportation into the city!

I am quite surprised you didn't touch on the one thing that Roosevelt Island doesn't have... GARBAGE TRUCKS and PILES OF TRASH BAGS on the street. As someone already commented, but I can't help to also, there is an underground vacuum tube system to centralize the collection of garbage. They tested the system here, with plans to roll out citywide, but that never happened. I'm sure the union had nothing to do with the decision.

Hi. My family was one of the families that moved to RI in 1976, when it first opened. I was six, and lived there until 1988 and still visit my parents there. Good video, lots of memories. I am going to add to your history section: Dickens helped it along in 1868 but the real voice that brought NYC's public awareness to the mentally ill and their mistreatment on Blackwell's was a female reporter named Nellie Bly, who in 1887 spent ten days as an undercover inmate at the Octogon, shown in your video. Her boss, Joe Pulitzer, gave her a column and she wrote about all the atrocities in The New York World , Pulitzer's newspaper. She was instrumental in getting the place closed. Now the fun stuff: 3:45, that's the "nurse's residence" and was still there in the 70s, and had a broken down firetruck in front of it. I used to run through the subway tunnels with my friends. The F station didn't open until '88 and my buddies and I would sneak down and ride on railcarts. The Ruins at the south end are the location of the hardest mission in Grand Theft Auto IV. (Use a boat, not a car.) Fun to see in a game. The entire island is developed now, much much different than in the 70s and 80s. It was wilderness in areas back then. Perfect for a young boy with inattentive 70s parents. 😂 There's an original Thomas Edison short film on YT taken from a boat with the Queenboro caisson's being built (~1903). You will not get a better view of Manhattan anywhere in nyc. All the other shorelines from Queens, Brooklyn, etc. are almost a mile away, but on RI, you're a third of that, with Manhattan looming over you. Go at night, when it's warm. You will not regret it

"The Island Inside New York City That You've Probably Never Heard Of..." some of us actually grew up with this Island! My family used to work in the hospital in the 1980s onwards on the Coler island hospital, enjoyed playing with friends in community centers and parks on the island. It always saw it as a really is a quite mini version of Manhattan

Thanks for the tour. What beautiful footage! One of the best, truest, funniest friends I've ever had lived on RI. I never met her or went there but she enriched my life incalculably from 700 miles away.

I have family that’s lived on Roosevelt Island for years. My friends & I would go there to play basketball when we were kids. They do a good job maintaining the courts. You should do City Island next.

I remember seeing the Roosevelt Island stop while taking the subway as a kid and decided to get out and explore it. The nicest place in NYC hands down

Roosevelt Island is under appreciated space. I didn’t hear you mention the cherry trees. The esplanade that surrounds has tons of cherry trees that are so beautiful in spring, about March. I always take a bike ride out there about then.

Well, I've certainly heard of it, and even been there a couple of times. But considering that I've lived in New York City (mainly in the Bronx) for all of my 71 years, the fact that I've set foot there exactly twice should say something about how separate it is from the lives of most New Yorkers. We see it all the time, but almost never go there.

This was great! Thanks :)

An informative video, well done. Lived here for nearly ten years, the place is full of memories. Crime was almost non-existent, the police carried no guns back then . We also had a few celebrities, Buddy Hackett the comedian and actor, also Al Lewis " Grandpa" from the tv show The Munsters. In my day he had a radio talk show.

Spent quite a bit of time there in the early 80's.

This is a great area to ride bikes

I honestly didn't know about it until I moved here but I also didn't know about any of the other islands other than Staten Island. An interesting one is U Thant island. It's a man made island in the East River about 20 blocks south of Roosevelt Island

Thanks for posting this video I enjoyed every second of it. When I was younger I heard a rumor that there used to be elevators inside the legs of the Queensboro Bridge to bring cars to the island before the draw bridge from Queens was opened. As hard as I tried I couldn't find any information on it when I got older. One day I decided to take my kids to the island and after taking a look at the legs of the bridge I realized that it didn't make sense. I asked a local (who said that she's lived on the island for some time) and she clarified the story. There used to be a bulding (sometimes referred to as the Upside Down Building since the main level was on the top floor and level with the roadway of the bridge) that had an elevator to take cars and trucks down from the bridge to the island. Therewere also trolley tracks and a trolley stop on the bridge. Once the draw bridge from Queens was opened, and vehicles had easy access to the island, the building was demolished. The building stood in the spot where the tram terminal is now. Supposedly the tram was meant to be temporary until a subway station was opened on the island (since the Upside Down Bulding was demolished and peope taking public transit would otherwise have had to go to Queens first) but once the subway was opened the tram was too popular to be removed.

The 59th St. bridge Queensboro, Bridge, Ed Koch Bridge, or whatever name you know it by was made famous at least by Simon & Garfunkel. Mcdonald is very funny but not so much on that joke anyway moving on I love that you actually called it a Subway headhouse which is the proper name. It makes me think you are AI even more because nobody calls it that although it is correct. Nice Video!

Worth the visit. I ate at the Cornell cafeteria The FDR memorial is cool.

How much is the rent?

Nope I am from NYC and I always knew Roosevelt island. The F train stops by there and you can take the Roosevelt island tram from the Queensboro bridge to also get there. It’s very calm and chill there