News and Events

Hart Island, a small piece of land off The Bronx, resurfaced in national headlines in April 2020, when New York City became the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S.

News footage of the island’s cemetery showed trenches being filled with pine coffins, sending shock waves around the world. But these mass burials taking place during the pandemic mark just the most recent interments in Hart Island’s long history.

Last year on Hart Island proved deadlier than any year during the AIDS crisis. More burials are expected as the disproportionate pandemic impact sends thousands to the final resting place of New York’s most vulnerable.

The federal government will help pay for the funeral and burial of COVID-19 victims whose families can’t afford the expenses, Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez announced Monday. 

In a rare joining of forces, the two New York members of Congress, who disagree on the Democratic Party platform, said that the Federal Emergency Management Administration will tap into the overall $2 billion national pot of disaster funds to cover the costs.

New York State will get approximately $260 million in funeral assistance funds, according to Schumer. FEMA will cover all funeral expenses, which run an average of $7,000. People can file retroactively for reimbursements dating back to Jan. 20, 2020 to Dec. 31, 2020

In more normal times, Scott Green , a lifelong civil rights activist, may have had a ceremonious funeral followed by a burial in a military cemetery in Little Rock, Ark.

Mr. Green was one of the students known as the Lost Class of 1959 at Central High School, where a battle over forced desegregation in Little Rock helped propel the civil rights movement. After he died in April at age 76 with symptoms of Covid-19 in Manhattan, former President Bill Clinton called Mr. Green’s family to extend his condolences….

In 1965, Scott Green became first Black trainee of the local Sheet Metal Workers’ Union, and he would later recruit more Black members and go on to fight racial discrimination, while working on prominent buildings including the World Trade Center, his brother said.

In a somber sundown ceremony at the Lincoln Memorial in a city virtually occupied by troops on guard against political violence, Mr. Biden paid tribute to the victims of the pandemic on the same day that the death toll in the United States topped a staggering 400,000— and almost a year to the day from the first report of the virus appearing in the country.

“To heal we must remember,” Mr. Biden said, standing in front of the Reflecting Pool, which was surrounded by 400 lights meant to mark the 400,000 victims of the virus. “It’s hard sometimes to remember. But that’s how we heal. It’s important to do that as a nation. That’s why we’re here today. Between sundown and dusk, let us shine the lights in the darkness along the sacred pool of reflection and remember all whom we lost.” 

If all goes according to plan, Hart Island, the city’s public cemetery, will become the site of a memorial for New Yorkers who died of COVID-19 as well as thousands of others lost to the Spanish flu, AIDS and other mass casualty events.

Details are still being ironed out, but city officials say that work on the memorial will begin in earnest once Hart Island is placed under the authority of the city’s Parks and Recreation Department on July 1, 2021.

No one knows who will be carried across the water to Hart Island on the next waves of the dead. No one knows who will be brought back from its anonymous earth by shovel-bearing workers in hazmat suits. This summer, reporter William Hennigan was granted unprecedented access to Hart Island to observe burial and exhumation operations and, on June 26, witnessed the retrieval and formal reburial of casket 40-3 and its occupant, Ellen F. Torron. This is her story.

As #Covid19 victims are laid to rest in NYC's public cemetery — the largest mass grave in the U.S. — the Hart Island Project aims to support their families and increase awareness of the island's history

Coronavirus has created a grim new reality at the nation’s largest mass grave. 

Only 11 miles from Manhattan, Hart Island has been the final resting place for New York’s unclaimed and poor for over a century. The island off the Bronx was thrust into the national spotlight in early April, after the city announced it would be using the public cemetery to inter unclaimed victims of covid-19.

Occupying 131 acres in Long Island Sound, off the Bronx shore, Hart Island is the largest public burial ground in the United States. It has been New York City’s public burial ground for more than 150 years. Amid the coronavirus pandemic, it is being pressed into service as a temporary resting place for deceased New Yorkers whose families could not retain a funeral home.

Some have called it a home for mass graves, but for more than a hundred years, Hart Island has been the city’s public cemetery.

Melinda Hunt, president of the Hart Island Project, a nonprofit which works to increase access to the island said the site is a well-managed public burial ground which has operated for generations.

They died poor and unclaimed and before their lives began. They died but before they died, they left their flesh, their eyes to science. They died lost to themselves or lost to others, loved or barely liked, in secret or on the street or without telling anyone that they were dying.

Historically, the island — the world’s largest tax-funded cemetery — has operated under the purview of the Department of Corrections (DoC), which pays Rikers Island inmates $1 an hour to handle the area’s many bodies. The bill, which Mayor Bill de Blasio signed into law earlier this month, will transfer control of Hart Island to the New York City Parks Department.

NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — Mayor Bill de Blasio has signed a bill making Hart Island, the largest public burial ground in the nation, a city park.

NEW YORK - A small island in the Long Island Sound that is home to the nation's largest public burial ground will soon be easier to visit and explore.

The Hart Island Project will have a table at HDC Preservation conference. Please stop by and let us answer you questions about the transfer of Hart Island to Parks: 524 W 59th St, New York, NY 10019

Please visit The Hart Island Project table at the annual Bronx Parks Speakup. We will have a table from 11 am to 12:30 pm to answer your questions about the newest Bronx park: Hart Island. We look forward to seeing you soon.

Aura—the breath of enchantment—that makes the body of a saint or a unique masterwork of art special is said to be on the wane, done in by technology and secularization. But the bodies of the dead and even their ashes, indistinguishable one urn from other, have lost little of their potency. This lecture explores the ways in which the aura of mortal remains function to create sacrality in the absence of God and other worlds beyond our own.

