Ward's Island takes its name from Jasper and Bartholomew Ward, who
formerly owned it. It comprises an area of about two hundred acres, and
is owned in about equal portions by the Commissioners of Emigration and
the Department of Charities and Corrections. It is separated from New
York by the Harlem River, from Blackwell's and Long islands by that
portion of the East River known as Hell Gate, and from Randall's Island
by a narrow strait called Little Hell Gate. It lies a little to the
northeast of Blackwell's Island, about half a mile from it, and is the
widest of the three islands in the East River.
The Emigrant Hospital is described in another chapter.
The new Lunatic Asylum is located on the extreme eastern portion of the
island.
Between the Emigrant Hospital and the Lunatic Asylum is the New York
Inebriate Asylum, a handsome brick edifice, three stories in height, with
a frontage of 474 feet, and a depth of 50 feet. It is provided with
every convenience, is supplied with the Croton water, and has
accommodations for 400 patients. The patients consist of those who
either seek the Asylum voluntarily or are placed there by their friends,
and who pay for their accommodations, and those who are sent to the
institution by the police authorities for reformation. The treatment is
moral as well as physical. The physician's efforts to repair the ravages
of dissipation in the physical system are supplemented by the labors of
the chaplain and the other officers of the institution, who seek to
revive in the patient a sound, healthy morality, which they strive to
make the basis of his reformation.