According to the Making Gay History You Tube channel:
… 167 acres of ruin. 167 acres of shame. This once housed the infirmed, insane, and corrupt. The island the city calls Welfare. For most of the 20th century, Welfare Island was known as the place New York put its undesirables….
… It’s just a little slip of land in New York City’s East River between Manhattan and Queens. Its isolated location made it a perfect spot for places like the Men’s Penitentiary and the Fag Ward. And yet, like so many of New York’s darker, run-down corners, much of the island’s grime and that bad reputation has been swept away, polished away, and forgotten over time.
The island’s had many names and personas. It was called Minnehanonck by the Lenape people. The Dutch called it Hogs Island. The English called it Blackwells Island. New York City bought it in the 19th century as a convenient home for many of its least loved institutions and was formerly renamed Welfare Island in 1921.
After World War II, except for a couple of hospitals, the other institutions were closed and the island fell into steep decline. Scattered with abandoned buildings, it became a hollowed out shell of itself. And yet, after another name change in 1973, this time to Roosevelt Island, that one-time shell has been reimagined, gentrified, and beautified. It’s a place of constantly shifting character and identity, a place full of dark history that’s also a very nice place for a picnic. All of which is to say, the island itself is kind of queer….