North Meadow
2024
North Meadow
The North Meadow of Hart Island has been used for burials since 1869. In 1872, New York City began using a system of mass burials, similar to those from the American Civil War. Burials in this area consist of 150 people per numbered plot, with each box's position recorded in a burial ledger.
Starting in 1931, the city began reusing plots after 25-50 years, once bodies had fully decomposed to skeletal remains. Most of the estimated 750,000 burials that took place here between 1869 and 2003 are now unmarked. Adult burials were moved to the Southern Plain in 1989.
The oldest intact graves on Hart Island are located in the North Meadow, making it the ideal starting point for the new burial strategy. This new approach involves conducting individual burials one foot above the existing mass graves, without disturbing them. Burials would be performed as needed, once or twice a week, using the method shown in the provided illustration.
The Burial Process
In December 2023, the city expanded mass burials to 200 per trench
In December 2023, Hart Island mass graves expanded. Each plot now consists of two rows of boxes, stacked four high, for a total of 200 per plot. These massive trenches are eight feet deep and remain open for weeks, collecting water. The city's sea-level rise projections indicate that boxes on the bottom of these trenches in some areas of Hart Island will soon be below the water table. This could cause graves to heave, with boxes shifting position and potentially rising to the surface.
Landscape of Hope
This project was conducted in collaboration with landscape architecture researchers at The Ohio State University Knowlton School and was made possible with support of the Lily Auchicloss Foundation and through a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Landscape Design Team Members: Jake Boswell, Jack Gruber, Brendan Ayer and Melinda Hunt
©2025 The Hart Island Project
