UNDERCITY.ORG
A guerrilla historian in Gotham
  

 

Ruins of the Octagon Asylum

Roosevelt Island, New York City

 

The ruins of the Octagon Building are the only remnants of the New York City Asylum for the Insane, which was built in 1839 near the northern end of Roosevelt Island (known as Blackwells Island at the time).

When it was built, the "Pauper's Asylum," as it was known, had two large projecting wings, and the Octagon Building was merely the central rotunda and entranceway. The institution gained notoriety in 1887 when Nellie Bly (a reporter fro the New York World-- her real name was Elizabeth Cochrane) spent several days as a patient and then wrote articles exposing the horrendous conditions that existed. The building was renovated and converted to the Metropolitan Hospital in 1894. The hospital was one of the world's largest at the time, housing 1,400 patients, including wards for tuberculosis and leprosy, before being abandoned in 1955. The wings were torn down in 1970s, and devastating fires in 1982 and 1999 effectively destroyed all but the stone shell of the Octagon building. The building was officially landmarked in 1975.

This photo below, taken from the top of the shattered walls, shows part of the central floor area. The building is of course octagonal, and this photo shows how the shape of the main central atrium reflects the exterior shape. Originally this cenral area housed a vast, sweeping spiral staircase that was admired for its beauty and grace; soon after it was built, in fact, Charles Dickens commented on its elegance in his American Notes of 1942. An excellent photo of the partially ruined staircase, as it existed prior to the 1999 fire (but after the 1982 fire), can be found in Stanley Greenberg's book Invisible New York.

 

 


The Octagon: View of the Bird S. Color Hospital



The ruins of the Octagon are directly south of the Bird S. Color Hospital complex on Roosevelt Island. Here, in a view from the ruined third floor, the lights of the Hospital are visible through the ruined walls of the Octagon.

 

The Octagon on Staten Island: Fire Damage

 

Since the second fire here, on Labor Day of 1999, the ruin of the Octagon Building has been little more than the disintegrated remnants of the stone walls, supported by jury-rigged wooden braces, as shown here.

There are plans to redevelop the area as a residential site, including renovations of the Octagon and the construction of two residential wings that would in some ways recreate the original layout of the asylum. In 2001, the Roosevelt Island Operating Committee actually appointed Becker and Becker Associates as Developers for the residential complex, which is known as the "Octagon Apartments and Ecological Park" project.

Site analyses are ongoing, and perhaps one day the conversion will take place, marking the third life of this venerable building. (Its first incarnation was as an Asylum when it was completed in 1839, and the second incarnation occured when it was renovated as the Metropolitan Hospital in 1894.) In the meantime, however, the gray granite walls continue to crumble slowly.