News

Bodies Given to N.Y.U. Ended Up in Mass Graves, Despite Donors’ Wishes

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One died in her multimillion-dollar apartment. Another left $1.3 million to charity. A third was an opera costume designer who took regular trips to Europe with his devoted partner. All three donated their bodies to medical science, and eventually served as cadavers for first-year medical students at the New York University School of Medicine.

Read more… Bodies Given to N.Y.U. Ended Up in Mass Graves, Despite Donors’ Wishes
Victor J. Blue for The New York Times

In a Potter’s Field

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My grandmother was buried in a potter’s field in Erie, Pa., in 1934. We knew little about her life. As a young adult, I located the potter’s field that held my grandmother’s remains. An old logbook in a nearby geriatric home revealed the number on her grave marker; there were no names on the stones.

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New York Stories From Potter’s Field

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As mighty a city as New York claims to be, its power and pride seem nowhere in evidence on Hart Island, a desolate spot off the Bronx shore where the most pauperous and forgotten citizens are buried in tiers of coffins for their eternal rest in a potter’s field.

Read more… New York Stories From Potter’s Field
Alon Sicherman and Micah Dickbauer for The New York Times

Mass graves near Manhattan: Digging up New York's past

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Hart Island holds a unique place in the life of one of the world's most vibrant cities. It is where the bodies of dead people go when they are unclaimed by others.

Read more… Mass graves near Manhattan: Digging up New York's past
Anna Bressanin, BBC World News

New Investigation Sheds Light on Those Buried on Hart Island

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Hart Island is the lonely strip of land in Long Island Sound where the bodies of New York City's unclaimed dead lie in mass graves.

Read more… New Investigation Sheds Light on Those Buried on Hart Island
Melinda Hunt/The Hart Island Project

Unearthing the Secrets of New York's Mass Graves

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Under a New York State law rooted in the 1850s and last amended in 2007, next of kin can have as little as 48 hours after a death to claim a body for burial, or 24 hours after notification, “if the deceased person is known to have a relative whose place of residence is known or can be ascertained after reasonable and diligent inquiry.”

Read more… Unearthing the Secrets of New York's Mass Graves
Victor J. Blue for The New York Times

Hart Island, city’s potter’s field, set to receive Rosalee Grable

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Rosalee Grable’s last wish was to be buried with other poor people in New York City’s potter’s field on Hart Island — an eroding 100-acre spit of land on Long Island Sound.

Read more… Hart Island, city’s potter’s field, set to receive Rosalee Grable
Rosalee Grable

Allowed to Visit Her Baby’s Grave After 12 Years, a Woman Is Told: Your Son Isn’t Here

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The baby boy lived only 90 minutes after he was born on Oct. 23, 2003. Without money to bury him, his mother, Katrina DeJesus, reluctantly signed papers letting New York City lay him to rest. She would not be allowed to visit the city cemetery where the baby was buried, officials told her, because it was off limits, under the jurisdiction of the Correction Department.

Read more… Allowed to Visit Her Baby’s Grave After 12 Years, a Woman Is Told: Your Son Isn’t Here
Kirsten Luce for The New York Times

Relatives Of Deceased Push For More Access To N.Y.C. Potter's Field

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In New York City, there's a little-known island where as many as a million people are buried. It's a public cemetery for homeless people, stillborn babies and unclaimed remains. Visiting Hart Island is a challenge — even for families of the deceased, and now, some of those families are trying to change that.

Read more… Relatives Of Deceased Push For More Access To N.Y.C. Potter's Field
Melinda Hunt/The Hart Island Project

Hart Island

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Hart Island is New York City’s Potter’s field – the place where the city buries its unidentified, its unclaimed and its poor. Since 1875, more than a million people have been put in unmarked graves there. The island is under the jurisdiction of the Department of Correction, which means it’s out of bounds for everybody else.

Read more… Hart Island
©2012 Melinda Hunt/The Hart Island Project

Could NYC’s Island of the Dead Become a Green Burial Park?

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Each year, hundreds of New Yorkers are buried in trenches dug deep in the soil of Hart Island, a sliver of forgotten land in the Long Island Sound off the eastern shore of the Bronx.

Read more… Could NYC’s Island of the Dead Become a Green Burial Park?
Melinda Hunt, “Buildings Among Burials” (2015), ink sketch of Hart Island

Hart Island: the forgotten dead in New York

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The wind and light rain sweeping the docks in City Island, a small island of fishermen in the Long Island sound, east of the Bronx.

Read more… Hart Island: the forgotten dead in New York
Benjamin Petit

Open the Hart of New York

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There is no better way to honor our nameless neighbors than by returning their resting place to vibrant life.

Read more… Open the Hart of New York
©Melinda Hunt/The Hart Island Project

World's largest 'tax-funded mass grave' might be turned into a park

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Rosalee Grable looks out over rows of white pipes, some broken or covered in mud, sticking out of a dirt field. Each tube marks the grave of 150 adults...

Read more… World's largest 'tax-funded mass grave' might be turned into a park
Vaughn Wallace/Al Jazeera America

Officials Object to Plan to Turn Hart Island Burial Site Over to Parks Dept.

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It was a vision to beguile many New Yorkers: an all-but-forgotten island in Long Island Sound that a noisy city would transform into its most tranquil park.

Read more… Officials Object to Plan to Turn Hart Island Burial Site Over to Parks Dept.

Who Should Control Hart Island, NYC's "Prison For The Dead"?

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Speaking before the City Council on Wednesday, New York Civil Liberties Union attorney Christopher Dunn described what it's like to visit Hart Island, where more than 1 million New Yorkers are buried...

Read more… Who Should Control Hart Island, NYC's "Prison For The Dead"?
Janko Puls / Flickr

City leaders debate jurisdiction over Hart Island

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City leaders are debating whether control of Hart Island should be transferred to one of two city agencies.

Read more… City leaders debate jurisdiction over Hart Island
News 12

NYC Council hears plan to turn Hart Island into park

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A push to open Hart Island — the resting place of a million souls — as a city park is underway, with elected officials, historians, veterans and families whose loved ones are buried on the island supporting the idea Wednesday at a public hearing.

Read more… NYC Council hears plan to turn Hart Island into park
©2004 Melinda Hunt/The Hart Island Project

Facebook for the Dead: The Traveling Cloud Museum

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Hart Island lies to the east of New York City and is the largest tax-funded mass cemetery in the world.

Read more… Facebook for the Dead: The Traveling Cloud Museum

An indigent veteran set for Glendale funeral mistakenly buried on Hart Island

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The city made a serious mistake for a veteran deserving of a proper burial.

Read more… An indigent veteran set for Glendale funeral mistakenly buried on Hart Island
RIDGEWOOD TIMES/Photo by Anthony Giudice

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