Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US Und.) Blackwell’s Island Asylum, NYC.

1842		Whip & Satirist of NY & Brooklyn (NY) 12 Mar. n.p.: She was conveyed to ‘the Island’ in ‘the Black Maria’ with oaths and curses.
1854		F. St. Clair Six Days in the Metropolis 64: ‘Don’t you think she had better be sent to the Island’ [...] ‘No, she must not be moved [...] she may recover’.
1863		Criminal Life (NY) 19 Dec. n.p.: A movement is on foot to send her back to the Island, where they don’t furnish the ladies with furs to keep out the cold.
1880		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 30 Oct. 4/1: [headline] How He Escaped from the Island / William Cochran [...] was sentenced to Blackwell’s Island [etc].
1891		J.A. Riis How the Other Half Lives 36: Two hundred and seventy-five tramps had been jammed into the cells to be arraigned next morning [...] on the charge of vagrancy, with the certain prospect of six months ‘on the Island.’.
1899–1900		C.L. Cullen Tales of the Ex-Tanks 355: They told me I was a four-flushing hobo [...] I’d be lucky if I didn’t get four months on the Island.
1920		R.J. Brown ‘Thirty Days on the Island’ in Argosy 3 Jan. 🌐 ‘What did he do to get thirty days on the island?’ [...] ‘I am not referring to the island where the municipality has placed its penal institutions — Blackwells Island.’.
1928		J. Callahan Man’s Grim Justice 191: I landed in Blackwell’s Island to serve a [...] term for vagrancy [...] There were no class distinctions on the Island in those days.
1935		A.J. Pollock Und. Speaks n.p.: Island, Portland prison, England; Blackwell’s Island, N.Y.

2. Riker’s Island prison, near New York.

1866		Night Side of N.Y. 93: It had once been a noted underground hotel, kept by a negro, who has since gone up to the Island or to Sing Sing.
1873		J. O’Connor Wanderings of a Vagabond 278: Weight with the police? You may bet he has, when he can send any one he takes a notion, over to the island, or up the river.
1895		E. Townsend Chimmie Fadden Explains 206: I wonder you want to go to the Island [...] Don’t you know you get pinched if you touched the body before the wagon comes?
1905		H. Green Actors’ Boarding House (1906) 130: He went to the Island as a ‘vag’.
1913–14		E. O’Neill The Web in Ten ‘Lost’ Plays (1995) 57: I’ll have yuh pinched and sent to the Island.
1915		S. Ford Shorty McCabe on the Job 87: The thought of how [...] eager he’d be to get her sent to the Island.
1927		W. Edge Main Stem 121: ‘Ever hear ennthin’ ’bout Slim Jim?’ ‘Sure, he’s doin’ ’is bit up tuh de island.’.
1937		‘Red Collar Man’ ‘Chokey’ 60: ‘Think I’m going all the way to the Island without a smoke?’ he snarled at the screw.
1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 301: The jerk’s a nigger-lover. Let’s send him to the Island. He meant the city jail out on Riker’s Island.
1956		‘Ed Lacy’ Men from the Boys (1967) 68: I once did thirty days on the island for disorderly conduct.
1980		(con. 1940s–60s) H. Huncke ‘Ed Leary’ in Eve. Sun Turned Crimson (1998) 124: It was in jail — over on the Island. I used to watch you in the mess hall.
1994		P. Baker Blood Posse 301: We’ll rock his world when we get on the Island.
2003		J. Lethem Fortress of Solitude 426: Touring the island from every vantage, Dose had seen its works, like a clock pried open.
2012		‘Dutch’ ? (Pronounced Que) [ebook] They still got him under no bail on the Island.
2023		Rayman & Blau Riker’s 88: He had a couple of life sentences, but I don’t know why he was on the island.

3. (S.Afr.) Robben Island prison.

[1893		W. Tebb Recrudescence of Leprosy and Its Causation 94: A VISIT TO THE LAZARETTO, ROBBEN ISLAND, SOUTH AFRICA. ... a singing lunatic in the custody of a warder, and officials connected with the island].
1969		M. Benson At Still Point (1971) 157: Two of them are on the Island now.
1973		A. Fugard Notebooks (1983) 208: Two men arrived on the Island handcuffed together.
1979		M. Matshoba ‘Pilgrimage to Makana’ Call Me Not A Man 108: There are also whites on the Island for similar reasons as the blacks.
2003		F.L. Buntman Robben Island and Prisoner Resistance 152: Africans saw the Island as a symbol of black resistance against apartheid.

4. the Isle of Wight and, thus, the prisons of Parkhurst, Portland or Camp Hill, both of which are situated on the island.

1935		see sense 2.
1956		‘Charles Raven’ Und. Nights 126: I had just finished a lagging on the Island (Parkhurst, I.o.W.).
1989		J. Morton Lowspeak.
2000		J.J. Connolly Layer Cake 67: Childishly abusing them is only gonna make them more determined to send us [...] down the Island for double figures.

5. (US) Long Island, NY.

1936		A.E. Duckett ‘Truckin ’round Brooklyn’ in N.Y. Age 11 July 7/1: There’s plenty of sand and dirt to be picked up at the Island these days.
2010		(con. 1973) C. Stella Johnny Porno 21: he was making all these trips to the Island.