A national park packed full of art, and a cool cable car.
I stumbled across Roosevelt Island completely by accident. I was out for an early morning (read utterly jetlagged) power walk in Midtown New York and found myself walking under what I now realise is an iconic cable car. Never one to ignore something that could be interesting, I googled Roosevelt Island and thought, that’s worth half an hour of my time.
Well. If I spent an hour there, I spent three. It was an utterly wonderful afternoon of fresh air, a cool form of transport, cats and some history. One of the things I appreciated about the Island after a week in New York City was the fact it was quieter than the rest of the city and is now home to the Four Freedoms Park which is named after the 1942 State of the Union.
Why is Roosevelt Island important?
Roosevelt Island has a mixed history. It was known as ‘Welfare Island’ colloquially to New Yorkers in the 1900s, as it was home to prisons, hospitals and almshouses.
Many of these buildings no longer exist, but covered in Ivy you can find the Smallpox hospital which was where people in New York who contracted Smallpox were quarantined until a vaccine was found. The Smallpox hospital is crumbling so you cannot look around it, but it has been stabilised and serves as a reminder of the advances which have taken place in medicine over the last 150 or so years.
Nowadays, the Island pays homage to America’s longest serving president – Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) and combines housing, buildings belonging to Cornell University, corporate training offices and a national park with its own wildlife ecosystem and some pretty cool art.
How do you get to Roosevelt Island?
Roosevelt Island is located in the East River that runs between Manhattan and Queens. The most well-known way to get to the Island is via the cable car. This runs approximately every 10 minutes from the corner of 2nd Avenue and 59th Street – by the Queensboro Bridge. Each way it costs $2.75.
Roosevelt Island also has its own Subway station on the F line which you can get to from Manhattan and Queens. To travel via either Cable Car or Subway you can use contactless payment and Apple (or Google) Pay or the metro card.
Alternatively, there is an NYC ferry and a bus from Queens, but really get the cable car. It’s cool.
What is there to do?
enjoy the free art scattered across the island
This small island is home to a range of sculptures, galleries and at the right time of year, pop-up art.
My favourite was Nellie Bly’s ‘The Girl Puzzle‘ which is at the very north of the island, by the lighthouse. This set of sculptures give you the faces of four women cast in bronze. Each sculpture gives a voice to women from different underrepresented communities.
In addition to Nellie Bly, the sculptures by Tom Otteness, ‘A Marriage of Money and Real Estate’ pop out of the East River and are easy to miss, but provide a brilliant social commentary on life in the USA.
Keeping with the theme that every piece of art on Roosevelt Island has a social message, the FDR Hope Memorial acts as a reminder that the president was and still is an inspiration to people living with disabilities. The memorial shows FDR in a wheelchair reaching out to a young girl and charts the history of the Island and of FDR’s political career.
Roosevelt Island is not only home to outside sculptures. In the middle of the Island there is the RIVAA gallery on Main Street. This gallery is small (so only takes about 20 minutes to go around) and showcases the work of artists on the island, with exhibitions rotating every 2-3 months.
Visit the four freedoms park, the fdr memorial and smallpox hospital
The Four Freedoms Park is a small paved area of the island that pays tribute to FDR. The park was opened in 2012, is free to enter and has wonderful views of Manhattan. The sculpture of FDR is imposing yet clean and reminds you of his place as one of the most beloved presidents in US history.
The Smallpox Hospital is located just outside the park and was the first major centre in the US dedicated to caring for victims of the virus. It’s a ruin now and you cannot go around it as the structure is too insecure, but the bleak, foilage-covered bricks are thought-provoking and in these post-COVID times provide a reminder of how the virus could have been handled.
Enjoy the wildlife including the cat sanctuary
Roosevelt Island has it’s own ecosystem and is home to a number of rare birds and fish in the river. My favourite part however was the mini cat sanctuaries scattered on the island. The slightly bedraggled cats were clearly living their best lives.
Take in the Manhattan and Queens skyline
Whilst Roosevelt Island doesn’t give you the Iconic Skyline that something like Liberty Island does, it still gives you good views of the Empire State Building and the Chrysler to the Manhattan side, and the Iconic PepsiCo and Silvercup signs on the Queens side.
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