Hart Island, New York
Encyclopedia
Hart Island, sometimes referred to as Hart's Island, is a small island in New York City
at the western end of Long Island Sound
. It is approximately a mile long and one quarter of a mile wide and is located to the northeast of City Island in the Pelham Islands
group. The island is the easternmost part of the borough
of the Bronx
.
from the local Native Americans
in 1654. In February 1869, New York City purchased the island from Edward Hunter of the Bronx for $75,000.
There are several versions of the origin of the island's name. In one, British cartographers named it "Heart Island" in 1775, due to its organ-like shape, but the middle letter was dropped shortly thereafter.
Others sources indicate that "hart" refers to the Middle English
word for "stag." One version of this theory is that the island was given the name when it was used as a game preserve. Another version holds that it was named in reference to deer that migrated from the mainland during periods when ice covered that part of Long Island Sound. A passage in William Styron
's novel Lie Down in Darkness describes the island as occupied by a lone deer shot by a hunter with a row boat. Styron provides a vivid description of the public burials following World War II
including the handling of remains from re-excavated graves.
Throughout its history, Hart Island has had a workhouse
, a hospital, prisons, a Civil War
internment camp, a reformatory
and a Nike missile
base. The island's area is 0.531 km² (0.205 sq mi, or 131.22 acre
s) and had no permanent population as of the 2000 census
. Currently it serves as the city's potter's field
and is run by the New York City Department of Correction.
for four months in 1865. 3,413 captured Confederate soldiers were housed on the island. 235 died in the camp, and their remains, along with those of Union soldiers buried there, were moved to Cypress Hills Cemetery, Brooklyn
in 1941.
At various times, the Department of Correction
has used the island for a prison, but it is currently uninhabited. Access is controlled by the Department of Correction.
Hart Island's southern end continued to accommodate the living up until Phoenix House
moved in 1976. In 1977, the island was vandalized and many burial records were destroyed by a fire. Remaining records were transferred to the Municipal Archives in Manhattan. People were quarantine
d there during the 1870 yellow fever
epidemic and at various times Hart Island has been home to a women's lunatic asylum (The Pavilion, 1885), a tubercularium, delinquent boys, and during the Cold War, Nike missiles.
More than 850,000 dead are buried there—approximately 2,000 a year. One third of them are infants and stillborn babies - which has been reduced from one half since children's health insurance began to cover all pregnant women in New York State. In 2005 there were 1,419 burials in the potter's field on Hart Island, including 826 adults, 546 infants and stillborn babies, and 47 burials of dismembered body parts. The dead are buried in trenches. Babies are placed in coffins of various sizes, and are stacked five coffins high and usually twenty coffins across. Adults are placed in larger pine boxes placed according to size and are stacked three coffins high and two coffins across. Burial records on microfilm at the Municipal Archives in Manhattan indicate that babies and adults were buried together in mass graves up until 1913 when the trenches became separate in order to facilitate the more common disinterment of adults. The potter's field is also used to dispose of amputated body parts, which are placed in boxes labeled "limbs". Ceremonies have not been conducted at the burial site since the 1950s, and no individual markers are set except for the first child to die of AIDS in New York City who was buried in isolation. In the past, burial trenches were re-used after 25–50 years, allowing for sufficient decomposition of the remains. Presently, historic buildings are being torn down to make room for new burials.
Because of the number of weekly interments made at the potter's field and the expense to the taxpayers, these mass burials are straightforward and conducted by Rikers Island
inmates. Those interred on Hart Island are not necessarily homeless or indigent, as hearsay has it, but people who could either not afford the expenses of private funerals or who were unclaimed by relatives who are frequently not notified within a two-week period. Approximately fifty percent of the burials are children under five who are identified and died in New York City's hospitals. The mothers of these children are generally unaware of what it means to sign papers authorizing a "City Burial." These women as well as siblings often go looking many years later. Many others have families who live abroad or out of state and whose relatives search for years. Their search is made more difficult because burial records are presently kept within the prison system. An investigation into the handling of the infant burials was opened in response to a criminal complaint made to the New York State Attorney General's Office on April 1, 2009.
