North Brother Island, home to many decaying and abandoned structures, sits just off shore of New York’s Manhattan borough in the East River. Now home to a few crumbling Gothic buildings, it once housed the Riverside Hospital, and is undoubtedly the creepiest island in New York City.

Largely ignored until the late 19th century, North Brother Island did not see permanent settlement until the construction of the Riverside Hospital was completed in 1885. The hospital was built to house those suffering from infections diseases like cholera, typhoid, and smallpox as well as a constantly rotating staff of doctors and nurses.

In order to keep the island’s patients from infecting the rest of the city’s population, it was kept relatively isolated – a small ferry was the only mode of transport for hospital staff and supplies.

As the island’s population grew, additional dormitories and a tuberculosis pavilion were constructed. At its height during an 1892 typhus outbreak, North Brother Island held over 1,200 patients, many housed in makeshift tents.

Perhaps the most infamous patient of the Riverside Hospital was Mary Mallon, known as Typhoid Mary. A cook at various Manhattan restaurants in the early 1900s, Mary also carried Typhoid. After infecting a total of 53 people she was committed to Riverside Hospital and lived out the rest of her life in an isolated cottage on the island.

Riverside Hospital continued to treat victims of infectious disease and later, drug addiction, until it was permanently shut down in 1963 due to a staff corruption scandal. Over the past 40 years, North Brother has been left to decay into its current horror-movie-esque state and is now off limits to the public.

For more information and some great pictures, check out this blog.

Thanks to Edvado, yusaku and Katerina Korch.

Locations: New York / Categories: Abandoned, Islands

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The canal itself¹ dates back to the 1890s: an abortive attempt to bypass Niagara Falls that barely got started before funding ran out. As the surrounding town grew, the abandoned excavations were used to dump first municipal waste and then, by the 1940s, 55-gallon drums of waste from a nearby chemical factory. Once it was full, it was covered over with clay and soil.

Unfortunately, around this time, local officials were looking for a nice big open space to build new schools. You can see where this is going, can’t you? As well as two schools, hundreds of houses were also constructed right on top of a toxic time bomb. Residents began to notice health problems, and all manner of gunk oozing out of the ground, and eventually the government realised something was up and evacuated the area.

Today, the canal site looks fairly innocuous: the houses and school in the central area were demolished, leaving a green field (surrounded by a 2.4 metre barbed wire fence) and a treatment plant that was built to stop contaminated groundwater escaping.

Just to the west, you can still see the residential roads and the foundations of houses that were demolished.

Street View reveals an eerily deserted scene, with cracked tarmac, faded street signs, and weeds taking over the vacant plots. On the day the Street View car came by, there were some suitably apocalyptic-looking black clouds to add to the atmosphere.

East of the canal, most houses are gone but it looks as though a few stubborn folks have stayed put. It seems quite a pleasant wooded neighbourhood, if you can ignore what’s under your feet.

In many places nearby, new houses have actually been built. Just a few yards from the footprints of demolished homes, and overlooking the heart of the dump site, lies a seemingly brand-new development of apartments; and further north, hundreds of homes surround the site of the 93rd Street school, one of the two that were closed due to contamination.

Love Canal wasn’t the only American community to fall victim to chemical contamination around this time. The town of Times Beach, Missouri, was evacuated and totally wiped off the map in the early 1980s after it was discovered that oil sprayed on dirt roads to keep the dust down was chock-full of dioxins – among the most toxic chemicals in existence. Today, the area is a state park, but you can still clearly see the lines of the streets.

Read more about Love Canal and Times Beach at Wikipedia.

Locations: New York / Categories: Buildings, Street Views

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Yesterday Google released a major update to Google Earth, adding 3D oceans, a Mars browser and, best of all, historical imagery for much of the globe.

In some places the images go back decades, such as this shot of the Las Vegas strip from July 1950.

When compared with the current view you can see how the strip expanded around the airport, which was in the middle of a barren desert.

Manhattan island also has images for many different years, and going back to April 1994 we can see the World Trade Centre towers.

Although there’s a wealth of new images we’ve never seen before, the update also gives us back lots of great shots that had previously been removed.

Way back in May 2005 we posted a stealth bomber that had been spotted at Edward’s Air Force Base, but later vanished with an image update. Now, by scrolling back to March 15th 2005, the bomber re-appears.

