Abandoned fifty years ago, a leper colony made famous for housing Typhoid Mary is slowly crumbling as nature reclaims the land. Just 350 yards off the coast of the Bronx, the nearly-forgotten North Brother island served as a quarantine zone from 1885 until 1963, isolating the sick and drug-addicted from the general public. Medical advances have largely ended such practices, but thanks to the Daily Mail, we can peer back in time thanks to some incredible images shot within the moribund structures on North Brother, reminding us of the days when it was safer to warehouse the ill rather than attempt to heal them.

Photographer Ian Ference got permission to visit the island, which is off limits to the public and guarded by the US Coast Guard, and his photographs recall not only the history of the quarantine zone, but of those who spent years separated from their families.