World War II

World War II marks a transition in the history of North Brother Island, which shifted from quarantine and medical care to housing for veterans after the war, then to a drug-treatment center in the 1950s. The novel uses that postwar phase as one part of a longer chronology of changing human presence on the island.

The Island Before and After the War

North Brother Island remained uninhabited until 1885, when Riverside Hospital was established to treat smallpox patients; it later treated people with other quarantinable diseases. After World War II, the island became housing for war veterans. This change placed the island in a new role after its years as a site of institutional medical care.

A Postwar Phase in a Longer Chronology

The veterans’ housing was one stage in a sequence rather than the island’s final use. In the 1950s, it became a treatment center for drug addicts, which eventually closed because of corruption among the staff. By 1981, the former patients, veterans, and people treated there were gone; the island was known instead as a nesting colony for black-crowned night herons. The postwar reference thus helps establish how often the island’s human purpose changed.

Narrative Significance

The brief mention of World War II anchors the island’s history in a recognizable national chronology, while the surrounding account emphasizes local transformations: hospital, veterans’ housing, treatment center, and wildlife refuge. The war is not presented as the cause of every change, but as a temporal hinge in the island’s succession of uses.