BEFORE 1637
MinnahanonckLenape
A fishing and hunting ground in the tidal strait the Dutch would come to call Hell Gate.
Founded 1977 · 49 years on the island
RIHS Visitor Center Kiosk, Tram Plaza
Two miles of river, four centuries of New York.
Lenape fishing ground, Dutch hog farm, Blackwell family estate, penitentiary, asylum, smallpox hospital, Welfare Island, and now a neighbourhood of 12,000. We keep the record — and we'll show you around.
Checking hours…
Visitor Center — Trolley Kiosk, Tram Plaza
Open 12 noon – 5 p.m.
Closed Tuesdays
Free to enter
1977Founded by island residents
6Designated city landmarks
6 daysKiosk open each week
46Issues of Blackwell's Almanac
Plan your visit
Everything starts at the kiosk under the bridge.
The 1930s trolley kiosk at Tram Plaza has been our Visitor Center since 2007. Walk in for maps, directions, island history, and a small shop run entirely by volunteers. No ticket, no appointment.
Hours
All times Eastern.
| Sunday | 12:00 – 5:00 p.m. |
|---|---|
| Monday | 12:00 – 5:00 p.m. |
| Tuesday | Closed |
| Wednesday | 12:00 – 5:00 p.m. |
| Thursday | 12:00 – 5:00 p.m. |
| Friday | 12:00 – 5:00 p.m. |
| Saturday | 12:00 – 5:00 p.m. |
The kiosk closes in inclement weather. If the sky looks bad, call (917) 744-3721 before you come.
Getting here
The Roosevelt Island Tram leaves from 2nd Avenue & 59th Street in Manhattan. It takes a MetroCard or OMNY, costs a standard subway fare, and lands you roughly 60 seconds' walk from our door — the kiosk is the little copper-roofed pavilion on the plaza in front of you.
The F train stops at Roosevelt Island. Come up to Main Street, turn north (left, toward the bridge) and walk about five minutes to Tram Plaza.
The NYC Ferry Astoria route stops at East Main Street, just off Tram Plaza. From the landing it is a short walk to the kiosk — one of the best approaches to the island on a clear day.
The free Red Bus loops the island and stops at Tram Plaza. On foot or by bicycle, the Roosevelt Island Bridge connects to 36th Avenue and Vernon Boulevard in Queens and reaches the island beside Motorgate, north of the kiosk.
- Step-free: the plaza and kiosk are at street level.
- Parking is limited; the Motorgate garage is a ten-minute walk.
Address for maps: Tram Plaza, Roosevelt Island, NY 10044 — the kiosk sits directly beneath the Queensboro Bridge.
Live tram, Red Bus and ferry times, plus the bus map.
Free in the Roosevelt Island app.
What's inside
- Free island maps and a walking-tour route you can follow yourself
- Volunteers who know the island — ask them anything, including where to eat
- Books on the island's history, including our own Images of America: Roosevelt Island
- Landmark models, prints, totes and ornaments made for us
- Referral information if you're thinking about living here
Credit cards accepted. Members get 10% off everything in the shop.
Walking the island on your own
Our self-guided tour covers the island north and south — every landmark, plus the things people walk straight past. Do one half in an hour, or both in an afternoon.
Island history
Six names, one strip of rock in the East River.
Roosevelt Island has been renamed almost every time New York changed its mind about what to do with it. That naming history is the fastest way to understand the place.
1637
Varkens EylandtHog Island
Bought by the Dutch governor Wouter van Twiller and used to pasture pigs, safely away from the mainland.
1666
Manning's IslandEnglish rule
Granted to Captain John Manning, and later passed by marriage to his stepdaughter's family — the Blackwells.
1686–1921
Blackwell's IslandFarm, then institution
A working farm for a century. The City bought it in 1828 and filled it with a penitentiary, an almshouse, an asylum, a workhouse and hospitals.
1921–1973
Welfare IslandHospitals
Renamed to shed the reputation. The prison closed in 1935; chronic-care hospitals stayed, and much of the island went quiet.
1973–
Roosevelt IslandA planned community
Rebuilt as a mixed-income neighbourhood on a State master plan. The Tram opened in 1976, the subway in 1989, Cornell Tech in 2017.
