NYC mayor signed a bill that transfers control of the nations largest public burial ground, Hart Island, from the city corrections dept to the parks department
NEW YORK - A small island in the Long Island Sound that is home to the nation's largest public burial ground will soon be easier to visit and explore.
NEW YORK CITY — More than one million New Yorkers buried in unmarked graves on an island off the coast of The Bronx are no longer a part of the penal system.
Mayor Bill de Blasio signed legislation Wednesday that overhauls the city’s management of Hart Island, the largest potter’s field in the nation where an estimated million New Yorkers were laid to rest.
When the AIDS epidemic hit in full in the 1980s, the city began sending the death victims to a separate area south on the island. "Parts of the unknown story of the AIDS epidemic are buried on Hart Island. It is totally unacceptable that the island is still there as an open wound. We have to go through a process that honors these people." says Melinda Hunt to Blikk.
On Wednesday, December 4, 2019 Mayor De Blasio will sign bills transferring jurisdiction of Hart Island from the Department of Correction to the Department of Parks and Recreation.
Aura—the breath of enchantment—that makes the body of a saint or a unique masterwork of art special is said to be on the wane, done in by technology and secularization. But the bodies of the dead and even their ashes, indistinguishable one urn from other, have lost little of their potency. This lecture explores the ways in which the aura of mortal remains function to create sacrality in the absence of God and other worlds beyond our own.
This event is cosponsored by the Department of History, the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy, and the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society. Part of the Death and After series at IRCPL.
The Hart Island Project annual meeting is free and open to the public. Please join us to learn about our initatives.