A Freedom of Information
Law request for 50,000 burial records was granted the Hart Island Project in 2008. The 1403 pages provided by the Department of Correction contain lists of all burials from 1985-2007. A second FOIL request for records from September 1, 1977 to December 31, 1984 was submitted to the Department of Correction on June 2, 2008. New York City has located 502 pages from that period and they will soon be available to the public. A law suit concerning "place of death" information redacted from the Hart Island burial records was filed against New York City on July 11, 2008 by the Law Office of David B. Rankin. It was settled out of court in January 2009. Only private addresses are now redacted from publicly available records, according to the NYC tax code. On May 10, 2010, New York Poets read the names of people buried and located through the Hart Island Project.
The New York City Department of Transportation
runs a single ferry to the island from the Fordham Street pier on City Island. Prison labor from Rikers Island is used for burial details, paid at 50 cents an hour. Inmates stack the pine coffins in two rows, three high and 25 across, and each plot is marked with a single concrete marker. The first pediatric AIDS victim to die in New York City is buried in the only single grave on Hart Island with a concrete marker that reads SP (special child) B1 (Baby 1) 1985. A tall white peace monument erected by New York City prison inmates following World War II
is at the top of what was known as "Cemetery Hill" prior to the installation of the now abandoned Nike Missile Base at the northern end of Hart Island.
The Jewish playwright, film screenwriter, and director Leo Birinski
was buried here in 1951, when he died alone and in poverty. The American novelist Dawn Powell
was buried on Hart Island in 1970, five years after her death, when the executor of her estate refused to reclaim her remains. Academy Award winner Bobby Driscoll
was also buried here when he died in 1968 because no one was able to identify his remains when he was found dead in an East village tenement. His daughter, Aaren Keely, submitted a poem "The Letter" in his memory to the Hart Island Project.
In the late 19th century Hart Island became the location of a boys' workhouse
which was an extension of the prison and almshouse on Blackwell's Island, now Roosevelt Island
. There is a section of old wooden houses and masonry institutional structures dating back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries that have fallen into disrepair. These are now being torn down to provide new ground for burials. Military barracks from the Civil War period were used prior to the construction of workhouse and hospital facilities. None of the original Civil War Period buildings are still standing. In the early 20th century, Hart Island housed about two thousand delinquent boys as well as old male prisoners from Blackwell's penitentiary
. This prison population moved to Rikers Island when the prison on Welfare Island (formerly Blackwell's Island) was torn down in 1936. Remaining on Hart Island is a building constructed in 1885 as a women's insane asylum, the Pavilion, as well as Phoenix House, a drug rehabilitation facility that closed in 1976.
base Fort Slocum
from 1956–1961 and operated by the army's 66th Antiaircraft Artillery Missile Battalion. Some silos are located on Davids' Island
. The Integrated Fire Control system that tracked the targets and directed missiles was located in Fort Slocum. The last components of the missile system were closed in 1974.
The New York City Department of Correction schedules individual visits with family members who can show that a relative is buried on Hart Island. New York City currently offers no provisions for individuals wanting to visit Hart Island without contacting the prison system. Press are not allowed access. Since 1994, The Hart Island Project has independently assisted families in obtaining copies of public burial records.
The New York City Department Of Correction offered one guided tour of the island in 2000 at local residents' requests. Visitors were allowed to see the outside of the missile silos and peace monument nearby and saw the ruined buildings, some dating back to the 1880s.
An ecumenical group named the Interfaith Friends of Potter's Field has intermittently conducted memorial services on the island.
On October 28, 2011 the New York City Council Committee on Fire and Criminal Justice held a hearing on: Oversight: Examining the Operation of Potter's Field by the N.Y.C. Department of Correction on Hart Island. Testimony was presented by Melinda Hunt for The Hart Island Project, Michael Miscione as Manhattan Borough Historian, Picture the Homeless, Daniel Stevelman, Deputy Commissioner for Operations at the New York City Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, and Gregory McLaughlin, Warden of Support Services Division of the Chief Medical Examiner. The Committee, chaired by Elizabeth Crowley, is considering amending the Administrative Code § 21-110 to allow for greater public access with consideration of the historic importance of Hart Island.
