Comment on Facebook Invasive kudzu vines soon took over. Due to its proximity to Rikers and the fragility of its structures, the island is permanently closed to the public, but occasional visitors still get in. Located in the Long Island Sound, Hart Island was used as a Civil War prison camp, with 235 prisoners dying there. Today, the island is home to the Okunoshima Poison Gas Museum – but that’s not what draws most of the tourists who visit the island, which is now part of the Inland Sea National Park system of Japan. When the Russo-Japanese war ended in 1929, documents relating to the plant were destroyed, and the gas was dumped or buried. Santana often sourced the dolls from the trash or traded produce for them, taking them in any condition, no matter how dirty or worn. Used as New York’s Potter’s Field, the mile-long island holds the remains of more than one million individuals, with about 1,500 bodies (and many more amputated body parts) buried there each year. Forbidden Islands: 7 Abandoned Isolated World Wonders
From a mile-long strip of land packed with over one million corpses just off the shores of New York City to a floating fortress in England used by a developer to escape his creditors, these 7 islands are among the world’s strangest. The historic buildings on the island are being torn down to make room for additional burials, which are conducted by Rikers Island inmates. Poison Gas Island Now Overrun with Rabbits
Suspecting that the United States and Europe were producing chemical weapons despite signing the Geneva Protocol banning chemical warfare in 1925, Japan decided to move forward with developing some of its own, claiming a tiny isolated island that they subsequently removed from maps. Workers at the chemical weapon facility producing mustard gas and tear gas weren’t even clued in to what they were creating, and many of them suffered from toxic-exposure related illnesses. New York Island is a Cemetery for Unknown Individuals
As beautiful and creepy as North Brother Island may be, it’s hardly the only isolated island with a sad story that can be found within a stone’s throw of America’s most populated city. Later, the island became the setting of a hospital, a women’s insane asylum, a tubercularium and a corrections facility for boys. Isla de las Munecas: Mexico’s Creepy Doll Island
The eyes of decapitated dolls blink lazily from their perches in the trees on Mexico’s Isla de las Munecas – ‘Island of the Dolls.’ There’s something undeniably terrifying about seeing what look like naked infants – sometimes remarkably realistic – clinging to the branches or dangling from their necks. These incredible images were taken by photographer Christopher Payne for his book, North Brother Island: The Last Unknown Place in New York City. The dilapidated remains of brick structures can be spotted through a tangle of vines in the overgrown forest that has sprouted around them since they were left to decay a half-century ago. Tragically, in 2001, Santana was discovered drowned in the same area of the lake where he believed the little girl had perished. While the exact histories of some can only be speculated upon, like Japan’s formerly top-secret chemical weapons facility and Mexico’s wildly creepy Island of the Dolls, each of these mysterious islands has a fascinating story to share.
