 Mill Rock as seen fromWards Island Bridge. TheCiticorp Building andBig Allis are visible in the background. | |
  Mill Rock | |
| Geography | |
|---|---|
| Location | East River,New York County,New York, USA |
| Coordinates | 40°46′51″N73°56′18″W / 40.7807°N 73.9384°W /40.7807; -73.9384 |
| Area | 3.5 ha (8.6 acres)[1] |
| Administration | |
United States | |
| State | New York |
| City | New York City |
| Borough | Manhattan |
Mill Rock is a small uninhabited island betweenManhattan Island andQueens inNew York City. The island belongs to theborough ofManhattan. It lies about 1,000 feet (300 m) off Manhattan'sEast 96th Street,[1] south ofRandalls and Wards Islands, where theEast River andHarlem River converge. Mill Rock is located atHell Gate, formerly an infamously treacherous area for ships to pass.
The island was originally two smaller islands when William Hallet bought them from the local tribes in 1664. In 1701, John Marsh built a mill on one of them and the islands came to be called Great Mill Rock and Little Mill Rock.[1]
During theWar of 1812, theWar Department built ablockhouse with two cannons on Great Mill Rock as part ofFort Stevens. This fortification was part of a chain of blockhouses that was intended to defendNew York Harbor and protect the passage intoLong Island Sound against theBritish Navy.[1]
The island was latersquatted by Sandy Gibson, who operated a farm there from 1840 to 1898.[3]
TheUnited States Army Corps of Engineers startedclearing rocks from Hell Gate in the late 19th century. In 1885, USACE detonated 300,000 lb (136,000 kg) of explosives on adjoining Flood Rock; that island had been the most treacherous impediment to East River shipping. It was, most likely, the most forceful explosion in New York City's history at the time; it was felt as far away asPrinceton, New Jersey.[4][5] The explosion has been described as "the largest planned explosion before testing began for the atomic bomb",[6] although thedetonation at theBattle of Messines in 1917 was larger. In 1890 the Flood Island remnants were used to fill the space between Great and Little Mill Rocks, producing Mill Rock.[4]
The island is owned by the City of New York and maintained by theNew York City Department of Parks and Recreation as Mill Rock Park. There is a dock on the southern shore of the island but it has not been open to the public since the 1960s, when there were public events, and it has since been allowed to return to its state of shrubbery. Since about 2008, the island has been home to a nesting colony ofblack-crowned night herons,great egrets,snowy egrets,great black-backed gulls,fish crows, anddouble-crested cormorants.[6] The herons and egrets are thought to have moved to Mill Rock from nearbyNorth Brother Island.
| Major islands |  | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pelham Islands | |||||
| New York Bay |
| ||||
| Jamaica Bay | |||||
| North River (Hudson River) | |||||
Former islands shown initalics | |||||
