South Brother Island is one of a pair of small islands in the East River situated between the Bronx and Riker's Island. The other island, larger and better known, is North Brother Island. As late as the 1960s, it was considered part of Queens County, but is now part of Bronx County. It has long been privately owned.

Jacob Ruppert, a brewery magnate and early owner of the New York Yankees, had a summer house on the island early in the twentieth century, but no one has lived on the island since then and there are no structures there today. It is currently owned by Hampton Scows, Incorporated (34 DORCHESTER RD, ROCKVILLE Centre NY 11570-2022) a Long Island company that dutifully pays property taxes every year but has no plans to develop the seven-acre island. It purchased the island in 1975 for the sum of ten dollars.
The island's dense brush supports a major nesting colony of several species of birds, notably Black-crowned Night Heron, Great Egret, Snowy Egret, and Double-crested Cormorant.
One of the hardest geocaches in the New York area, if not the entire U.S., can be found on the island. It was profiled on ABC World News Tonight on July 6, 2001.
Together, the two Brother Islands, North and South, have a land area of 81,423 square meters, or 20.12 acres.


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