I stumbled across Roosevelt Island completely by accident. I was out for an early morning read utterly jetlagged power walk in Midtown New York and found myself walking under what I now realise is an iconic cable car. If I spent an hour there, I spent three. It was an utterly wonderful afternoon of fresh air, a cool form of transport, cats and some history. One of the things I appreciated about the Island after a week in New York City was the fact it was quieter than the rest of the city and is now home to the Four Freedoms Park which is named after the State of the Union.
Roosevelt Island has a mixed history. Many of these buildings no longer exist, but covered in Ivy you can find the Smallpox hospital which was where people in New York who contracted Smallpox were quarantined until a vaccine was found. The Smallpox hospital is crumbling so you cannot look around it, but it has been stabilised and serves as a reminder of the advances which have taken place in medicine over the last or so years.
Roosevelt FDR and combines housing, buildings belonging to Cornell University, corporate training offices and a national park with its own wildlife ecosystem and some pretty cool art. The most well-known way to get to the Island is via the cable car.
This runs approximately every 10 minutes from the corner of 2nd Avenue and 59th Street — by the Queensboro Bridge. Roosevelt Island also has its own Subway station on the F line which you can get to from Manhattan and Queens.
Alternatively, there is an NYC ferry and a bus from Queens, but really get the cable car. This small island is home to a range of sculptures, galleries and at the right time of year, pop-up art. This set of sculptures give you the faces of four women cast in bronze. Each sculpture gives a voice to women from different underrepresented communities. Keeping with the theme that every piece of art on Roosevelt Island has a social message, the FDR Hope Memorial acts as a reminder that the president was and still is an inspiration to people living with disabilities.
