New York (CNN) The New York City Council voted overwhelmingly to close Rikers Island jail Thursday and open four new borough-based facilities instead.

"Today is a day that the history books will look back on as a good day for New York City," Council Speaker Corey Johnson said. "This is a step forward, this is progress, this is the right thing to do."

The jail, which is on an island in the East River, has become a symbol of the ills of pretrial detention, most famously in the case of Kalief Browder . Browder took his own life after spending three years incarcerated at Rikers Island without being convicted of a crime.

The jail is also notorious for its violence and poor conditions. The US attorney's office for the Southern District of New York reached a settlement with the city in 2015 after a multi-year investigation found adolescent inmates were not protected from "the rampant use of unnecessary and excessive force by New York City Department of Correction staff and violence inflicted by other inmates."

Councilmember Robert Holden, a Democrat from Queens, was among the few to voice opposition to the plan.

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