Recently I came across an article that seemed to be relevant to our class discussion, especially since it focuses on NYC geographical locations. A “New York City’s Top Ten” list, featured in issue 944 of Time Out New York and written by Joseph Alexiou, was a list of the city’s top ten islands. The list included some places which fit in with this month’s spooky theme such as Hart Island which has a deceased population of a over a million since it was the burial place for the area’s unclaimed dead. North Brother Island came in second on the list. That was the place which housed Typhoid Mary for her last years of life. They also named some relevant places concerning oysters and clams such as Robbins Reef and Ruffle Bar. The oyster trade was something crucial to New York’s development and here we have some easy to see locations still being referenced in a modern magazine. Robbins Reef is very easy to see from afar, but not so easy to visit. If you take the Staten Island ferry, you’ll be able to see the small island just after departure, north west of the docks. It’s technically in New Jersey waters, but maybe they chose to ignore it. If you want a closer look, you can go on a virtual tour of the island here. The other destination they mentioned was Ruffle Bar. This sandbar in Jamaica Bay was one of the great places to harvest oysters before it was ruled too polluted for shellfish in 1915. There’s no convenient way to get to the island, but here are some pictures if you’d like to see what the island looked like in 1924, 1951, or 2008. If you’d like to read the whole list, let me know! I have a copy and will hold on to it for the rest of the semester for anyone who wants a look.

Shannon Bailey