In George Appo’s world, child pickpockets swarmed the crowded streets, addicts drifted in furtive opium dens, and expert swindlers worked the lucrative green-goods game. On a good night, Appo made as much as a skilled laborer made in a year. Bad nights left him with more than a dozen scars and over a decade in prisons, from the Tombs and Sing Sing, to the Matteawan State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, where he reunited with another inmate, his father.
The child of Irish and Chinese immigrants, Appo grew up in the notorious Five Points and Chinatown neighborhoods. He rose as an exemplar of the “good fellow,” a criminal who relied on wile, who followed a code of loyalty even in his world of deception. Here is the underworld of New York that gave us Edith Wharton, Boss Tweed, Central Park, the Brooklyn Bridge, and ultimately Hart Island
Michael T. Keene is the author of Folklore and Legends of Rochester, Murder, Mayhem and Madness, Mad~House, Question of Sanity, and now his new book,
NEW YORK CITY’S HART ISLAND: A CEMETERY OF STRANGERS
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Wynn teaches a writing class to male inmates at Rikers Prison, as part of a rehabilitation program known as Fresh Start, and is the editor of Rikers Review, an illustrated magazine featuring short stories, profiles, true confessions, poetry, and humor written and illustrated by inmates.
“Hart Island”, is the story of two people on the fringe of society. Their lives intersect on Hart Island, New York City’s public burial ground. Although marginalized by the rest of society, they come to appreciate each other’s humanity-a powerful action in a world that elevates division and isolation over compassion and respect.
The lost story the Ellis Island Immigrant Hospital saved tens of thousands of lives, as immigrants flooded onto Ellis Island over a century ago. It was here that the germs of the world converged.
By the late 1820’s the Five Points had already been considered a slum where poor immigrant and African American’s came to live and toil amid filthy tenements and converted industrial dwellings.
The clean cut child star with an impish, upturned nose, and beguiling expression was handpicked for an acting career by Walt Disney, himself—Of all the roles he played, Peter Pan seemed most like his alter-ego. He grew up—and worked—in Hollywood, but it might have been his Never-Never land. His is a story in a make-believe world; a world he could never leave behind. He would even go on to win the first Academy Award for a child.
What would become the largest Atlantic storm on record swirled violently from the Caribbean creating a devastating oceanic force that, at its zenith reached 900 miles across and 1000 miles long. It was called Super-storm Sandy.
Hart Island is haunted by the spirits of the dead. It is used as a potter’s field for indigenous peoples. Each grave is dug by the convicts on nearby Rikers Island. Underneath its sandy shores lie bones and death….. It also holds a secret.
Before there was a Hart Island, even before there was a New York City, there was, “The Island at the Center of the World”.