Or, if we keep going back until May 1994 we can see a couple of Blackbirds instead.

We can also revisit one of my favourite sights from the Google Sightseeing archives, the SS American Star.

These days it’s almost completely submerged, but step back through time until 2000 and you’ll see it rise out of the water and right itself.

So, get browsing the archives, and let us know what’s returned!

Locations: California, Nevada, New York, Spain / Categories: Aircraft, Buildings, Watercraft

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The Google Sightseeing team was unfortunately on holiday when the news broke¹, but the images were captured by various other sites before Google took them down.

However, you can still see deer in Japan, where Google drivers have managed to avoid a repeat incident.

Google have now issued a statement, complete with advice on what if a deer bolts in front of your car.

Locations: Japan, New York / Categories: Street Views

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As the Street View car drives up 88th Street New York, we see a kid on the sidewalk, who in time-honoured fashion decides to take a truly spectacular tumble from his scooter at the exact moment the Street View camera has a perfect view. Good thing he had his helmet on eh?

Fortunately the kid seems to pick himself up ok, and as the car pulls away it seems that all the kid is worrying about is whether his friends saw him fall off or not.

Little does the poor child know that the whole world was there to witness his embarrassing crash. I expect the images will be pulled very soon…

Thanks to Sweet Gams.

Locations: New York / Categories: Street Views

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Founded in 1960 by Ralph E. Ogden as a gallery for Hudson River School painters, today the 202 hectares (500 acres) of landscaped lawns, fields and woodlands are home to hundreds of sculptures.

New York resident sculptor Mark di Suvero has several pieces here, such as Mozart’s Birthday and Mother Peace (more info and pictures are available at the Storm King site).

Mother Peace, 1970

Di Suvero was in construction as a young man, but after a serious accident started using an arc welder to create large outdoor sculptures incorporating scrap metal and structural steel – like the enormous Pyramidian (this photo at Flickr gives a good sense of scale).

Pyramidian, 1970

Internationally renowned Polish sculptor Magdalena Abakanowicz created the seemingly accurately titled “Sarcophagi in Glass Houses” that we can see here (more info and ground-level pic).

Sarcophagi in Glass Houses, 1989

Another American, David von Schlegell, is responsible for several pieces on permanent display here titled “Untitled”, including this one, “Untitled” (ground level picture).

Unititled, 1969

Not wanting to be left out, the UK is represented by the brilliant Andy Goldsworthy, whose 694 metre (2,278 foot) long Storm King Wall can be seen falling into the lake, and emerging from the other side to take a meandering path through the trees (more info and ground-level photo).

Storm King Wall, 1998

There are many other recognisable artworks dotted about the grounds, including Adam by Alexander Liberman and Free Ride Home by Kenneth Snelson, as well as others that I haven’t been able to find any information about, like this large boat-like thing perched on a small island, or this mish-mash of what looks like huge red tubes.

The Wikipedia page on Storm King is short but to-the-point, whilst the official site would have to try very hard to be any more rambling and wordy. There’s a Flickr Pool with some good images too.

Thanks to Ryan, Wayne Citrin and Adrian Likins.

Locations: New York / Categories: Monuments, Shadows, Structures, Theme Parks

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In my opinion, a spectacular photo opportunity, as this is Columbus Circle in New York City, a famous landmark which is surrounded by amazing skyscrapers – not least the Trump International Hotel and Tower behind the party.

Along with the 44 story luxury hotel, Columbus Circle features the New York home of CNN as well as The Time Warner Centre, two striking glass towers which each top out at 229m. This is also home to a record-breakingly expensive penthouse that was sold in 2003 for $54.7 million.

Thanks to the new imagery which allows for nearly 360 degree views, you can see all of New York’s skyscrapers instead of the first 5 floors of them, so get hunting and tell us!

Find out more about the history of Columbus Circle at Wikipedia, as well as more on The Time Warner Centre and Trump International Hotel and Tower.

Thanks: streetviewfun

Locations: New York / Categories: Crowds, Monuments, Street Views, Towers

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The new system is designed to detect faces in the street view images and blur them out, so everyone looks like they’ve been watching The Ring.

