Roosevelt Island

Instead of seeing Time's Square or Central Park, the last thing we did in NYC was visit Roosevelt Island. This place was another Alexandra recommendation. Roosevelt Island is a literal island in the middle of the East River, but you can easily get there by subway. I don't remember it being difficult at all, but remember I became an expert navigating metros thanks to Russia ;)

Throughout the 19th century the island was home to hospitals, most notably a small pox hospitals whose skeletal remains still stand on the island, a prison, and eventually The New York City Lunatic asylum. The octagon tower of the asylum still remains as well and was refurbished into apartments. Shocking to know that I really wanted to visit this island to see the remains of the small pox hospital. The building is actually a lot smaller in person than I was expecting, and there is a fence surrounding it so you can't get close, but it was still worth it to visit the island.

If ruins of buildings aren't your thing, the island has really spectacular views of the city, and the UN headquarters aren't far from it. If we ever make it back to NYC (which I hope we do because we barely made a dent in what we saw), I need to go back to this island. We only saw the southern part of it, but when I was looking at Google maps there is a lighthouse at the northern tip, which seems like it would be worth checking out. I'd also like to see the Octagon because that is something we also missed on our trip.