THE CONTESTED CONTOURS OF ISOLATION

Twelve years after the official inauguration of Central Park, a distinct kind of immersive landscape materialized in New York’s harbor, albeit one designed to isolate the ‘contagious’ bodies of the newcomers. By 1870, New York Harbor had become the second busiest port in the world, receiving unprecedented waves of immigrants. Faced with the constant threat of epidemic outbreaks, the Federal Government ordered the construction of two artificial islands—Hoffman and Dix (later to be renamed Swinburne)—that, together with the existing Staten Island and North and South Brother Islands,would redefine the concept of quarantine into a territorial strategy of surveillance, confinement and segregation.

By comparing the strategies implemented in each of the islands that conformed New York's complex quarantine infrastructure, I seek to explore the role of landscape design in the materialization of this complex mechanism of social control. A unique moment in New York’s history, which traces can still be found in the new wilderness that has emerged over the ruins of Hoffman’s and Swinburne’s quarantine structures, or in the pastoral landscapes of Staten Island’s Memorial Green.