What was blackwell island

Only six original structures remain:. Blackwell House — Blackwell House is the only standing structure that was part of the island when it was still privately owned. The eighteenth-century clapboard farmhouse was built for James Blackwell. By the s the house was in poor condition.

A complete restoration by architect Giorgio Cavaglieri in returned the house to its former glory. The Octagon, after the hospital wings were demolished, but before the new residential wings were built. The asylum was designed by architect Alexander Jackson Davis and built in It was one of the first institutions of its kind. After struggling with poor staffing, overcrowding, financial hardships, and disease outbreaks in the mids, facility upgrades were made that greatly improved the conditions of the asylum.

When the Metropolitan Hospital moved to Manhattan in the s, the building lay vacant. Its two wings were demolished in the s, leaving only the central octagon-shaped structure. The Octagon is fully restored today, and two new wings of apartments have taken the place of the old hospital wings. It was designed by architect James Renwick, who also designed the Smallpox Hospital, and built in For much of the early s, New Yorkers nicknamed the island Welfare Island after the asylums, prisons, and almshouses that were built there.

While most of the buildings have long since fallen into disrepair, the ruins are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. This unique designation points to the social and historical significance of this island.

New York City purchased the East River island in In , a penitentiary was built on the island. This physically isolated prisoners from the city and from the mainland. These individuals, many with mental or physical disabilities, may have had trouble caring for themselves at home. Bly described cold baths, filthy living conditions, spoiled food, and physical abuse from caretakers.

When the Metropolitan Hospital moved out of the building in , the old asylum was left empty. The Asylum was housed in the original structure, consisting for two wings meeting at a right angle, joined in the center by an octagonal tower.

Each wing consisted of three stories and an attic. The three primary stories housed patient rooms on either side while the attic housed the sick rooms. One wing housed men and the other women.

The central octagon was used for physician's apartments, offices, and parlors. This building was partially modeled after the Hanwell Asylum in England. The Retreat was a three story workshop building formerly used by the workhouse but was used by the Asylum to house female patients who outnumbered male patients.

In the lodge there were four halls dedicated to females while only two were for males. The Lodge was where the more violent and newly admitted patients were housed. The new patients were kept here until their disposition could be positively identified. Those considered non-violent were moved to either the Asylum or the Retreat.

Other buildings as of included the Cook-house, where patient meals were prepared. Also in the cook house were the laundry facilities and the engine room which provided steam heat to the hospital.

There was also a stable, blacksmith shop, carpenter's shop, a paint shop, and a dead house. Four one story wooden pavilion buildings were also completed by and used to accommodate 70 female patients each. One of the most famous cases associated with the hospital was the journalism of young female reporter Nellie Bly, who in entered the hospital under the guise of insanity under assignment from Joseph Pulitzer.

She wrote, "From the moment I entered the insane ward on the Island, I made no attempt to keep up the assumed role of insanity. I talked and acted just as I do in ordinary life. Yet strange to say, the more sanely I talked and acted, the crazier I was thought to be by all After talking with other patients she became convinced many were as sane as she was, writing. Here is a class of women sent to be cured.

I would like the expert physicians who are condemning me for my action, which has proven their ability, to take a perfectly sane and healthy woman, shut her up and make her sit from 6 a.