New York's deserted Rat Island sells for US$160,000

Ozzie Crisalli, the Syracuse Realty selling agent, says it was a rare chance to own a unique piece of real estate with a history dating back over 350 years. Originally part of Thomas Pell’s land purchase from the Siwanoy Indians in 1654, the island did not become part of the city until the 1880s.

It was used in the mid-17th century as a typhoid quarantine hospital and was called the Pelham Pesthouse.

It was a writers’ and artists’ colony in the early 1900s.

It was sold by Red Brennen, a retired marine contractor who bought it for about $5,000 in 1972 and used it to store equipment and salvage barges.

It comes with no jetty, no electricity and no power. Much of it is underwater during high tide. Located on City Island Harbour, part of Long Island Sound, the island is zoned residential.

Its buyer can see it from his back garden on nearby City Island.

The land was most recently officially valued by the city at $426,000.

The New York Times suggests the name was related to prisoners, called rats, escaping from Hart Island, swimming with cardboard boxes over their heads to look like bobbing trash, but it is not clear if that is true.

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