Hoffman Island is one of two small artificial islands in the Lower New York Bay, off South Beach, Staten Island. A smaller island, known as Swinburne Island, lies immediately to the south. Created from Orchard Shoals by the addition of landfill in 1872 and named for former New York City mayor (1866–1868), and then-current New York Governor (1869–1871) John Thompson Hoffman, Hoffman Island covers 11 acres (4.45 hectares), while Swinburne Island's area is about 4 acres (16,000 m²). The latter island, also of artificial origin, was originally called Dix Island, but was renamed in honor of Dr. John Swinburne, a noted military surgeon during the Civil War.
In the early 1900s, the islands were used as a quarantine station, housing immigrants found to have been carrying contagious diseases when they landed at Ellis Island. At the start of World War II the United States Merchant Marine used both islands as a training station (which opened in 1938); the Quonset huts built during this period still stand on Swinburne Island.
The other major use for the two islands during World War II were as anchorages for Antisubmarine Nets that fenced off New York Bay from the Atlantic Ocean to keep enemy submarines out.
Read more about Hoffman Island: Post–World War II Plans, Current Use
Famous quotes containing the words hoffman and/or island:
“They sort of Europeanized us all. Before them, our society hadn’t been the Great Society as much as it had been the Revlon Society.”
—Dustin Hoffman (b. 1937)
“We crossed a deep and wide bay which makes eastward north of Kineo, leaving an island on our left, and keeping to the eastern side of the lake. This way or that led to some Tomhegan or Socatarian stream, up which the Indian had hunted, and whither I longed to go. The last name, however, had a bogus sound, too much like sectarian for me, as if a missionary had tampered with it; but I knew that the Indians were very liberal. I think I should have inclined to the Tomhegan first.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)