Everything about Hog Island New York totally explained
Hog Island was a set of two islands in the
New York area, one shown on the map is the present day Barnum Island, part of
Island Park, New York. The other reportedly existed to the south of Long Beach and Rockaway Beach NY.
Hog Island was a pig-shaped mile-long (1600 meter) barrier island destroyed by a major hurricane. It was off the southern coast of the
Rockaways.
History
Development
The Island Park "Hog Island" was used by the Indians to raise hogs. It later became a small farming area. In the 1874, Sarah Ann Baldwin Barnum (the wife of Peter Crosby Barnum, a clothier, not
P.T. Barnum of circus fame) outwitted a syndicate and purchased Barnum Island for use as an alms house. She had, just days before a deadline, crossed to the island and purchased the existing farm for $13,360 of her own money, and re-sold it to the county (then Queens County, of which at the time the present-day Nassau County was a part) for the same amount. This island still exists today as part of both the Village of Island Park and the Town of Hempstead.
(External Link
)
Destruction
On the night of August 23
1893, a devastating Category 2
hurricane made landfall. By the following morning, August 24, Hog Island had mostly disappeared. New York City's leading hurricane historian, Nicholas Coch, a professor of coastal geology at
Queens College, believes that this has been the only reported incidence of the removal of an entire island by a hurricane.
(External Link)
During the same hurricane,
Coney Island reported 30 foot (9 meter) waves which came inland as far as 200 yards (180 meters), destroying the elevated railroad. The East River rose above the sea wall in the Astoria district. Many residents in
Brooklyn reported water in the streets waist high.
Restoration
In the mid 1990's, after the
nor'easters of December
1992 and March
1993 heavily damaged the coast of Rockaway, the
Army Corps of Engineers began rebuilding the beaches using dredges close to shore.
Research
Professor
Nicholas Coch of
Queens College, along with local undergraduate students, was observing the replenishing of the beaches along Rockaway when they noticed peculiar items along the coast. The group uncovered hundreds of different artifacts including whiskey bottles, beer mugs, and even a hurricane lamp. The majority of the items were dated back around the late 19th Century. Curious about their findings, the group then started to unravel the history of Hog Island.
(External Link)
Analysis
The city of
New York has averaged a major hurricane once every 75 years throughout its history.
Should the city be directly hit by another hurricane of the intensity of the one in 1893 which destroyed Hog Island, the damages are likely to be enormous.
(External Link)
Articles
The Big One by Aaron Naparstek, The New York Press, July 20, 2005, http://www.nypress.com/print.cfm?content_id=13427
Further Information
Get more info on 'Hog Island New York'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://hog_island__new_york.totallyexplained.com">Hog Island (New York) Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