This event is cosponsored by the Department of History, the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy, and the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society. Part of the Death and After series at IRCPL.

The New York City Council Committee on Parks and Recreation and the Committee on Transportation will hold a hearing on Thursday, May 30 2019 at 10:00 A.M. in the Committee Room, New York, NY regarding four bills pertaining to the City’s Burial Process.

 To view the topics in detail, please CLICK HERE.

Oversight - Hart Island and the City's Public Burial Process.
 
 Int 906 - In relation to a transfer of jurisdiction over Hart Island from the department of corrections to the department of parks and recreation.
 Int 909 - In relation to a Hart Island transportation plan.
 Int - In relation to the establishment of an office to provide support to those in need of burial assistance.
 Int - In relation to the creation of a task force on public burial and related issues.
 
Please be advised that if you plan to participate, it would be greatly appreciated if you could bring thirty (30) copies double-sided of your written testimony to the hearing or submit your written testimony to: EBalkan@council.nyc.gov
 
We would appreciate receiving a response from you as to whether or not you will be able to attend or submit written testimony. Please let us know if you would like help preparing your testimony: contact@hartisland.net. 

Access Provided: For questions about accessibility or to request additional accommodations please contactNicole Benjamin (NBenjamin@council.nyc.gov or 212-482-5176) at least 72 hours before the hearing.
 
For all other questions about the hearing, please contact Emily Balkan (EBalkan@council.nyc.gov or 212-482-5439).

On the last day of In the Presence of Absence, we will mark its passing with a series of readings on the themes of grief and loss. Writers and artists Raha Behnam, Erica Cardwell, TR Ericsson, Michelle García, Diane Mehta, and Jillian Steinhauer will share original work. The event will also celebrate the launch of the exhibition’s accompanying publication, which contains essays by García, Steinhauer, and Jessica Lynne. As at a wake or a shiva call, there will be refreshments and a chance to mingle and reflect.

Over the last few years, Melinda and the Hart Island Project have brought the plight of Hart Island’s deteriorating condition to the public and opened the conversation to make the Island a public park.

While grief is a personal feeling, memorials are a key way in which our society collectively mourns. This panel discussion will consider the different forms that such public tributes can take and the politics of who gets to be commemorated. What new memorials are being created to fill out the landscape of a death-denying country dotted with Confederate statues? What future ones do we need? The four panelists, Anthony Goicolea, Melinda Hunt, Karla Rothstein, and Elizabeth Velazquez, have all experimented with what a memorial can be, bringing their creative energies to bear on an old practice. They will speak about their work and then engage in a conversation about who, what, and how we collectively remember. Moderated by Jillian Steinhauer.

The Hart Island Project will have an information table at the Interfaith Peace & Health Breakfast. Please stop by and say hello.

More information: INTERFAITHINYOURCITY@GMAIL.COM | 718-790-9120 / 917-374-7917

EFA Project Space is pleased to present In the Presence of Absence, an exhibition about the nature of grief. The show explores the creative possibilities of mourning, looking at how people transmute suffering over the loss of loved ones into ways to live.

Participating Artists: Edgar Heap of Birds, Jaamil Olawale Kosoko, M. Carmen Lane, Eeigh Eleanor Davis, Melinda Hunt, Nene Humphrey, Inbal Abergil, Emily Carris, Valery Jung Estabrook. 

Ray Charnick suffered from addiction for his entire adult life. In 1997, he died of AIDS related illnesses. His brother chose to have him interred on Hart Island. This film directed by Ray's son, Jason, explores dad's life and death. 

The Hart Island Project would love to catch up with you and talk about our mission. Please stop by our table from 11 AM - 12:30 PM.

The Hart Island Project launched Traveling Cloud Museum 2.0 on November 1, 2018. Please show your support for our innovation storytelling platform by donating on-line on Cyber Monday and Giving Tuesday

St. Brendan Catholic Church is one block from the D train. For more information call 718-547-6655.

Neil Harris Jr., the Long Island man who lived the last years of his life in Riverside Park, will have a new memorial service on Nov. 4 after a local journalist discovered his real name and told his family.

Harris was known to many locals as Stephen. He spent his days on benches in the park, including one at 75th Street. When he died last year, the city could not identify him, and he was buried on Hart Island, the city potter’s field. Locals held a memorial service for the man and dedicated a bench in Riverside Park to him.

Loneliness in a Beautiful Place: Drone video tour of AIDS burials on Hart Island and introduction to the Traveling Cloud Museum's new interactive map

Hart Island is the burial site of anyone who dies in New York City whose body is not collected by a licensed funeral director. The City does not cremate. On June 18, 1983, the New York State Funeral Directors Association urged its members not to embalm AIDS fatalities. It then became difficult to find a funeral director to handle the bodies of AIDS victims.
 
At least seventeen AIDS victims who died before 1985 were buried in individual graves at a remote location at the southern-most tip of the Hart Island. On April 29, 2018, a drone flying over the southern tip of Hart Island captured the locations of burial markers.
 
The Hart Island Project AIDS Initiative is an attempt to identify AIDS victims buried on Hart Island and preserve their stories. According to a recent story in The New York Times: “Trying to pin down the precise number of those with AIDS buried on Hart Island is difficult. A longstanding stigma about the island and criticism that the burial practices are crude and outdated have made city officials reluctant to provide many details.”
 
Traveling Cloud Museum is an effort to deconstruct their disappearance  by urging people to stop the clocks of anonymity.