High Island is a small, uninhabited, privately-owned island, part of the

Pelham Islands The Pelham Islands are a group of islands in western Long Island Sound that belonged to Thomas Pell in the 17th century. The islands, and most of the surrounding area, were purchased from the Siwanoy Indians by Pell in 1654, creating Pelham Ma ...

the Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. It lies east of the north end of City Island between

City Island Harbor City Island Harbor is the protected body of water between City Island and Hart Island in the Bronx, New York City, open to Long Island Sound at its northern and southern extremities. It is not a true harbor, but a sound. Other minor islands in ...

and Pelham Bay in Long Island Sound. It is connected to City Island by a

sandbar In oceanography, geomorphology, and geoscience, a shoal is a natural submerged ridge, bank, or bar that consists of, or is covered by, sand or other unconsolidated material and rises from the bed of a body of water to near the surface. ...

that emerges at very low tide, as well as by a small private bridge. Previously used as a stone quarry and then a summer resort, the island today is used to support two radio station

transmitter In electronics and telecommunications, a radio transmitter or just transmitter is an electronic device which produces radio waves with an antenna. The transmitter itself generates a radio frequency alternating current, which is applied to the ...

s and

antennas In radio engineering, an antenna or aerial is the interface between radio waves propagating through space and electric currents moving in metal conductors, used with a transmitter or receiver. In transmission, a radio transmitter supplies an ...

History

High Island was once known as Shark Island due to the many

sand shark Sand sharks, also known as sand tiger sharks, gray nurse sharks or ragged tooth sharks, are Lamniformes, mackerel sharks of the family (biology), family Odontaspididae. They are found worldwide in temperate and tropical waters. The three specie ...

s which used to swim in the nearby waters of Pelham Bay. The island is comparatively high with a shape similar to a gumdrop, thus alluding to the origin of its present-day name. Elisha King purchased the island in 1829 to quarry stones. During the 1920s the Miller family operated a community of summer rental cottages catering to about 40 families. In October 1960, the National Broadcasting Company purchased the island and acquired its deed, with plans to construct a

radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmi ...

transmission tower.

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

later purchased half of NBC's interest, creating a

joint venture A joint venture (JV) is a business entity created by two or more parties, generally characterized by shared ownership, shared returns and economic risk, risks, and shared governance. Companies typically pursue joint ventures for one of four rea ...

. After over two years of construction, the new tower and supporting structures housing the transmitters for

WNBC WNBC (channel 4) is a television station in New York City, serving as the flagship of the NBC network. It is owned and operated by the network's NBC Owned Television Stations division alongside Linden, New Jersey–licensed Telemundo stati ...

(660 AM) and WCBS (880 AM) went into operation in 1963. Prior to High Island the WCBS facility was located on nearby Columbia Island in New Rochelle, New York, and the WNBC transmitter was based in Sands Point, New York. On August 27, 1967, a small private airplane crashed into the radio tower, destroying the antenna and taking WCBS and WNBC off the air, the day before WCBS's all news format launched. Both stations were able to borrow nearby transmission facilities for about a week, until an emergency tower could be erected on High Island. The permanent replacement was built with a second (shorter) tower as an emergency backup. The deed to High Island remained with NBC until 1988, when it was transferred to

Emmis Communications Emmis Communications is an American media conglomerate based in Indianapolis, Indiana. Emmis, based on the Hebrew word for Truth (Emet) was founded by Jeff Smulyan in 1980. Emmis has owned many radio stations, including KPWR and WQHT, which h ...

as part of the latter company's purchase of WNBC. Emmis owned

WFAN WFAN (660 AM) is a commercial radio station licensed to New York, New York, carrying a sports radio format known as "Sports Radio 66 AM and 101.9 FM" or "The Fan". Owned by Audacy, Inc., the station serves the New York metropolitan area while ...

, an existing station which moved to WNBC's frequency in October 1988. WFAN was sold by Emmis in 1992 to

Infinity Broadcasting Infinity Broadcasting Corporation was a radio company that existed from 1972 until 2005. It was founded by Michael A. Wiener and Gerald Carrus. It became associated with popular radio personalities like Howard Stern, Opie and Anthony, Don Imus ...

, while CBS and WCBS were acquired by

Westinghouse Electric Corporation The Westinghouse Electric Corporation was an American manufacturing company founded in 1886 by George Westinghouse. It was originally named "Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company" and was renamed "Westinghouse Electric Corporation" in ...

in 1995. WCBS and WFAN became

sister stations In broadcasting, sister stations or sister channels are radio or television stations operated by the same company, either by direct ownership or through a management agreement. Radio sister stations will often have different formats, and somet ...

in 1997 when Infinity was purchased by Westinghouse.

Current use

, the entire island and two transmitters are owned by

Audacy, Inc. Audacy, Inc. is an American broadcasting company based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1968 as Entercom Communications Corporation, it is the second largest radio company in the United States, owning 235 radio stations across 48 media ...

, which through several acquisitions and mergers has owned both WCBS and WFAN since 2017. The taller of the towers is . The shorter tower is and was built in 2001 to replace the emergency tower erected in 1967. The proximity of these two AM radio stations has, at times, caused interference on telephones and electronic equipment on nearby City Island. High Island is only an AM radio transmission facility. It does not have any studios or tower tenants, other than the two AM radio stations. Both WCBS and WFAN broadcast from studios located at the Hudson Square Broadcast Center in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

. The island is currently uninhabited. A full-time caretaker's residence was in use from 1961 to 2007. The island is currently maintained by the radio stations' engineers and contractors. Advances in broadcast and security technology have made remote monitoring of both the radio equipment and the physical property more feasible than in earlier years where a full-time human presence was required.

References

External links

USGS Report – High Island

WCBS-AM WebsiteWFAN WebsiteCBS Radio
{{New York City Islands Long Island Sound CBS Radio Islands of the Bronx Tidal islands of the United States City Island, Bronx Uninhabited islands of New York (state) Private islands of New York (state)