Shooters Island in Newark Bay, near Staten Island, is so-called because the Dutch supposedly went there to shoot wild geese. Its industrial use resulted in filling and expansion of the area of the island from its original six acres to upwards of 42 acres today, it lies on the border between New York and New Jersey.
The island was used to exchange messages during the American Revolution. The first firm use of the island was the Shooter’s Island Petroleum Refining and Storage Company. They erected a refinery, storage building, a cooper and barrel house, engine rooms, still, and other smaller buildings.
The island’s use as a refinery continued through the second half of the nineteenth century, when, in about 1899, Townsend and Downey opened their shipyard.
The primary product of this shipyard was cruising and racing yachts, including the Atlantic, which set a transatlantic record in 1905, and the Meteor III, which was built for Kaiser Wilhelm of Prussia in 1902.
Meteor III was christened by Alice Roosevelt, the daughter of President Theodore Roosevelt. Morton and Downey operated this shipyard until 1906.
At the start of World War One, Standard Shipbuilding Corporation began building steel cargo ships, constructing at least 29 vessels before suspending operations in 1920.
Abandoned, scuttled and broken vessels began to accumulate around the perimeter of the island by 1930.
Since Standard Shipbuilding closed, there has been no formal use of the island, although it continued to be occupied and used in a casual manner.
Most notably, Shooter’s Island has been used as a dumping ground for abandoned disused, and obsolete vessels.
Today is has been reserved for a bird sanctuary. It’s owned by the the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation and the Audubon Society manages wildlife research there.
At its peak in 1995, the island supported 400 nesting pairs of herons, egrets, ibis and 121 nesting pairs of double-crested cormorants.
This essay is excerpted with minor editing for clarification from Target Investigations in Connection with the New York and New Jersey harbor Navigation Project, May 2004, prepared for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New York District, by Andrew D.W. Lydecker and Stephen R. James, Jr. of Panamerican Consultants, Inc.
Illustrations, from above: Shooters Island from the Bayonne Bridge (photo courtesy Wikipedia user Jim Henderson); Kaiser Wilhelm II of Prussia’s new yacht Meteor III at Shooters Island NY, 1902 (Library of Congress); and an aerial view, looking northeast up Newark Bay showing Shooters Island when it was a ship graveyard (January 1985 photo by Charles Wisniewski).
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