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
at the western end of Long Island Sound
Long Island Sound
Long Island Sound is an estuary of the Atlantic Ocean, located in the United States between Connecticut to the north and Long Island, New York to the south. The mouth of the Connecticut River at Old Saybrook, Connecticut, empties into the sound. On its western end the sound is bounded by the Bronx...
. It is approximately a mile long and one quarter of a mile wide and is located to the northeast of City Island in the Pelham Islands
The Pelham Islands
The Pelham Islands is a historical name for a group of islands in western Long Island Sound that once belonged to Thomas Pell. The main islands in the group are City Island, Hart Island, Hunters Island, Twin Island, Goose Island, Davids' Island, High Island, Rat Island, the Chimney Sweeps, the...
group. The island is the easternmost part of the borough
Borough (New York City)
New York City, one of the largest cities in the world, is composed of five boroughs. Each borough now has the same boundaries as the county it is in. County governments were dissolved when the city consolidated in 1898, along with all city, town, and village governments within each county...
of the Bronx
The Bronx
The Bronx is the northernmost of the five boroughs of New York City. It is also known as Bronx County, the last of the 62 counties of New York State to be incorporated...
.
History
In the middle of the 19th century, the island was called Lesser Minneford Island. The island was part of the (0.2 sq miles) property purchased by Thomas PellThomas Pell
Dates may not be entirely accurate in this article due to disagreements between sources.Thomas Pell was a physician who was famous for buying the area known as Pelham, Westchester, New York, as well as land that now includes the eastern Bronx and southern Westchester County. He founded the town...
from the local Native Americans
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
in 1654. In February 1869, New York City purchased the island from Edward Hunter of the Bronx for $75,000.
There are several versions of the origin of the island's name. In one, British cartographers named it "Heart Island" in 1775, due to its organ-like shape, but the middle letter was dropped shortly thereafter.
Others sources indicate that "hart" refers to the Middle English
Middle English
Middle English is the stage in the history of the English language during the High and Late Middle Ages, or roughly during the four centuries between the late 11th and the late 15th century....
word for "stag." One version of this theory is that the island was given the name when it was used as a game preserve. Another version holds that it was named in reference to deer that migrated from the mainland during periods when ice covered that part of Long Island Sound. A passage in William Styron
William Styron
William Clark Styron, Jr. was an American novelist and essayist who won major literary awards for his work.For much of his career, Styron was best known for his novels, which included...
's novel Lie Down in Darkness describes the island as occupied by a lone deer shot by a hunter with a row boat. Styron provides a vivid description of the public burials following World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
including the handling of remains from re-excavated graves.
Throughout its history, Hart Island has had a workhouse
Workhouse
In England and Wales a workhouse, colloquially known as a spike, was a place where those unable to support themselves were offered accommodation and employment...
, a hospital, prisons, a Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
internment camp, a reformatory
Reformatory
Reformatory is a term that has had varied meanings within the penal system, depending on the jurisdiction and the era. It may refer to a youth detention center, or an adult correctional facility. The term is still in popular use for adult facilities throughout the United States, although most...
and a Nike missile
Project Nike
Project Nike was a U.S. Army project, proposed in May 1945 by Bell Laboratories, to develop a line-of-sight anti-aircraft missile system. The project delivered the United States' first operational anti-aircraft missile system, the Nike Ajax, in 1953...
base. The island's area is 0.531 km² (0.205 sq mi, or 131.22 acre
Acre
The acre is a unit of area in a number of different systems, including the imperial and U.S. customary systems. The most commonly used acres today are the international acre and, in the United States, the survey acre. The most common use of the acre is to measure tracts of land.The acre is related...
s) and had no permanent population as of the 2000 census
United States Census, 2000
The Twenty-second United States Census, known as Census 2000 and conducted by the Census Bureau, determined the resident population of the United States on April 1, 2000, to be 281,421,906, an increase of 13.2% over the 248,709,873 persons enumerated during the 1990 Census...
. Currently it serves as the city's potter's field
Potter's field
A potter's field was an American term for a place for the burial of unknown or indigent people. The expression derives from the Bible, referring to a field used for the extraction of potter's clay, which was useless for agriculture but could be used as a burial site.-Origin:The term comes from...
and is run by the New York City Department of Correction.
