Ryker's Island - Fictional Location History

Fictional Location History

Ryker's Island is named after Abraham Rycken (a Dutch settler in the 17th century) and was owned by his family up to 1884. The name of the Island ended up evolving to Ryker's Island. The island was then converted into a military training ground during the American Civil War. The Riker family produced a military leader of their own in the person of John Lafayette Riker (1822–1862) who led the 62nd New York Volunteer Regiment and was killed at the Battle of Fair Oaks.

In 1884, the Riker's family sold the island to New York City and it was converted into a jail farm. In 1932, New York City converted it into a prison for men. The original penitentiary building was completed in 1935, remaining in use to 2000. Since the island was only 90 acres (360,000 m2) in size, by the 1950s the facilities were overflown with prisoners.

By 1954, landfill had been added to the island artificially expanding it 415 acres (1.68 km2) in size with its jail facilities expanded accordingly. Ryker's Island now held prisoners of both sexes. By the early 1990s, Ryker's Island had been overflown with prisoners again. This time, the authorities added a barge that will be able to accommodate 800 prisoners.

Ryker's Island has a long history of corrections officials abusing their authority. There were illegal strip-searches of nonviolent inmates, beatings, indifference or encouragement of violence among inmates have all been reported over the years. Repeated indictments or convictions of the prison personnel have failed to resolve the problem.

Ryker's Island has plenty of security cells so that each one is designed specially for each super-prisoner ranging from Spider-Man's enemies, the Avengers' enemies, and the Fantastic Four's enemies. This was where supervillains were held before constructions of the Vault and the Raft.