Long Island, situated in Quincy Bay in the middle of Boston Harbor, and one of the Boston Harbor Islands in Massachusetts, is part of the City of Boston. It is only accessible by road only over a 4,175 foot causeway ^[1] from the Squantum peninsula of North Quincy to Moon Island and from there, over a 3,050 foot two-lane steel bridge from Moon Island to Long Island. This road is also called the Long Island Viaduct. The island is 1.75 miles long and covers 225 acres.

Long Island was used and populated by Native American Indians, and in the American colonial period, the island was granted to the City of Boston. It was leased sometime after that by tenant farmers and then later sold to them. During King Philip's War, Christian Indians were re-settled from Deer Island to relieve its overcrowding and conditions of starvation.

During the American Revolution, patriots built defensive batteries and confrontations followed. In 1794, A lighthouse was built on the northern head of the island, replaced by a bigger tower in 1819. It was later relocated to fit in with coastal fortifications.

Military use was started again during the Civil War when the island was a camp for conscripts and armament was installed. In the early Endicott Period, the defenses were modernized but were not subsequently used.

A resort hotel was located in the center of the island in the 1800s and a Portuguese fishing community grew on the shore.[2]

In 1882 the City of Boston took occupancy of the island for institutional care facilities: firstly an Almshouse, later a residence for unwed mothers, a chronic disease hospital, a nursing school and institutional farm.

Until the 1950s when a bridge was built from the adjacent Moon Island, the only transportation access to the island was by boat. The dedication plaque at the outbound entry to this bridge at Squantum, says it was built in 1950-1951 by the Institutions Department of the City of Boston, and calls it the "Long Island Viaduct". Moon Island is connected to the mainland Squantum peninsula of North Quincy by a causeway.

Long Island is currently used to support social service programs, as it has since 1882, contained in Boston Public Health Commission [3] Long Island Health Campus facilities in 19 buildings on 35 acres. This large campus of buildings presently houses the Long Island Shelter [4] [5] for the homeless in the Tobin Building since 1983, Project S.O.A.R. [6] in the Administration Building since the Fall of 1995, Pine Street Inn's [7] Anchor Inn, Andrew House (which moved there in 1987 from Dorchester, Massachusetts), and others. There are many buildings that are not in use which were once very active. Examples of these are The Curley Building (which once housed a performing arts auditorium for the population), Our Lady of Hope Chapel, and a crematorium, amongst others. Most of the campus was connected by tunnels as were most hospitals and universities at the time.

Boston Fire Department's Engine Company 54 [8] station house is located right on the island, adjacent to the campus.

Historical buildings and cemeteries dating from the Civil War to the Cold War can be found on the island, along with a large checkered red and white pattern water tower used as a navigational aid by the FAA for navigation into Logan International Airport. There is also a working farm.

Unlike most of Boston's harbor islands, Long Island is closed to the general public. There are the remains of Fort Strong and its parade ground, the Long Island Head Light [9] which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and an abandoned NIKE missile base near the southwest end of the island.

A comprehensive list of most buildings and structures on Long Island follows. [10]

• Buildings
  • NIKE missile facilities (2 buildings - vacant)
  • Department of Environmental Protection and Boston Edison Air Monitoring Stations
  • Farm and greenhouse
  • Laundry building
  • Garage
  • Fire house
  • Morris building
  • Curley recreation building (vacant)
  • Tobin building
  • MacGillivray building
  • Wards A B C D
  • Richards building
  • Laboratory and morgue (vacant)
  • Incinerator, (behind morgue - vacant)
  • Power house
  • Administration building
  • Nichols building
  • Our Lady of Hope Chapel
  • Building 6 (vacant)
  • Nurses Building (vacant)
  • Sewerage treatment plant
  • Fort Strong power house, incinerator, and tower
  • Long Island Head Light (lighthouse) [11]

• Fortifications
  • Fort Strong: Battery Ward, Battery Hitchcock, Battery Drum, Battery Bassinger, Battery Smyth, Battery Taylor, Battery Stevens

• Other Structures
  • Viaduct (bridge - not open to public)
  • Pier (not open to public)
  • Civil War monument and cemetery
  • hospital cemetery (3,000)
  • unmarked cemetery
  • water tower
  • MWRA (Massachusetts Water Resources Authority) Shaft
  • granite block seawall.

• Cole, William I., "Boston's Pauper Institutions", The New England Magazine, Volume 24, Issue 2, April 1898 [12]

• Boston Harbor Islands factsheet on Long Island
• Fact sheets on Boston Harbor Islands
• Lighthouse on Long Island, Boston Harbor
• Map of Long Island, and Moon Island
• Article on Boston's Almshouse on Long Island in the 1800's
• Military page on Fort Strong, Long Island, Boston.
• Map of Fort Strong, Long Island, Boston, 1905.
• Long Island Head Light(house), Boston.

42°19′12.06″N 70°57′56.70″W / 42.3200167°N 70.9657500°W / 42.3200167; -70.9657500