Prison
Hart Island was a prisoner-of-war campPrisoner-of-war camp
A prisoner-of-war camp is a site for the containment of combatants captured by their enemy in time of war, and is similar to an internment camp which is used for civilian populations. A prisoner of war is generally a soldier, sailor, or airman who is imprisoned by an enemy power during or...
for four months in 1865. 3,413 captured Confederate soldiers were housed on the island. 235 died in the camp, and their remains, along with those of Union soldiers buried there, were moved to Cypress Hills Cemetery, Brooklyn
Cypress Hills Cemetery, Brooklyn
Cypress Hills Cemetery was the first non-sectarian/non-denominational cemetery corporation organized in the Brooklyn/Queens area of New York City. The Cemetery is run as a non-for-profit organization and is located at 833 Jamaica Avenue in Brooklyn...
in 1941.
At various times, the Department of Correction
New York City Department of Correction
The New York City Department of Correction is responsible for New York City's inmates, housing the majority of them on Rikers Island. It employs 9,500 uniformed officers and 1,400 civilian staff, has 543 vehicles, and processes over 100,000 new inmates every year, retaining a population of inmates...
has used the island for a prison, but it is currently uninhabited. Access is controlled by the Department of Correction.
Cemetery
Hart Island is the location of a 101 acre (0.40873286 km²) potter's field for New York City, the largest tax-funded cemetery in the world. Burials on Hart Island began during the American Civil War. Hart Island was sold to New York City in 1869. The city then began using it as a cemetery when a 24-year-old woman named Louisa Van Slyke was the first person to be buried in the island's 45 acres (182,108.7 m²) public graveyard. Burials of unknowns were in single plots and identified adults and children were buried in mass graves. In 1913, adults and children under five were buried in separate mass graves. Unknowns are mostly adults. They are frequently disinterred when families are able to locate their relatives through photographs and fingerprints kept on file at the Office of the Medical Examiner. Adults are buried in trenches with three sections of 48 individuals to make disinterment easier. Children, mostly infants, are rarely disinterred and are buried in trenches of 1,000.Hart Island's southern end continued to accommodate the living up until Phoenix House
Phoenix House
Phoenix House is a nonprofit drug and alcohol rehabilitation organization operating in ten states with 150 programs. Programs serve individuals, families, and communities affected by substance abuse and dependency.- History :...
moved in 1976. In 1977, the island was vandalized and many burial records were destroyed by a fire. Remaining records were transferred to the Municipal Archives in Manhattan. People were quarantine
Quarantine
Quarantine is compulsory isolation, typically to contain the spread of something considered dangerous, often but not always disease. The word comes from the Italian quarantena, meaning forty-day period....
d there during the 1870 yellow fever
Yellow fever
Yellow fever is an acute viral hemorrhagic disease. The virus is a 40 to 50 nm enveloped RNA virus with positive sense of the Flaviviridae family....
epidemic and at various times Hart Island has been home to a women's lunatic asylum (The Pavilion, 1885), a tubercularium, delinquent boys, and during the Cold War, Nike missiles.
More than 850,000 dead are buried there—approximately 2,000 a year. One third of them are infants and stillborn babies - which has been reduced from one half since children's health insurance began to cover all pregnant women in New York State. In 2005 there were 1,419 burials in the potter's field on Hart Island, including 826 adults, 546 infants and stillborn babies, and 47 burials of dismembered body parts. The dead are buried in trenches. Babies are placed in coffins of various sizes, and are stacked five coffins high and usually twenty coffins across. Adults are placed in larger pine boxes placed according to size and are stacked three coffins high and two coffins across. Burial records on microfilm at the Municipal Archives in Manhattan indicate that babies and adults were buried together in mass graves up until 1913 when the trenches became separate in order to facilitate the more common disinterment of adults. The potter's field is also used to dispose of amputated body parts, which are placed in boxes labeled "limbs". Ceremonies have not been conducted at the burial site since the 1950s, and no individual markers are set except for the first child to die of AIDS in New York City who was buried in isolation. In the past, burial trenches were re-used after 25–50 years, allowing for sufficient decomposition of the remains. Presently, historic buildings are being torn down to make room for new burials.
