Today In Roosevelt Island History, 1932 Welfare Island Prison Riot - 86 Years Later, Home To Cornell Tech

October 22: ON THIS DAY in 1932, a dangerous riot on Roosevelt Island https://t.co/skHEnFeHOA pic.twitter.com/jbVbBGsvkx

— Brooklyn Daily Eagle (@BklynEagle) October 22, 2018

According to the Brooklyn Eagle:

ON THIS DAY IN 1932, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported, “Police headquarters and the office of Mayor [Joseph] McKee were informed just before noon today that a riot of dangerous proportions had broken out on Welfare Island [now Roosevelt Island], on which the City Prison is located. The mayor was informed that one man had been killed in the rioting....

Click here for the full article and to learn more.

Here's a 1933 image of the Welfare Island Penitentiary

from NYPL Digital Collection.

The Bowery Boys have more on the Welfare (Blackwell's) Island Prison:

... A prison was one of the first things built on then-Blackwell’s Island in 1832. A north wing was added to the prison to accommodate inmates transported from a facility next door to Bellevue Hospital. (The mental patients of Bellevue would make a similar journey to Blackwell’s asylum at around the same time.) The five-story L-shaped building had a granite, medieval-looking facade and 800 cells, much of it filled to capacity through most of its existence.

The prison fomented little idleness. Male inmates from there and the adjoining 220-cell workhouse (essentially a correctional facility for “drunks and disorderlies”) were used either in the quarry or to build many of the island’s structures, including a seawall around the perimeter...

and:

... By the 20th century, gangs of prisoners virtually ran the place. It would become the inspiration for dozens of pulp novels and films, including one actually called Blackwell’s Island.

After a few sorry reforms — including the name change to Welfare Island — produced few results, it was up to can-do mayor Fiorello Laguardia and his hire for corrections commissioner Austin H. MacCormick to raid the prison and transport its remaining inmates to the newly built Rikers Island. The Welfare Island prison was quickly torn down and replaced by Goldwater Hospital, today the Coler-Goldwater Memorial,...

The former site of the Welfare Island Prison is now home to the Cornell Tech campus.