Refuge for "the sick and destitute aliens from the Old World" was estab-
lished there, and after 1860 the island was used as a secondary immigration
station until the Ellis Island station was opened in 1892. The abandoned
immigration buildings were then taken over by the New York City Asylum
for the Insane, which had been in operation since 1863. The New York
State Department of Mental Hygiene assumed control of the asylum in
1896, changed its name to Manhattan State Hospital, and added many
buildings.

Riker's Island, North Brother Island, and South Brother Island

IRT Pelham subway to Cypress Ave.; then by ferry from E. 134th St., the Bronx.
Pass from Department of Correction required.

When Abraham Rycken (later spelled Riker) obtained a patent for
Riker's Island in 1664, and through the long years of Riker family owner-
ship, it amounted to only eighty-seven acres of land. Since New York City
annexed it from Newtown, Queens, in 1884, the size of the island has in-
creased to four hundred acres, and it is still growing through the dumping
of old metal, refuse, cinders, and dirt from subway excavations. For thirty
years subterranean fires smoldered in the rubbish, and hordes of rats for-
aged there.

The island is now entirely given over to the city's Model Peniten-
tiary, which replaced the obsolete Welfare Island prison in 1935. The
twenty-six fireproof brick buildings, costing $9,106,000, constitute one of
the most modern and efficient penal institutions in the country. The new
prison, with a total capacity of 2,550, houses annually more than 25,000
offenders whose sentences run for not more than three years. The rapid
turnover creates many special problems of management.

Much of the made land has been landscaped. A sixty-acre farm culti-
vated by prisoners is being steadily enlarged; the renowned prison piggery
produces more than fifty thousand pounds of pork every year. The modern
plant includes a fully equipped hospital with the largest venereal disease
clinic in the city, and a large laundry which serves the prison, the Depart-
ment of Sanitation, and other institutions. The management uses a scien-
tific classification system for determining the needs and attributes of each
prisoner in preparation for the prison's unusual educational, vocational,
and recreational program.