We could create permanent affordable housing on Ward’s Island. There is a lot of unused space that’s occupied by an under-censused hospital. It is public land, so it would cost money to build but we wouldn’t have to buy the land. The housing could be affordable, and it could be mixed for formerly homeless people and general community members that are low income, and we could also create amenities for life to be more livable there.
https://rss.buzzsprout.com/2616688.rss?wardsiland
There are no stores, there are no libraries, there are no banks, there are no restaurants, there are no diners — nothing. For the over 1,000 people who live there currently, everything has to be bought somewhere in Manhattan, getting off the bus. What I’m proposing is that a community be created, with businesses that would give people who are going there for sports and other recreational reasons to have somewhere to eat, and allow them to interact with the residents, and that public transportation improvements would follow from that.
The other part that I propose is creating a national museum of mental health. There’s no museum of mental health in New York City, and it would be an important addition to our museums and would give people from other parts of the city a reason to come…
I was writing the book before Mayor Mamdani was elected, or was even a candidate that I knew of, and his election is an opportunity for at least some of what I’m proposing. I know he is a student of New York history. If you’re listening, Mayor Mamdani, I’d love for you to read the book.
Clinical psychologist Philip T. Yanos, the author of “Exiles in New York City: Warehousing the Marginalized on Ward’s Island,” talks about host Amy Sohn about growing up in a place a stone’s throw from Manhattan, Queens and The Bronx that’s been used over decades to house the mentally ill, the homeless and migrants — and that’s now connected through landfill with the sports fields of Randall’s Island.
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