Update on April 14, 2020: Hart Island is back in the news for the most tragic of reasons: It’s currently being used as a burial ground for victims of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the time since this post was first published, control of Hart Island was transferred to New York City’s Department of Parks and burials are no longer handled by inmates from Rikers Island. In a recent interview, Melinda Hunt, who founded the Hart Island Project to support families of people buried there, describes the evolving view of Hart Island, which has become, in her view, “a meaningful place in a dark time.”
Off-limit to the public for over 35 years, Hart Island — a mile-long island off the eastern coast of the Bronx — has remained one of New York City’s most closely guarded secrets. It is the home of New York’s “potter’s field,” for those who can’t afford to pay for burial, or whose identity is unknown.
Since 1976, Hart Island has been operated and maintained by the Department of Corrections, which transports inmates from Rikers Island to dig and fill the graves — as many as 2,000 new ones each year, organized into 70 foot long plots that can hold about 150 adults each, or 1000 children. Somewhere between 850,000 to 900,000 poor, homeless, or forgotten people are buried there, making it the largest public cemetery in the world. Yet , aside from the inmates working there, only a very few have ever visited this burial ground.
One obvious reason is that until recently, the Department of Corrections restricted access to relatives in possession of a death certificate. But there is another factor at work as well: in life as well as in death, the mainly indigent and anonymous people who are buried on Hart Island are all too easily overlooked. Photographer Claire Yaffa has devoted her career to focusing attention on the lives of neglected individuals, especially children. In the 1990’s, she embarked on a decade-long project to document the fate of a growing number of “crack” babies born with HIV/AIDs, most of whom did not live to adulthood. Many of these abandoned children were buried at Hart Island, and in 1991 Yaffa was granted the rare opportunity to photograph some burials there. Her images, held at N-YHS in the Claire Yaffa Children With Aids Photograph Collection, provide a powerful memorial to a few of history’s forgotten children, and a singular glimpse of one of New York’s least-visited sites.
This post is by Susan Kriete, Archivist, November 20, 2013.
nice photos, i lived on hart island during 1972-74 in phoenix house
Hello I was on Hart Island from 1968 to 1970 part of Phoenix House. I have have tried to get info and photos from that period on the Island. I know before I left in 1970 we had a International Festival. I also remember we had a resident that took photos and that that was his job. I contacted Mitch Rosenthal about 3 years ago about this. He told me no records were ever kept… that the Department of Corrections held most of it. I was sent from Rikers Island after doing a year for a drug charge. There so much history to be told. I remember decorating the old chapel into a Disco during on of out first open houses. Chief Expediter at the time and lived in the Main building were the offices were located. I had 2 LEs while there so I did learn from my experiences.
I have been told that my grandmother’s first husband is buried in Potter’s field NYC about 1915. I haven’t been able to find his death certificate so I’m stuck on genealogy.
I am also stuck on my tree in genealogy as my grandfather was buried there. No info found so far.
We were offered to have our full-term stillborn son buried on Hart Island. I am so happy that we had other options. He is “home” in the memorial garden of the church we were married in. I can go visit his grave whenever I want. He has a headstone that has his name. He isn’t in a shallow grave with a thousand other babies. We are lucky that we had the means to bury our boy where we did. I feel for the parents who were not able to do as we did. I think of them and their babies often.
There are no shallow graves on Hart Island. It’s simply a place where people were buried if their families did not have financial means or if they were unknown at the time of death. #hartislandsuite
I found out my great grandfather is buried there.
I heard my father is buried there
My father inlaw is also buried there. My daughter was able to speak to someone who told her and she was so happy she finally found where her grandpa was buried. But too much red tape and we heard that family is not allowed but kept away from buried site..
Does anyone know if they are stacked on top of each other? I know it was common for small cemeteries to do that to save room.
Of course they are stacked, at least 3 caskets high
Children are stacked 5 high 20 long.adults 2 high 2 long…. 🙁
I worked on Hart Island in the early 90s, my boss at the time had a contract with the city for temporary Ferry boat service to ferry The bodies and prisoners from City Island to Hart Island, they’re City ferry boat would be in shipyard for two to three weeks at a time every year and we would ferry, prisoners guards and bodies. There was a baseball stadium built their fourth the prisoners back in the 60s and they used seats from ebbets Field, when it was demolished. trying to locate a photograph of this baseball fields if there is one in existence that anyone knows of?
I would call a researcher at the municipal Archives..some of them are super helpful!
Reach me Wayde
What is it like there, and what is it like to work there?
Hart Island has been transferred to NYC Parks Dept. This month. Check out the news…Bronx NY 10465
Is there any way to find out which plot or location to find someone in?
What information would one need?
No. I would hope so, but I certainly doubt it. It’s a mass grave for the unworthy & poor. Do you really think somebody is there keeping track of thousands of records as a volunteer ? IDK maybe, but I doubt it.
Yes, there’s a website: the hart Island Project and it has ppl’s and plot’s basic information.
https://www.hartisland.net/
I have heard that you can but there is a process involved. Does not mean you can visit grave though. Families can have their relative disinterred and brought somewhere else at their own expense and I assume you would need to.have a copy of death certificate and proof of who you are.and your relation to the deceased.
All the money spent on things, n.y. Could spend money remove the buildings on this island make it a nice Cemetery you could have a fairy and charge for people to go over and pay their respects. This would help with the cost an I’m sure millions of dollars would be donated for this cause. It only takes a Politician to use there brain.
I have a brother who died 6 hours after his birth in a Brooklyn Hospital in January 1958.
Since Hart Island became ‘Potter’s Field’ much later on, would anyone know where the Potter’s Field would have been in 1958?
Thanks in advance! Be safe during this Covid-19 pandemic!!
Susan N.,
What information do you have already? Were you able to find any leads if you are still searching.
if need official paper document/ can take a few weeks to a month to get by mail:
https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/services/death-certificates.page
FYI, online searchable databases
Hart Island DOC database
https://a073-hartisland-web.nyc.gov/hartisland/pages/search/search.jsf
Fina a Grave Database
https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery/65710/potters-field
Hart Island Project, records are from 1980 and on
https://www.hartisland.net/burial_records/search
Hope this helps & Best wishes!
Hart Island History (historical & informative)
http://www.correctionhistory.org/html/chronicl/nycdoc/html/hart.html
https://www.hartisland.net/history
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hart_Island_(Bronx)
Hart Island History, historical & informative (google Hart Island, many links will show up)
http://www.correctionhistory.org/html/chronicl/nycdoc/html/hart.html#History2
https://www.hartisland.net/history
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hart_Island_(Bronx)