North Brother IslandUNTAPPED NEW YORK: THE BEST NYC BOOKS OF ALL TIME Few people today have ever heard of North Brother Island, though a hundred years ago it was place known toand often feared bynearly everyone in New York City. The island, a small dot in the East River, twenty acres slotted between todays gritty industrial shores of the Bronx and Queens, was a minor piece of the New York archipelago until the late 19th century, when calls for social and sanitary