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  • The Paris Review

    The Birds at Rikers Island

    by Violaine Huisman May 16, 2018 4 minutes
     

    In order to get to Rikers Island, you must cross a bridge that rises steeply, hiding the other side from view.

    A sign in brightly colored cursive reads: HAVE A NICE TOUR!

    At the top of a wooden staircase, you present your ID in exchange for a numbered badge. The exchange evokes travel: ferry ticket counters, border-patrol booths. I expect to smell the ocean. Instead, there is a pungent odor of sewage, for which Tommy Demenkoff, who runs arts education programs for the department of corrections, apologizes. It’s not usually like that.

    Tommy drives our group—Nikos Karathanos, ten company members performing in at St Ann’s Warehouse, and me—to the island in a white and blue corrections van. On the way over, to our

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