Ch. 13 Streaming North Brother Island Web Episode

Good news for web addicts like ourselves, or people who have thrown their televisions out the window because they are sick of the excessive Michael Jackson coverage: Channel 13 is now offering a bulk of their programming online for free.

The newly updated thirteen.org/video will stream many national programs, as well as original online content created to cater to hyper-local New York audiences.

A new "City Revealed" episode which premiered online this week takes viewers to North Brother Island, which used to be a quarantine hospital and is now a protected heron habitat. It's a really fascinating behind the scenes look at how this bird breeding environment is researched and protected.

So if you can tear yourselves away from the train wreck that is "So You Think You Can Dance" long enough, we suggest you check out Thirteen's new online offerings by clicking here, or checking out the Brother Island episode below.

The City Concealed: North Brother Island Bird Sanctuary from Thirteen.org on Vimeo.

~ErLu

Interesting Opportunity for More Park Space in Bronx

Daily News' Alison Reiser is reporting that a retired educator/amateur anthropologist (and longtime Bronx resident) named Mike Cohn is pushing for North and South Brother Islands (in East River off the BoogieDown) to be added to the Gateway National Recreation Area, the nation's first urban national park.

Cohn said to the Daily News, "It's simply a matter of adding the two islands and a path along the Bronx shoreline, from Hunts Point to the Randall Island Walkway. I want to make the South Bronx a place worth seeing and going to."

North Brother Island (which appears to be the more illustrious of the Brothers, having been the site of the Slocum maritime tragedy resulting in the deaths of over 1,000 people) was used as a place to quarantine tuberculosis and typhoid patients from 1880's to World War II... If you want to see some really disturbing pics of the decrepit facility, please click here. Apparently, the facilities built there were even used as dormitories for City College, Columbia University, and Fordham University students, who would take a ferry back and forth to the mainland. Talk about a stressful living situation... Had I know this, I would have never complained about my crowded quadruple room in Hughes Hall at Fordham in my sophomore year. For more background on the island, click here.

Having just learned all this information in researching this post, I have to say I would love if these islands were somehow made accessible to the public. It seems irresponsible to have islands of such historical importance just sitting vacant for some many years.

The BoogieDowner supports Mike Cohn in this impressive effort!

*Photo courtesy of www.correctionhistory.org*

~ErLu