Because of the number of weekly interments made at the potter's field and the expense to the taxpayers, these mass burials are straightforward and conducted by Rikers Island
Rikers Island
Rikers Island is New York City's main jail complex, as well as the name of the island on which it sits, in the East River between Queens and the mainland Bronx, adjacent to the runways of LaGuardia Airport. The island itself is part of the borough of the Bronx, though it is included as part of...
inmates. Those interred on Hart Island are not necessarily homeless or indigent, as hearsay has it, but people who could either not afford the expenses of private funerals or who were unclaimed by relatives who are frequently not notified within a two-week period. Approximately fifty percent of the burials are children under five who are identified and died in New York City's hospitals. The mothers of these children are generally unaware of what it means to sign papers authorizing a "City Burial." These women as well as siblings often go looking many years later. Many others have families who live abroad or out of state and whose relatives search for years. Their search is made more difficult because burial records are presently kept within the prison system. An investigation into the handling of the infant burials was opened in response to a criminal complaint made to the New York State Attorney General's Office on April 1, 2009.
A Freedom of Information
Freedom of information
Freedom of information refers to the protection of the right to freedom of expression with regards to the Internet and information technology . Freedom of information may also concern censorship in an information technology context, i.e...
Law request for 50,000 burial records was granted the Hart Island Project in 2008. The 1403 pages provided by the Department of Correction contain lists of all burials from 1985-2007. A second FOIL request for records from September 1, 1977 to December 31, 1984 was submitted to the Department of Correction on June 2, 2008. New York City has located 502 pages from that period and they will soon be available to the public. A law suit concerning "place of death" information redacted from the Hart Island burial records was filed against New York City on July 11, 2008 by the Law Office of David B. Rankin. It was settled out of court in January 2009. Only private addresses are now redacted from publicly available records, according to the NYC tax code. On May 10, 2010, New York Poets read the names of people buried and located through the Hart Island Project.
The New York City Department of Transportation
New York City Department of Transportation
The New York City Department of Transportation is responsible for the management of much of New York City's transportation infrastructure...
runs a single ferry to the island from the Fordham Street pier on City Island. Prison labor from Rikers Island is used for burial details, paid at 50 cents an hour. Inmates stack the pine coffins in two rows, three high and 25 across, and each plot is marked with a single concrete marker. The first pediatric AIDS victim to die in New York City is buried in the only single grave on Hart Island with a concrete marker that reads SP (special child) B1 (Baby 1) 1985. A tall white peace monument erected by New York City prison inmates following World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
is at the top of what was known as "Cemetery Hill" prior to the installation of the now abandoned Nike Missile Base at the northern end of Hart Island.
The Jewish playwright, film screenwriter, and director Leo Birinski
Leo Birinski
Leo Birinski was a playwright, screenwriter and director. He worked in Austria-Hungary, Germany and in the United States. As a playwright in Europe he gained his biggest popularity in 1910 – 1917, then he was forgotten. From the 20s to the 40s of the 20th century he worked mainly as a...
was buried here in 1951, when he died alone and in poverty. The American novelist Dawn Powell
Dawn Powell
Dawn Powell was an American writer of novels and stories.-Biography:Powell was born in Mount Gilead, Ohio, a village 45 miles north of Columbus and the county seat of Morrow County. Powell regularly gave her birth year as 1897 but primary documents support the earlier date...
was buried on Hart Island in 1970, five years after her death, when the executor of her estate refused to reclaim her remains. Academy Award winner Bobby Driscoll
Bobby Driscoll
Robert Cletus "Bobby" Driscoll was an American child actor known for a large body of cinema and TV performances from 1943 to 1960. He starred in some of The Walt Disney Company's most popular live-action pictures of that period, such as Song of the South , So Dear to My Heart , and Treasure Island...
was also buried here when he died in 1968 because no one was able to identify his remains when he was found dead in an East village tenement. His daughter, Aaren Keely, submitted a poem "The Letter" in his memory to the Hart Island Project.
