Riker's Island in New York City is the largest penal colony in the United States. At any given time 15,000 inmates are incarcerated there. Many are awaiting trial, or serving sentences of less than a year, and most of them are held because they cannot afford bail, half of them have bails of less than a thousand dollars.
Formerly known as Hulet's Island, the land was granted to Abraham Rycken (also refered to as Guisbert Rycken) and his family on August 19, 1664 as one of the last official acts of Governor Peter Stuyvesant. It was later purchased by the city of New York, and the first prison opened in 1935. Today, with ten separate prison facilities on the island, it is more like a small city than anything else.
The island technically lies within the boundaries of the Bronx, but it has a Queens street address (Hazen Street, Queens, N.Y., 11370.) It's represented in Washington by a congressman from Manhattan. An inmate who commits a crime while on Riker's Island is handled by the Bronx District Attorney. While incarcerated there, inmates are counted as residents of Manhattan's Harlem district.
Prior to 1966, the only way to access Riker's Island was by ferry. This caused a number of problems for people being sent to the island, lawyers, and employees, because of lengthy delays that could arise due to weather. The city spent $9 million to build a bridge to Riker's, naming it the Francis R. Buono Memorial Bridge some years after it opened. The bridge is more than 5000 feet long, and rises high enough to allow for ships to continue to pass underneath. It also crosses the directly in front of runway 13-31 at LaGuardia Airport, with the approach lighting being located right under the bridge.
The island was originally only 90 acres, but has been expanded using landfill until it is now over 400. It contains its own power plant, laundry, bakery and shops for the inmates.
This scenery creates a small, prison complex on the island. Although many of the buildings have been made using actual photographs as references, and some have been given the same names as the real ones, the scenery is not meant to be an accurate representation of Riker's Island.
Much of the information on this page has little or nothing to do with Microsoft Flight Simulator, but is solely for the benefit of those who arrive at this page while searching for information about Riker's Island.