What's Hidden on New York City's Forbidden Island?

What the film says

1. North Brother Island lies in the East River between the Bronx and Rikers Island; public access is prohibited, and the occasional researcher or journalist visitor is escorted by NYC Parks staff.

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2. Mary Mallon was the first person in the U.S. identified as an asymptomatic carrier of Salmonella typhi; George Soper's investigation identified her, and Sara Josephine Baker was sent to obtain samples.

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3. Mallon was forcibly quarantined at Riverside Hospital in 1907 and released in 1910 after promising not to cook.

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4. Working as 'Mary Brown' at Sloane Maternity Hospital, she was linked to a 1915 outbreak (25 cases, 2 deaths) and returned to the island, where she remained until her death in 1938.

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5. By Mallon's death there were over 400 recorded asymptomatic carriers, none detained as long as she was.

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6. Typhoid carrier Frederick Moersch infected more people than Mary Mallon, but after a brief detention on North Brother Island he was allowed to live at home, where the state arranged for his rent to be paid.

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7. Her biographer was historian Judith Walzer Leavitt.

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8. Survivors reported the life preservers were rotten and useless; there had been no fire drill.

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9. Slocum was New York City's deadliest single-day loss of life until the September 11 attacks.

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10. Photographer Christopher Payne photographed North Brother Island from 2008 to 2013.

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11. Black-crowned night herons nested on North Brother Island, monitored from the 1980s, but had stopped nesting there by 2008. The island is now a bird sanctuary.

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