Wednesday, January 6, 2021 – It was not a pleasure cruise up the East River to Blackwell’s Island and confinement to an institution

By admin

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2021

THE 255th EDITION
FROM OUR ARCHIVES

Scandals of the Upper West Side
Tuesday, January 12, 7 PM
RIHS Lecture

The Roosevelt Island Historical Society and the New York Public Library are proud to host Beth Goffe and her presentation “Scandals of the Upper West Side.” Beth Goffe is a licensed New York City tour guide. An Upper West Side resident for over three decades, she is enamored with the city’s history and has amassed quite a few entertaining stories over the years.

To register:https://www.nypl.org/events/programs/2020/01/12/scandals-upper-west-side

East 26th Street: New York’s “Misery Lane”

From Ephemeral New York
December 12, 2016

It was in a part of Manhattan, at the edge of a poor neighborhood of tenements and groggeries, where no one wanted to end up.

But thousands of city residents did found themselves on Misery Lane, as the short stretch of East 26th Street between First Avenue and the East River was known in the turn-of-the-century city.

This block was a dumping ground for the sick, alcoholic, and mentally ill, who sought treatment at Bellevue Hospital, which bordered East 26th Street (above). Some New Yorkers had a sense of humor about it, as this rhyme from a 1917 medical magazine demonstrates:

T.B., aneurysm, and gin-drinker’s liver;  Tabetics, paretics, plain drunk, and insane;  First Avenue’s one end, the other’s the river;  Twenty-sixth Street between they call Misery Lane!

Criminals showed up on Misery Lane as well.

Men and women convicted of a range of crimes were deposited via police wagon on a dock known as Charities Pier at the end of East 26th Street (below).

From there, they were ferried to the workhouse and penitentiary across the East River to Blackwell’s Island to serve their time.

The poor also stood in line at Charities Pier. Unable to afford rent, food, coal, and other necessities, their last resort was the Blackwell’s Island almshouse.

Misery Lane was the site of the Municipal Lodging House, built in 1909 to house mostly homeless, often derelict men (top and second photos), but also women and children.

With the city morgue on 26th Street as well, Misery Lane was the last place New York’s unknown dead went before being interred in the potter’s field on Hart Island.

And when mass tragedy struck the city, Misery Lane was involved as well.

Bodies found after the General Slocum disaster were brought here to be identified—as were the horribly burned corpses of Triangle Fire victims

Steamer
THOMAS S. BRENNAN
DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC CHARITIES

• 

• 

Steamer Thomas S. Brennan: Male sickroom. Seated man in coat and hat, back to camera. Long planks along walls of room.  The Brennan was used for many years to transport a types of persons to Blackwell’s Island.

Museum of the City of New York 93.1.1.4884 Byron Company (New York, N.Y.) Hospital, Bellevue, Blackwell’s Island (Welfare) Old & New Bldgs. DATE:ca. 1896 photograph gelatin silver print printing-out paper

WEDNESDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY

Can you identify this photo and when it was taken?

Send you submission to 
ROOSEVELTISLANDHISTORY@GMAIL.COM

TUESDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY

No one guessed the three ballfields in Queensbridge Park. I must admit that only  apartments face east can see the ballfields.

EDITORIAL

East 26th Street still has sites that contribute much to our City history. The Hunter College School of Nursing formerly Bellevue School is located on the far east end of the site with it’s round design overlooking the FDR Drive. Across the street is the new building of the Chief Medical Examiner’s office. It was the site where many remains were stored after 9/11.  

It is a street of dreams and sorrows.

Judith Berdy

Text by Judith Berdy
Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS
Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website
Edited by Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c)
Roosevelt Island Historical Society
unless otherwise indicated

EPHEMERAL NEW YORK   (C)
Museum of the City of New York
Municipal Archives of the City of New York

FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD

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rooseveltislandhistory@gmail.com