Photographed May 9, 1903.
Thomas A. Edison, Inc.
Camera: Edwin S. Porter
The island is named after Abraham Rycken, a Dutch settler who moved to Long Island in 1638 and whose descendants owned Riker's Island until 1884, when it was sold to the city for $180,000.
The film was photographed from a boat going around Riker's Island. Located on the East River north of Hell Gate between The Bronx and Queens, Riker's Island was the site of a massive New York City landfill operation at the time of the filming (originally eighty-seven acres, by 1939 the size of the island had increased to four hundred acres). The film includes scenes of heavy equipment at work, including pile drivers constructing the seawall and steam shovels unloading rubbish from barges. On one of the steam shovels, a sign reading ''Water Front Improvement Co., 220 Broadway, New York'' can be distinguished at 1:54. Near the end of the film, a narrow-gauge steam engine with five open cars loaded with landfill comes into view [2:00]. The island is currently the site of a New York City penitentiary.
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