Block Island (Rhode Island)
| Block Island | ||
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| Waters | Atlantic Ocean | |
| Geographical location | 41 ° 12 ′ N , 71 ° 35 ′ W | |
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| length | 11 km | |
| width | 5 km | |
| surface | 25.2 km² | |
| Highest elevation | Beacon Hill 64.3 m |
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| Residents | 1051 42 inhabitants / km² |
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| main place | New Shoreham | |
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Block Island is an inhabited island in the south of the US state Rhode Island .
geography
The 11 km long, up to 5 km wide, pear-shaped island covers 25.211 km² and is located around 16 km south of the coast of the mainland, near the entrance to Narragansett Bay . The southern tip of the island, Black Rock Point , is the southernmost landmass in the state of Rhode Island. Block Island owes its formation to a terminal moraine of the Laurentide Ice Sheet and was formed about 22,000 years ago. The island, surrounded by numerous beaches, is quite flat, the highest point is only 64 meters.
The landscape consists of coastal scrubland, sandy beaches and open grasslands . Around 300 fresh , salt and brackish water pools of various sizes are distributed over the entire land area . Some of them are under nature protection and are resting places and breeding areas for numerous bird species.
Block Island has an oceanic climate , pleasantly warm in summer and quite mild in winter. The average annual temperature is 10.8 ° C and the average annual rainfall is 1011 mm.
The Block Island offshore wind farm is located about six kilometers southeast of the island .
history
The island was originally settled by the Narraganset Indian tribe. They called the island "Manisses" ( Manitus small island).
Block Island was discovered for Europe in 1524 by Giovanni da Verrazzano . The first European to land on the island in 1614 was Adriaen Block , a Dutch merchant captain who explored the New Netherlands , Long Island Sound, and Connecticut River . His notes formed the basis for the earliest map of Connecticut and Rhode Island by the Dutch cartographer Willem Blaeu , published in 1614 , on which Block Island is already drawn.
In 1636, Captain John Oldham came to the island from Boston to trade with the Indians. In the course of a confrontation, the Indians murdered him, which led the English settlers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony to occupy Block Island and kill several Indians. In 1648 the island was bought for 40 pounds, initially settled by 16 families and in 1664 part of the English colony of Rhode Island. During the American Revolution , the island community remained neutral and had trade contacts with both parties.
In the 1870s, a large jetty was built at Old Harbor, in the east of the island, and several hotels were built, which are now on the National Register of Historic Places . Since that time, Block Island has been a popular and exclusive tourist destination.
administration
The official name of the island community is Town of New Shoreham, Washington County (Rhode Island) , but hardly anyone uses it in everyday language. Block Island has 1,051 residents who live in open settlements across the island. There is a somewhat denser development at Old Harbor on the east coast. In the summer months, the number of residents multiplies due to the large number of holiday and day guests.
Infrastructure
traffic
The Block Island State Airport ( IATA : BID - ICAO : KBID) with a 763 meter long asphalt runway is located roughly in the middle of the island . It is mostly used by private planes, but there are scheduled flights with small propeller planes from Westerly State Airport in the summer months . The main means of transport to the island are ferries, which operate year-round from New London (Connecticut) and Point Judith in Narragansett (Rhode Island) and dock at Old Harbor on east Block Island.
Motor vehicles are not prohibited, but the traffic is manageable. In the summer months, many locals and tourists - unusual for the USA - use scooters, bicycles or walk.
There are several marinas on the island, the largest being the Great Salt Pond in the northwest.
electricity
In the course of the construction work for the Block Island offshore wind farm , the electrical infrastructure for the islanders was changed. While diesel generators used to generate the electricity, the island has now been supplied with electricity from the offshore wind farm via a submarine cable . This can save around 4.5 million liters of diesel fuel annually. The conversion enabled electricity costs to drop from 16.82 to 12.44 US cents per kilowatt hour.
Tourism and sightseeing
Block Island is well developed for tourism, there are numerous hotels, holiday apartments and houses for overnight guests. The exorbitant land prices limit the number of holiday homes, which contributes to the fact that serious building sins have been prevented so far. The historic houses have been carefully maintained and restored, new houses were often built by well-known American architects. The well-known architect Robert Venturi built several wooden houses on Block Island, perfectly integrated into the landscape.