Early images provide period context rather than literal island views. Sources: RIHS research and Wikimedia Commons ↗.
The city put here what it did not want to look at.
For most of the nineteenth century this was where New York sent the poor, the sick, the mad and the convicted — the four institutions Charles Dickens toured in 1842 and Nellie Bly infiltrated in 1887. Their buildings are still standing, and most of them were designed by architects the city was proud of: Alexander Jackson Davis, James Renwick Jr., Frederick Clarke Withers.
That contradiction — serious architecture built for people the city was hiding — is the story we tell at the kiosk, on our tours, and in the archive.
Landmarks
Six designated structures, all within a walk of the tram.
Each was designated by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. Dates and architects below follow the Commission's designation reports; the full reports are linked from each entry.
South of the tramBlackwell House
One of the oldest surviving farmhouses in New York City, built by the family that farmed the island for a century before the City bought it.
Mid-island, northThe Octagon
The octagonal rotunda that formed the entrance to the New York City Lunatic Asylum, opened 1841 — where Nellie Bly went undercover for Ten Days in a Mad-House.
North tipThe Lighthouse
A Gothic Revival stone lighthouse at the island's northern point, built of gneiss quarried on site and long tied to the legend of an asylum patient named John McCarthy.
SouthpointSmallpox Hospital
The "Renwick Ruin" — the only ruin ever designated a New York City landmark, and the most photographed building on the island.
Main StreetChapel of the Good Shepherd
Built for the residents of the almshouse, and still the island's gathering place — restored in the 1970s as a community centre.
SouthpointStrecker Memorial Laboratory
Built as a pathology and bacteriology laboratory for City Hospital — among the first purpose-built research laboratories of its kind in the country.
Choose a landmark above to read its designation report.
Collections & archive
We keep the things the island threw away.
Our purpose is to recover, maintain and share the record of Roosevelt Island's heritage from colonial times to the present — by collecting it, keeping it accessible, and teaching from it.
In the collection
- Artifacts recovered from the island's buildings — a roof beam from Blackwell House, ironwork and columns from the Octagon staircase
- Photographs, prints, postcards and maps documenting four centuries
- Copies of original architectural renderings, including Alexander Jackson Davis's asylum drawings
- A working reference library on the island, its institutions and its people
- Complete runs of our own publications and community newspapers
For researchers
The archive is open to researchers, students, scholars and to descendants of people who were held, treated or employed here. We answer genealogy questions regularly, and we are working with the New York State Archives to preserve the record of the island community's development.
Request archive access
Blackwell's Almanac
Our quarterly journal, back to 2015.
Four issues a year — February, May, August and November — written by members and researchers. Every back issue is free to read.
No issues match that search.
From the Archive — the daily series
Begun during the 2020 shutdown and never stopped: a short piece of island or New York history sent by email six times a week. The full online archive holds 1,778 posts going back to 2009.
Text by Judith Berdy. Edited by Deborah Dorff.
Browse the whole archive
All 1,778 posts are stored locally and searchable by title, summary, topic and date, back to November 2009.
Nothing on this site loads from the old rihs.us — posts, images, PDFs and the walking tour are all stored here.
Programs & partners
Tours, talks, and work with our neighbours.
Walking tours
Specialised routes led by RIHS: cherry blossoms in spring, Southpoint and the ruin, the Octagon, and Blackwell House. Groups by arrangement.
Ask about a tourTalks at the library
A yearly series at the Roosevelt Island branch of NYPL — the island in postcards, the future of Hart Island, the woman in the iron coffin, bridge photographer Dave Frieder, Nellie Bly.
In the community
Open Door Poetry and visual arts with residents of Coler; history programs for the Carter Burden senior centre; the holiday window display at Rivercross; historic signage with Cornell Tech.
We work with
- Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation
- New York State Archives
- New York Public Library
- Cornell Tech
- Museum of the City of New York
- New York Academy of Medicine
- NYU Planning School
- Hunter College Nursing School
- John Jay College
- Coler Long Term Care
- Carter Burden Network
- Roosevelt Island Garden Club
- NYC Health + Hospitals
- Materials for the Arts
- Archive of Josep Lluís Sert
- New York Landmarks 50+
In the news
What's been written about the island and the Society.
