ShreyaA World Without People
North Brother Island is probably what would happen to the things humans have made if they were to suddenly vanish from the face of the earth. Nature will take over what is rightfully hers and animals and birds will reclaim their place.
How to Get There…
Since it is illegal to visit the North Brother Island without permission, necessary steps need to be taken first to go to the island. Once the permission and paperwork are sorted one needs to charter a boat which is sort of expensive. There are no docks on the island, so one has to rent a small boat and beach oneself there.
Worlds Apart
From the river, it seems like a rock has been thrown away from New York. Some explorers have described looking at New York from the island as watching the earth from the moon- just to give an idea of how isolated the island is. Imagine having to spend years of your life in a place so isolated, no wonder the patients resorted to drugs.
Researchers usually get a permit but are you adventurous enough to visit a place which has such a creepy history?
The Abandoned Mansion
Not a lot of people knew about this abandoned mansion situated just a small drive away from Times Square until the photographer Bryan Sansivero from New York rediscovered it. When he went there he found that for some reason, the mansion which is more than a century old is almost completely untouched. Curiosity got the better of him, and even though the air surrounding the mansion was eerie he took his chances and went it.
Lurking In The Mansion
This mansion was decaying outside Manhattan when Bryan Sansivero visited it. Sansivero is a professional who captures scenes of urban decay and he hungers after such abandoned mansions looking for intriguing stories behind them. He won an award for his movie called the Shadows of Kings Park which was about a psychiatric ward crumbling in Kings Park.
The aim of his movies is to bring to attention to people what they have forgotten or which escapes their observation even after being right in front of them.
40 Years Of Abandonment
The mansion is thought to have been built sometime in the 1930s and it was last inhabited in the 1970s. It has been over 40 years since then. There is no record of the previous owners, why they left and why there have been no other residents. There have been theories but no solid proof.
The mansion has 57 rooms including a bowling alley and an indoor tennis court! The location is ideal for a hotel but neither has the mansion been bulldozed down nor occupied. It has been left to die. But why?