With deep roots in Manhattan Island, writer/actor Chance Kelly’s own personal New York history dates back over two centuries to the Five Points District from where his great, great, great uncle Honest John Kelly would emerge to become one of the first Irish Catholics elected to U.S. Congress in the dark days of I.N.N.A. ("Irish Need Not Apply"), and would later be selected as the necessary reformer of Tammany Hall in the tumultuous wake of the Boss Tweed era.

But Chance’s exploration into this incredible Island goes back much further than that. Because in association with renowned Dutch author, scholar and historian Dr. Jaap Jacobs, ISLAND™ chronicles the first incredible 300 years of settlement on Manhattan Island, from the schizophrenic voyage of Henry Hudson in 1609, through the resounding impact of interloper William Randolph Hearst who by 1909 has waded into the fistfight that is New York politics while in the process inventing modern media.

ISLAND™ is researched, written and produced by Chance Kelly and Dr. Jaap Jacobs.