Boys' workhouse
Workhouse
In England and Wales a workhouse, colloquially known as a spike, was a place where those unable to support themselves were offered accommodation and employment...
which was an extension of the prison and almshouse on Blackwell's Island, now Roosevelt Island
Roosevelt Island
Roosevelt Island, known as Welfare Island from 1921 to 1973, and before that Blackwell's Island, is a narrow island in the East River of New York City. It lies between the island of Manhattan to its west and the borough of Queens to its east...
. There is a section of old wooden houses and masonry institutional structures dating back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries that have fallen into disrepair. These are now being torn down to provide new ground for burials. Military barracks from the Civil War period were used prior to the construction of workhouse and hospital facilities. None of the original Civil War Period buildings are still standing. In the early 20th century, Hart Island housed about two thousand delinquent boys as well as old male prisoners from Blackwell's penitentiary
Prison
A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...
. This prison population moved to Rikers Island when the prison on Welfare Island (formerly Blackwell's Island) was torn down in 1936. Remaining on Hart Island is a building constructed in 1885 as a women's insane asylum, the Pavilion, as well as Phoenix House, a drug rehabilitation facility that closed in 1976.
Missiles
The island has defunct Nike Ajax missile silos, battery NY-15 that were part of the United States ArmyUnited States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
base Fort Slocum
Fort Slocum (New York)
Fort Slocum, New York was a US military base occupying Davids' Island and Hart Island at the western end of Long Island Sound. The fort was named for Major General Henry W...
from 1956–1961 and operated by the army's 66th Antiaircraft Artillery Missile Battalion. Some silos are located on Davids' Island
Davids' Island (New York)
Davids' Island is a island off the coast of New Rochelle, New York, in Long Island Sound. Currently uninhabited, in the past it was the site of Fort Slocum. Plans are to preserve the island as public parkland under the Westchester County Parks system. The island is home to the endangered Kemp’s...
. The Integrated Fire Control system that tracked the targets and directed missiles was located in Fort Slocum. The last components of the missile system were closed in 1974.
Access
Hart Island and the pier on Fordham Street on City Island are restricted areas.The New York City Department of Correction schedules individual visits with family members who can show that a relative is buried on Hart Island. New York City currently offers no provisions for individuals wanting to visit Hart Island without contacting the prison system. Press are not allowed access. Since 1994, The Hart Island Project has independently assisted families in obtaining copies of public burial records.
The New York City Department Of Correction offered one guided tour of the island in 2000 at local residents' requests. Visitors were allowed to see the outside of the missile silos and peace monument nearby and saw the ruined buildings, some dating back to the 1880s.
An ecumenical group named the Interfaith Friends of Potter's Field has intermittently conducted memorial services on the island.
On October 28, 2011 the New York City Council Committee on Fire and Criminal Justice held a hearing on: Oversight: Examining the Operation of Potter's Field by the N.Y.C. Department of Correction on Hart Island. Testimony was presented by Melinda Hunt for The Hart Island Project, Michael Miscione as Manhattan Borough Historian, Picture the Homeless, Daniel Stevelman, Deputy Commissioner for Operations at the New York City Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, and Gregory McLaughlin, Warden of Support Services Division of the Chief Medical Examiner. The Committee, chaired by Elizabeth Crowley, is considering amending the Administrative Code § 21-110 to allow for greater public access with consideration of the historic importance of Hart Island.
Popular culture
- William StyronWilliam StyronWilliam Clark Styron, Jr. was an American novelist and essayist who won major literary awards for his work.For much of his career, Styron was best known for his novels, which included...
's first novel, Lie Down in Darkness (1951), contains a description of the island. - Mark HelprinMark HelprinMark Helprin is an American novelist, journalist, and conservative commentator.-Background:Helprin was raised on the Hudson River and in the British West Indies, and holds degrees from Harvard College and Harvard's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. His postgraduate work was done at Princeton...
's novel Winter's Tale contains a short scene set on Hart Island. - 1940s character actor Al Hill was sent to prison on Hart Island in the 1920s. He wrote about his experiences there in his memoir, Easy Pickings (1933).
- The movie The Saint of Fort Washington (1993) was shot on Hart Island with actual Correction Officers performing a burial. This is the last time that a feature movie was actually shot on Hart Island.