Press, broadcast and film coverage featuring RIHS, our Visitor Center and the island's landmarks.
Much of this coverage is from 2017–2018 and several of the original pages have since gone offline — The Main Street WIRE and Home & Away among them. Those now point to an archived copy so the writing is still readable.
- Treasures of New York: Roosevelt Island TramwayPBS · Treasures of New York · June 29, 2018 · episode no longer online; series page (opens in a new tab)
- Pay a Visit, See What’s New at the Roosevelt Island Visitor CenterRoosevelt Island Daily · May 4, 2018 · archived copy (opens in a new tab)
- Sky-high public transit – Interview with Judy BerdyCBC Radio Edmonton AM · March 14, 2018 · segment retired by CBC
- 2018 HDC Preservation Conference – Pre-existing conditions – Led by Judy BerdyHDC Preservation Conference · March 3, 2018 (opens in a new tab)
- RIGC supports the RIHS Kiosk Visitors’ Center GardenRoosevelt Island Garden Club · Nov 26, 2017 (opens in a new tab)
- The Ruin: Roosevelt Island’s Smallpox HospitalThe Paris Review · Oct 30, 2017 (opens in a new tab)
- Goldwater Memorial’s Legacy of InnovationThe Main Street WIRE · Oct 12, 2017 · archived copy (opens in a new tab)
- Living on Roosevelt IslandThe New York Times · slideshow (opens in a new tab)
- Roosevelt Island: Part of Manhattan but Apart from ItThe New York Times · Oct 4, 2017 (opens in a new tab)
- Campus of the FutureThe Wall Street Journal · Sept 16, 2017 (opens in a new tab)
- High Tech and High Design, Cornell’s Roosevelt Island Campus OpensThe New York Times · Sept 13, 2017 (opens in a new tab)
- Visitors Center Celebrates 10 YearsThe Main Street WIRE · July 30, 2017 · archived copy (opens in a new tab)
- The Island’s Surprising Role in Medical HistoryThe Main Street WIRE · April 9, 2017 · archived copy (opens in a new tab)
- Roosevelt Island RevivalHome and Away Magazine · March 31, 2017 · archived copy (opens in a new tab)
Support us
We are volunteers. Membership is what keeps the kiosk open.
Members get our news first, an invitation to programs, and 10% off everything in the Visitor Center shop. Membership directly supports the Society's work.
Senior / Student
$25
per year
- Members' newsletter and event notices
- 10% off at the Visitor Center
- Invitations to walks and talks
Adult
$50
per year
- Everything in Senior / Student
- Supports the archive and the kiosk directly
- Helps preserve and share the island's history
Family
$70
per year
- Everything in Adult, for the household
- Best value if you take the kids on tours
- Supports Society work as a household
The Society's secure PayPal page accepts membership renewals and lets you enter the listed tier amount. Prefer paper, or want to give a different amount? Use the 2026 membership renewal flyer or contact the Society for payment instructions. Members receive event notices, programme invitations and 10% off at the Visitor Center.
Or give once — any amount.
Donations pay for archival storage, exhibit reproductions, restoration materials, and keeping a free visitor centre open six days a week. PayPal lets you choose the amount, one-time or monthly, and pay by PayPal or debit/credit card.
Images of America: Roosevelt Island
By Judith Berdy and the Roosevelt Island Historical Society. Period photographs with citations from contemporary texts, diaries and newspapers.
$25 at the Visitor Center, or $25 plus $4 shipping. Buying direct supports the Society.
ISBN 0738512389 · Arcadia Publishing
Contact
Ask us anything about the island.
Research requests, group tours, press, donations of material, or a question about a relative who was here — all go to the same people.
- Phone
- (212) 688-4836 · mobile (917) 744-3721
- Visit
- Visitor Center Kiosk, Tram Plaza
Roosevelt Island, NY 10044
12 noon – 5 p.m., daily except Tuesdays - Post
- Roosevelt Island Historical Society
P.O. Box 5, Island Station
Roosevelt Island, NY 10044 - Office
- Inside the Octagon, at the island's north end