Rebuilding forgotten Burlington Island

The Delaware River island where the Dutch set up the first European settlement in New Jersey is now a tangle of wilderness. Nobody lives there anymore.

A crumbling cement shell swimming with leaves is all that remains of a boat ride for children, part of an early-20th-century amusement park whose star attraction was a roller coaster called the Greyhound.

And a formidable heap of furniture, building materials, and garbage buried by rust and vines is all that's left of the summer homes - once rented by Philadelphians seeking a cheap vacation spot - that were shut down for code violations in the 1970s.

Local leaders have long held grand hopes for Burlington Island, a 400-acre expanse in the river between Burlington City and Bristol that has languished for decades.

They want it to be the tourist attraction it once was - just 150 yards off the New Jersey riverbank and reachable only by boat - and they hope that it could, in turn, revitalize a city that was once a thriving industrial hub.

Much of this has been just talk, but plans for the island are farther along than they have been in recent memory. On Thursday, the Board of Island Managers voted to explore negotiations with a developer who envisions it as a recreational and cultural site promoting local history.

The sole response to the board's request for proposals came from a development company led by Karen Robbins of Vincentown, who said she was fascinated by the island's past. She visited for the first time last spring.

"It was absolutely beautiful - Maine in the city," she said.

Her proposal calls for the re-creation of a Lenape village, with a fort, a trading post, and settler vessels that tell the story of their interactions with the Dutch, Swedish, and Quaker settlements on the island in the 17th and 18th centuries. Museums, educational facilities, gardens, nature trails, and a beach along the 100-acre lake in the southern portion of the island are also part of the plan.

Robbins said she wanted the island "to be a place where we could learn about history in a fun way."

Local officials spoke to people across the country about the project, but Robbins' was the only company willing to come forward in "these economic times," said Joseph Abate, president of the Board of Island Managers.

Robbins and local officials are looking at obtaining grants to fund some of the project.

Development on the island is largely restricted to recreational, conservational, educational, or cultural uses under state legislation passed in 1998.

The Board of Island Managers owns the northern half of the island, and leases the southern portion from Burlington City. The island board is charged with guiding the land's development.

Dutch Walloons fled there in the 17th century, escaping religious persecution. Those early settlers and later waves of Europeans encountered the Lenape, who knew the island as Matinicunk.

According to Burlington City, the island had the state's first recorded African presence - slaves of a colonial official - and the first recorded murder in New Jersey occurred there in the 1670s when Indians killed two Dutch settlers.

In more modern times, it was a tourist hub. The island was a popular picnic spot at the turn of the 20th century, and an amusement park was erected there in 1917.

Fires a decade later destroyed the park, and the site is covered by the lake, created by a company dredging sand and gravel. The earliest phase of the new proposal is aimed at developing a beach on the lake, where trees closely flank the water.

Previous plans, including an 18-hole golf course and an underwater restaurant, fizzled. For decades, a five-year limit on leases on the island put a damper on long-range plans. That restriction was lifted in 1998.

"I think it's ridiculous that a wonderful island should just lie there and waste," said former longtime Burlington City Mayor Herman Costello, who can remember picnicking and playing on the island as a child in the late 1920s.

The permitting process promises to be extensive, given environmental restraints.

Another obstacle is cleaning the island, where symbols abound that it is a place forgotten.

On the Bristol side, for example, a tree has taken root through an abandoned boat that used to carry supplies. Crumbling metal barrels lie nearby. A mountain of abandoned materials - a kitchen sink, bedsprings, tires, and a refrigerator - remains as a reminder of the island's place as a haven for summer homes.

Robbins acknowledged the difficult work ahead, but is looking past the island's disarray.

"I see this as something to make Burlington City a destination," she said.