Many tourists in the summer months are day visitors, but the island has retained its colonial charm to this day.
Every year in June, the Block Island Race Week , a well-known sailing regatta, takes place in which well-known personalities often take part.
Tourist destinations are the two historic lighthouses , the Mohegan Bluffs and the nature and bird sanctuary in the north. The Southeast Lighthouse was built of brick in 1875 and sits right on the edge of Mohegan Bluffs, a sheer cliff that drops 60 meters perpendicular to the sea. The 20 meter high octagonal tower with the house for the lighthouse keeper standing next to it was added to the list of US National Historic Landmarks in 1997 . Since 1990 the lighthouse and the impressive Nebelhorn have been shut down and replaced by an automatic beacon.
In the north of the island there is another lighthouse that is well worth seeing. Block Island North Light was built entirely from solid granite blocks on the Sandy Point Peninsula in 1829 and secured Long Island Sound and the entrance to Narragansett Bay. The tower erected on the guard's house is 15 meters high. The original construction, which was built in a dune area , only lasted 20 years. Since the dunes are moving, the lighthouse has already had to be moved four times. It has been closed since 1973. Today there is an exhibition open in the summer months about the once very dangerous shipping in the waters off Block Island.
Wrecks and accidents
Numerous ships sank in the waters around Block Island, whose cargo washed up on the beach used to be a lucrative source of income for the islanders. Most of the shipwrecks are still there today and some are accessible to amateur divers as well.
- On May 6, 1945, two American warships and two US military airships sank the German submarine U 853 about ten kilometers west of Old Harbor. The wreck is about 40 meters deep.
- Two other submarines wrecked at Block Island:
- On September 25, 1925, the freighter City of Rome rammed the submarine USS S51 , which immediately sank. 33 crew members drowned, three were able to save themselves.
- On March 18, 1945, the submarine USS Brass sank about ten kilometers south of Southeast Point. This very well preserved wreck is still there.
- On 14 January 1942, the German submarine sank U 123 to under Panamanian propelled flagged tanker Olympic about 80 kilometers southeast of Block Iceland. It was the first time that a ship was torpedoed near the American coast during World War II .
- On May 27, 1932, the City of Chattanooga passenger ship collided with the freighter Grecian about eight kilometers south of Southeast Point in thick fog. Four Grecian crew members died in the accident .
- On March 19, 1905, a little south of Old Harbor, the cargo ship Spartan collided with a rock in the fog.
- Also in the fog on July 10, 1926, the freighter Meteor hit the cliffs at the southern tip of Block Island.
- Fog off the coast also disasted the tanker Lightburne , which sank off the south coast of Block Island on February 10, 1939.
- The legend of the ghost ship, about which even the Quaker John Greenleaf Whittier wrote a poem, has held up to this day. In 1752 the Dutch ship Palatine sailed with 300 immigrants from Amsterdam to Boston . On Christmas Day, the ship was hit by a violent storm on Mohegan Bluffs and capsized. Most of the passengers and crew were able to save themselves on land. However, this did not prevent the wreckers from looting the cargo and then setting the ship on fire. When the palatine was blazing, there was a horrible scream, a woman who had not disembarked in time was burned alive. From then on, the ghostly, burning wreck is said to return every Christmas day. There have been several witnesses up until recent times who seriously claim to have observed the ghost ship. The truth of the legend is doubtful. There has never been a wrecked ship called the Palatine . In fact, on December 27, 1738, the emigrant ship Princess Augusta was stranded on the north coast of Block Island with 350 passengers, but they were not harmed. Apparently truth and legend have been mixed up here.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Weather base [1]
- ^ Encyclopaedia Britannica - Block Island
- ↑ Official website of the Town of New Shoreham [2]
- ↑ Census Tract 415, Washington County ( Memento of the original from April 2, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. United States Census Bureau
- ↑ First US offshore wind farm supplies Atlantic island. iwr.de, May 3, 2017, accessed May 5, 2017 .
- ^ A b Paul Rezendes: The Lighthouse Companion for Connecticut and Rhode Island, Windsor [CT], 2003
