News and Events
News
Tours of Hart Island graves educate visitors on eras from the Civil War through the AIDS crisis
Why tours of Hart Island, NYC’s remote, public burial ground, are a hot ticket
NYC Is Burying More Bodies in Each Hart Island Mass Grave
The Girlfriends Podcast: Episode 3 - Lost and Found
Blindspot: The Plague in the Shadows
It’s the 1980s — Harlem, USA — and the 17th floor of the area’s struggling public hospital is filling up with infants and children who arrive and then never leave. Some spend their whole lives on the pediatric ward, celebrating birthdays, first steps and first words with the nurses and doctors who’ve become their surrogate family. Welcome to Harlem Hospital at the height of the HIV and AIDS epidemics.
The Hart Island Project to Receive NEA for Landscape of Hope
Blindspot: The Plague in the Shadows
NY Daily News - We need a plan for Hart Island: NYC’s public cemetery must include the public
The Unmarked Graveyard: Lamont Dottin
Hart Island, burial site for 1 million New Yorkers, opens to the public
The Unmarked Graveyard Episode Seven: Hisako Hasegawa
Episode Six - The Unmarked Graveyard: Cesar Irizarry
But early in his search he made a disappointing discovery: his uncle Cesar had died. So Angel embarked on a new quest, to learn what had become of Cesar during his long absence.
Episode Five: The Unmarked Graveyard - Dawn Powell
Like many who are buried on Hart Island, Dawn donated her body to medicine. When the executor of her will was asked if Dawns remains should be returned for private burial or cremation, the answer was no. By default, her body was buried on Hart Island. In 1977, the burial ledger listing Dawn was lost in a fire.
The Secret Cemetery
Episode Four: The Unmarked Graveyard - Documenting the Invisible
This week, Alissa Escarce sits down with Melinda to discuss the history of Hart Island and how it’s changed over the last few decades.
Episode Three - The Unmarked Graveyard: Angel Garcia
Stories from Hart Island | LIVE from NYPL
Episode Two - The Unmarked Graveyard: Noah Creshevsky
Episode One - The Unmarked Graveyard: Neil Harris
Like other New Yorkers whose bodies can’t be identified, he was buried in a mass grave on Hart Island, America’s largest public cemetery. For many, that would be the end of the story. But one day, a woman who knew Stephen from the park stumbled on his true identity. This is the story of where he came from, and the people who went to great lengths to try to track him down.
Events
There are no upcoming events
Past events
Community input meeting on Hart Island Master Plan
HIP Meeting in preparation for attending NYC Parks Public Feedback
Hart Island Master Plan - June 18th Community Input Meeting
The Master Plan is centered around the goals of improving access to the island, visitor experience, the island’s natural ecology, resiliency to severe weather events, and operations. Register to attend
June 8 - Annual Public Meeting
Gary Zebrun discusses his new book Hart Island with author Jim Shepard
A Landscape Strategy for Hart Island Information Session
Landscape of Hope offers a strategy for a masterplan and a brighter future for City Cemetery on Hart Island. By developing a burial strategy that recognizes and remembers the lives of those buried, we hope to create a welcoming, healing visitor experience for families and friends while protecting and preserving the island and the cemetery for future generations.
The information session will be led by Jake Boswell, Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture at The Ohio State University Knowlton School.
Bronx Parks Speak-up 2024
Starting in 2024, this project will present NYC Parks with landscape strategies as they begin a masterplan. A landscape strategy forefronts the long-term care necessary for the success of an active, living environment. The relationship between the bio-physical nature or plants and humans on Hart Island reveals the interconnection between human lifespan, public memory, the burial process and plant behavior on the island. We believe this will offer a new cultural landscape for 21st century natural burials while also better adapting the island and proposed parkland to the impact of climate change on the Long Island Sound.
Public tour of Hart Island
Giving Tuesday
The Recollectors' Storytelling Program
Stories from Hart Island
The Hart Island Project Annual Public Meeting
Global Pandemics Touchstone Walk to Remember
The 3 mile Walk to Remember will conclude with a special blessing of the Touchstone at the Cathedral. A service of music and prayer will follow, beginning at 4pm. The stone will remain on view at the Cathedral until it departs early Tuesday morning for Hart Island in the Bronx.
Bronx Parks Speak-up
The Hart Island Project will have a table at Bronx Parks Speak-Up. Join us for our first in person event at Lehman College's Faculty Dining Room in the MUSIC BUILDING AT 250 BEDFORD PARK BLVD. Bronx, NY and learn about our new navigation tools and interpretive guide.
Global Pandemic Touchstone Walk on City Island
On Sunday, October 16th at 2:00 pm EDT, the Hart Island Touchstone Coalition (HITC) will stage the first in a proposed series of bereavement walks to honor the memory of those who have succumbed to the scourge of pandemic illnesses.
The HITC community will pull a hand-drawn carriage containing a granite Global Pandemics Touchstone donated to the Coalition by the nonprofit Peace Abbey Foundation on a course from Pelham Cemetery on King Avenue at City Island to the entrance of the Ferry Dock overlooking Hart Island Cemetery. The quarter-mile bereavement walk with the Touchstone, will bring together families and friends who have loved ones buried on Hart Island and who are seeking to have the Touchstone placed there in their loved one's honor.
HDC Six to Celebrate - Bronx Conversation with Past Awardees
The Historic Districts Council (HDC) invites you to an in-person event to discuss how to assist Bronx neighborhoods advance their preservation goal. If you are interested in learning about the preservation-related priorities of different communities, come hear from previous participants about their experiences with this program, their achievements, and their current priorities in terms of preserving the historic treasures of their neighborhood. The conversation will be led and moderated by Angel Hernandez and Samuel Brooks, co-chairs of HDC’s Bronx Borough Landmarks Committee. Thursday, October 13, 2022 – 7:00PM
The Hart Island Project Annual Meeting
Please join us for a progress report on our mission to open access to Hart Island and assist families and friends of the buried.
We're converting our website to mobile first and adding new navigation and location based storytelling tools.
We need your ideas for how to preserve Hart Island as a National Historic Site and National Monument
Bronx Parks Speak-up
Please join The Hart Island Project to learn about our work to restore Hart Island as America's largest natural burial ground and its essential place in New York City's Green Infastructure
On Hart Island: Past, Present and Future - On Zoom & In Person
The Roosevelt Island Library and the Roosevelt Island Historical Society are proud to host Melinda Hunt and her presentation on Hart Island. Melinda Hunt is President and founding director of The Hart Island Project in New York City. Her work led to ending 150 years of penal control on Hart Island. She is a NYFA/NYSCA Fellow in electronic art. She is a visual artist who works in a variety of fields and settings.
HIV/Aids The epidemic isn’t over!
The exhibition “HIV/Aids, the epidemic is not over” traces the social and political history of AIDS. Taking a retrospective and contemporary look at the epidemic and the mobilisations it has generated, it aims to contribute to the fight against it. Indeed, putting Aids in a museum is not to bury it; on the contrary, it is to reaffirm its relevance, as shown by the title of the exhibition, which takes up a historic slogan of Act Up: “The epidemic is not over!”