Not far from the glitzy lights and glamour of Manhattan in New York lies an island with a sordid and dark history.
North Brother Island served as a quarantine location for infected patients, including the infamous 'Typhoid Mary' Mallon, from the 1880s until 1943.
People suffering from deadly diseases such as smallpox, tuberculosis, leprosy and others were shipped over there away from New York's healthy mainland population where it was felt they would be a safe distance.
The asymptomatic Mary caused the deaths of more than 100 people she worked for as a cook after infecting them with typhoid during the early part of the 20th century.
She died institutionalised in a bungalow next to the Riverside Hospital on the island in 1938.
Even before Mary, though, the island was steeped in tragedy when the General Slocum steamship caught fire in 1904 and sank into the East River, killing more than 1,000 passengers.
Many of the victims were members of St. Mark’s Evangelical Lutheran Church who were on their way to an annual church picnic.
Bodies were found washing up ashore for days afterwards.
The 22-acre island was also used to house World War II veterans before finally being abandoned in 1963 after an unsuccessful stint as a controversial rehabilitation centre for teenagers.
The teens were left isolated and locked in a room alone, forcing them to go cold turkey to help get off drugs like heroin.
However, many of them felt they were held there against their will.
These days the crumbling, dilapidated North Brother Island remains uninhabited expect for the occasional wildlife such as birds, reports Business Insider.
Many of its building are covered in moss and overgrown shrubbery, adding to the site's ghostly atmosphere.
While much of the equipment once used there, from baths to beds and chairs, has been left there to rot over time.
The island, which is close to the Bronx, has in fact become a recognised bird sanctuary and is a protected heron habitat.
But as for humans it is illegal to visit the place without permission from city authorities thanks to its ruinous, unsafe state.
The island has a smaller sibling next to it, South Brother Island, which has also been desolate since 1909 when the summer house of a brewery magnate on there burned down.
Both locations are also less than one mile away from another, more modern-day notorious island: Rikers Island, home to New York City's main jail complex.