Due to the vast amount of data involved here, the system is fully automatic – which fortunately for us, appears to be prone to making mistakes! For example, it’s not just real faces that get blurred – this roadside advert featuring the face of the Dali lama has also been obscured to protect his privacy rights (although if you move up the street and look back and you’ll be able to make out his face).

It seems that the system really is very good though. Too good perhaps, as demonstrated by this completely anonymous horse in central park.

One of the reasons that Google has implemented this technology now is possibly that the privacy laws in Canada, Australia and much of Europe would not have allowed images like these to be published otherwise, so it appears that Street View will definitely be coming to a city near you soon.

In the meantime, can anyone find any other examples of incorrectly blurred faces? Or perhaps you can recognise someone despite the blurring? Let us know in the comments!

Locations: New York / Categories: Street Views

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The tiny Italian town of Palmanova was founded in 1593, and using all the military innovations of the 16th century was built in the shape of nine-pointed star. You can still see quite clearly how the shape of the ramparts allows the points of the star to defend each other. Originally a moat surrounded the town (which partially remains today), and three heavily guarded gates (1, 2, 3) were the only way in.

<br/> Palmanova, Italy (Wikipedia)

Cannons were most effective when they were fired perpendicular to the walls of the building under attack, and the star shaped design meant that to best position their weapons, attacking forces would have enter the space between the points of the star – where they would be fired on from both sides!

The judicious use of moats could further thwart the attacking forces, as demonstrated superbly here at Naarden, Netherlands.

<br/> Naarden, Netherlands (Wikipedia)

By the late seventeenth-century star forts reached the pinnacle of their development, as shown by this complicated example in Bourtange, Netherlands, which has been fully restored to how it would have been in 1742. Here we can see that the design provides defence in depth, with tiers of ramparts that an attacker would have had to overcome to be in with a chance of taking the fort.

<br/> Bourtange, Netherlands (Wikipedia)

This ingenious design quickly became the gold standard for defensive forts, and went on to spread across Europe and the Americas:

<br/> Fort Manoel, Malta (Wikipedia)

<br/> Fort McHenry, Maryland (Wikipedia)

<br/> Fort Jay (Wikipedia) and Fort Ticonderoga (Wikipedia), New York

<br/> Castillo de San Marcos, Florida (Wikipedia)

The design even reached South Africa, where today the Castle of Good Hope can be seen right in the middle of the city! It used to be on the coast, but land reclamation allowed the city to expand around it.

<br/> Castle of Good Hope, Cape Town, South Africa (Wikipedia)

In the nineteenth century the development of the exploding shell changed the nature of defensive fortifications forever, and the star fort soon became utterly obsolete. Which is why several are today used for completely different purposes – like this example in Slovakia where they now spend their time trying to keep people inside rather than out.

<br/> Leopoldov Prison, Slovakia (Wikipedia)

And finally, what is probably the world’s most famous star fort isn’t actually known for being a star fort at all – as Fort Wood is today the distinctive star-shaped pedestal underneath New York’s Statue of Liberty.

<br/> Fort Wood, New York (Wikipedia)

We’ve previously featured just one star fort several star forts, including Kastellet in Copenhagen, Citadel Hill in Canada, and the aforementioned Fort McHenry in Maryland. If that’s not enough, there’s a whole page about them at Wikipedia too.

Thanks to Dan W, Manuel Hewitt, RB, tom schuring, Stefano Bertolo and Federico Cretti.

Locations: Florida, Malta, Maryland, Netherlands, New York, South Africa / Categories: Buildings, Structures

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The beach-front complex is known as Fairfield, and it nestles in a mere 255,000 m² of land (63 acres). The buildings themselves have over 10,000 m² of floor-space, and contain 29 bedrooms, 39 bathrooms, a 28 m long dining room, a bowling alley, a squash court and by all accounts a $150,000 hot tub!

Outside we can see the obligatory tennis and basketball courts, a modest-sized swimming pool and this ground level picture proves that money can’t necessarily buy good taste…

In 2007 Mr Rennert reportedly paid a staggering $397,559 in tax on this property, and based on these figures, the building has been estimated to be worth at least $170 million.

Read more about Mr. Rennert and his house at Wikipedia. Thanks to Bob and mesmart.

Locations: New York / Categories: Buildings

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