1. But Many More on Hart Island Are Unidentified

Hart Island-City Island-Potters Field-Mass Burial Ground-Satellite Map-NYCA 2016 Google Earth View shows the current trenches

Melinda Hunt of the Hart Island Project has been fighting to make Hart Island visible and accessible –not only for those with loved ones buried on the island but also for public record. The Hart Island project website records the stories of those on the island buried since 1980 and allows anybody to upload information. Records of many earlier burials were lost in fire.
As the New York Times article shows, about 300 to 600 of 1,500 buried on Hart Island a year are used as medical cadavers, a practice which continues today. The article states, “An opt-out provision in the law would seem to exempt the bodies of people who indicate that they do not want to be dissected or embalmed. But few are aware of it, and it may be unenforceable.” And sadly, reports the New York Times, record keeping of these types of body loans is “sloppy; documents show some bodies signed out and never signed back in.” And, cadavers can be checked out for long periods of time – sometimes for years.
Hart Island-Potters Field-Mass Burial Ground-The Bronx-NYC-2
People end up in Hart Island for a myriad of reasons – their own destitution, the destitution of next of kin, a lack of known relatives, abuses in the guardianship system, lost personal records indicating a person’s burial choice, among others. In some cases, people have been lost in the hospital and nursing home system, despite attempts by relatives to locate them.

But family members who are successfully located can be disinterred, and the New York Times article ends with two slightly more uplifting stories. Meanwhile, the Hart Island project continues to record stories of those buried here and make them more visible to the public.

Next, check out the secrets of Roosevelt Island and delve into New York City’s other islands.