U Thant Island

Listen first. Out on the East River, the water slaps against concrete and rock. Gulls call overhead. Somewhere beneath your feet, if you are near the shore, a subway train rumbles through the dark. Now look for a small patch of green in the middle of the current, south of Roosevelt Island and across from the United Nations. It is low and scruffy. A few shrubs, a few trees, a lot of birds. That modest speck is U Thant Island. It is one of the oddest pieces of land in New York.

Here is the first surprise. This island is not natural. Nobody sailed past it centuries ago and gave it a name. It was made by people, almost by accident, from rock pulled out of the ground below the river. Before that, there was only a dangerous reef just under the surface. Boatmen knew it as a hazard. Today the reef carries a little island on its back, and the island carries a story that runs from tunnel engineers to spiritual teachers to a stubborn artist with a rowboat.

The story begins underground. In the late nineteenth century, New York and Queens were growing fast, but the East River stood between them. Engineers planned a tunnel under the water for trolley cars. The project was first backed by William Steinway, the piano maker, whose factory and company town sat in Queens. Work was hard and slow. The project stalled after serious setbacks, including a deadly accident. For years, the half-dug tunnel simply waited in the rock.

In the early twentieth century, the financier August Belmont Junior took over the project. Belmont was already a central figure in building the city's first subway. Under his money and direction, the tunnel was finished. Crews blasted and dug through the bedrock, and they needed somewhere to put the spoil. Some of it was piled on the reef in the middle of the river. Over time, that pile became solid ground. For decades, people called it Belmont Island, after the man who paid for the digging.

And the tunnel? You may have ridden through it. The old Steinway Tunnel did not stay a trolley route. It later became part of the subway system. Today it carries the number seven train between Manhattan and Queens. So if you have taken the seven under the river, you have passed through the same rock that built this island. It is a quiet link most riders never think about. The island sits above the tunnel, a little monument made of its own waste.

For much of the twentieth century, the island was mostly ignored. It was too small for buildings and too exposed for anything useful. It belongs to the State of New York. Ships passed it. Commuters on the river ferries glanced at it. Nobody lived there, and nobody really visited. It was just a navigation marker in a crowded waterway, a lump of rock and weeds with a light to warn boats away. Then, in the 1970s, it found a new and unexpected purpose.

A group of followers of Sri Chinmoy, an Indian spiritual teacher who led meditation sessions for diplomats and staff at the United Nations, took an interest in the island. They arranged to look after it and gave it a new name. They chose to honour U Thant, the diplomat from Burma, now Myanmar, who served as the third Secretary-General of the United Nations through the 1960s. He was known for his calm manner and his Buddhist faith. Sri Chinmoy had admired him deeply.

Why name a rock in the river after a diplomat? Look across the water and the answer becomes clear. The island sits almost directly in front of the United Nations headquarters, with its tall slab of glass and its row of flags along First Avenue. U Thant spent his working years in that building. Giving his name to the island was a gesture of peace placed in the line of sight of the world's diplomats. The name has stayed, even though few people on shore know who U Thant was.

Now for the second surprise. In 2004, a Brooklyn artist named Duke Riley decided to claim the island. He rowed out at night in a small boat and planted a flag, declaring the island his own independent territory. It was part art project, part joke, part comment on who owns the edges of a city. The timing was bad. Security around the city was tight, and the Coast Guard stopped him. He was let go, but the island briefly became famous as a tiny, imaginary nation.

That episode is a good reminder of one simple rule. You cannot visit U Thant Island. It is closed to the public, and landing there is not allowed. Part of the reason is safety, because the currents here are strong. The other part is the birds. Over the years, the island has become a nesting place for waterbirds, especially double-crested cormorants. These dark, long-necked birds dive for fish and then stand on the rocks with their wings spread out to dry.

So the island now has a third life, as a small refuge in the middle of one of the busiest cities on Earth. On a warm day, you may see cormorants crowded on the shoreline, or circling low over the water. Their droppings turn some of the rocks pale. The trees are thin and battered by wind. It does not look like a garden. It looks like a place left alone, and that is exactly why the birds choose it. Few corners of New York are this undisturbed.

The best way to see the island is from the shore or from the water. The southern tip of Roosevelt Island gives a close, clear view. Across the river in Queens, the waterfront parks of Long Island City also look straight toward it, with the Manhattan skyline behind. The East River ferries pass nearby, and from the deck you can see the island at water level. Bring binoculars if you have them. The birds and the small light marker are much easier to see up close.

Take one more look before you go. A pile of tunnel rubble. A name chosen for peace. A flag planted by an artist. A colony of birds drying their wings. All of it fits on a patch of ground smaller than a city block. Behind it, the towers of Midtown rise, and the river keeps moving south toward the harbour. As you walk away, listen again for the ferry engines, the gulls, and perhaps a train passing deep below.