South Brother Island Totally Explained

Everything about South Brother Island totally explained

South Brother Island is one of a pair of small islands in the East River situated between the Bronx and Riker's Island, New York City. The other island, larger and better known, is North Brother Island. It is uninhabited.
   As late as the 1960s, South Brother Island was considered part of Queens County, but is now part of Bronx County. It has long been privately owned. Jacob Ruppert, a brewery magnate and early owner of the New York Yankees (responsible for bringing Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees from the Boston Red Sox), had a summer house on the island early in the twentieth century. No one has lived on the island since then. There are no structures extant.
   Ruppert owned the Island until the late 1930s. In 1944 it was purchased by John Gerosa, president of the Metropolitan Roofing Supply Company, who intended to build a summer retreat for his workers on the island. This didn't come to pass, and the island passed through several owners before coming into the possession of the City of New York.
   In 1975, under circumstances that are seemingly now unclear, the City sold South Brother island to Hampton Scows Inc., a Long Island investment company, for $10. There has been little or no reporting on why this deal was made.
   Hampton Scows dutifully paid property taxes every year but brought forth no plans to develop the seven-acre island. On November 20, 2007, it was reported that the City of New York would be purchasing the island and preserving it as a wildlife sanctuary. The price is reported to have been in the neighborhood of $2,000,000 and was brought about by a consolidated effort of conservation and redevelopment organizations working with the federal government, namely The Point (named for Hunts Point section of The Bronx), The Trust for Public Land, the Wildlife Conservation Society, and the U.S. federal government.
   The island's dense brush supports a major nesting colony of several species of birds, notably Black-crowned Night Heron, Great Egret, Snowy Egret, and Double-crested Cormorant.
   Together, the two Brother Islands, North and South, have a land area of 81,423 square meters, or 20.12 acres.

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