Protecting the horses that did the city’s work

Before cars, subways, and trucks took over transporting residents and objects around the city, the job was the responsibility of horses. And of course, not everyone treated those horses humanely.

Spending their days pulling streetcars and wagons, horses were routinely beaten by drivers, and they often were literally worked to death.

This prompted wealthy resident Henry Bergh to found the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in 1866. With Bergh at the helm, the ASPCA helped write anti-cruelty laws and built public water troughs for horses (at least one of which still exists near Sixth Avenue and 59th Street).

They also created the first horse ambulance, as seen in the photo above. 

Today the ASPCA is a national animal welfare organization that operates a shelter on 92nd Street where four-legged New Yorkers can be adopted.

Another adoption option: New York City Animal Care & Control, which operates three shelters in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Staten Island. NYCACC doesn’t have the funds and history of the ASPCA, but they too have lots of sweet, loving dogs and cats looking for new homes.

South Beach, Staten Island style

It has absolutely nothing in common with South Beach, Miami, except for the name. The Staten Island version was developed as a seaside resort in the 1880s. A two-and-a-half mile boardwalk went up in the 1930s, and the beach now has amazing views of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.

This postcard looks like it dates to the 1920s. Love the water slide.

The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge is turning 45

Best known for its supporting role in Saturday Night Fever, the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge has been linking Brooklyn to Staten Island since November 1964. Below, a sketch of the bridge drawn before construction began:

Okay, so it doesn’t have the cache of the George Washington or Brooklyn Bridges. But the Verrazano can hold its own.

Until 1981 it was the world’s longest suspension bridge. One end is at Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn, the other at Fort Wadsworth in Staten Island; these two forts are the historic guards of New York Harbor. And after the bridge was built, Staten Island’s population doubled.

The quarantine island in New York Bay

Imagine traveling across the Atlantic Ocean to New York City, ready to start a new life in a new country, only to be diagnosed with a deadly disease and then moved to a tiny spit of land off Staten Island where you might get well but will probably soon die?

That’s what happened to some unlucky immigrants in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Diagnosed with cholera, yellow fever, typhoid, or any of the other incurable, dreaded diseases of the day, they were sent to Swinburne Island at the lower end of New York Bay. Swinburne was specially created in the 1860s as a place to quarantine sick immigrants. 

A hospital, pictured below, and crematorium were pretty much the only buildings on the island. Over the years, many people were sent there, but not many left alive. 

Here’s Swinburne Island today. Changes in immigration law in the 1920s coupled with public health reform rendered the hospital obsolete.

The abandoned buildings and lack of any sign of human life give the island a spooky, desolate vibe. It’s now part of the Gateway National Recreation Area and is a popular place for cormorants to nest.