- Most of the horror movie Island of the Dead (2000) is set on Hart Island but was not shot on location there.
- The finale for the film Don't Say a WordDon't Say a WordDon't Say a Word is a 2001 psychological thriller film starring Michael Douglas, Brittany Murphy and Sean Bean based on the novel of the same title by Andrew Klavan...
(2001) is set on Hart Island, but was shot in Canada. Hart Island has no individual grave markers as seen in this film. - Potter's Field is an ongoing comic book series written by Mark WaidMark WaidMark Waid is an American comic book writer. He is well known for his eight-year run as writer of the DC Comics' title The Flash, as well as his scripting of the limited series Kingdom Come and Superman: Birthright, and his work on Marvel Comics' Captain America...
and published by Boom! StudiosBoom! StudiosBOOM! Studios is an American comic book company headquartered in Los Angeles, California, United States. The "BOOM!" in BOOM! Studios is always capitalized by the company.-History:BOOM! was founded June 22, 2005 with Zombie Tales #1....
about an anonymous investigator who takes it upon himself to discover the identities of those buried on Hart Island. - The island is mentioned and visited in the Law & Order: SVU episode Haunted.
- A Hart Island mass burial is featured in the following Law & Order: Criminal IntentLaw & Order: Criminal IntentLaw & Order: Criminal Intent is an American police procedural television drama series set in New York City, where it was also primarily produced. Created and produced by Dick Wolf and René Balcer, the series premiered on September 30, 2001, as the second spin-off of Wolf's successful crime drama...
episodes: (1) Blasters. The opening has a musical montage of a body's journey from crime scene to the medical examiner's office to potter's field. Department of Corrections inmates are shown stacking the numbered wooden coffins. (2) Sound BodiesSound Bodies"Sound Bodies" is a third season episode of the television series Law & Order: Criminal Intent.-Plot summary:In this episode, Detectives Goren and Bishop investigate a rash of fatal poisonings in an isolated island church as well as the drowning deaths of three young students.Goren and Bishop try...
. - The final scene of Andrew Winer's novel, The Marriage Artist (2010), takes place on Hart Island.
- Hart Island is featured in the book, Gideon's SwordGideon's SwordGideon's Sword is a novel by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. It was released on February 22, 2011.It was optioned by Bay Films and will be produced by Michael Bay.-Plot summary:...
(2011), coauthored by Douglas PrestonDouglas PrestonDouglas Preston is an American author who has written seventeen popular techno-thriller and horror novels, four alone and the rest with Lincoln Child...
and Lincoln ChildLincoln ChildLincoln Child is an author of seventeen techno-thriller and horror novels. He often writes with Douglas Preston. Many of their novels have become bestsellers, and one, Relic, was adapted into a feature film...
. - Hart Island is mentioned in the book, The Sniper's Wife (2002), by Archer MayorArcher MayorArcher Mayor is the author of the Joe Gunther detective series. Archer is a Yale graduate and lives in Newfane, Vermont, USA.Before turning to popular fiction, Mayor held several jobs, both in the US and in France, working as an editor, researcher for Time–Life books, photography and journalist...
. - Hart Island is also featured in the book Ironside (2007), by Holly BlackHolly BlackHolly Black née Riggenbach is an American writer and editor, best known for writing The Spiderwick Chronicles, a series of children's fantasy books she created with illustrator Tony DiTerlizzi.-Early life and education:...
.
See also
- Geography and environment of New York CityGeography and environment of New York CityThe geography of New York City is characterized by its coastal position at the meeting of the Hudson River and the Atlantic Ocean in a naturally sheltered harbor. The city's geography, with its scarce availability of land, is a contributing factor in making New York City the most densely populated...
- List of Civil War POW Prisons and Camps
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External links
- Hart Island Cemetery: City Council Reviews Operations Of New York's Potter's Field Huffington Post, October 31, 2011
- Council Looking Into City Cemetery WNYC News, October 28, 2011.
- Melinda Hunt commemorates New York’s forgotten The Banff Center, February 2011.
- Potter's Field Letter to the Editors New York Times, January 23, 2011.
- A cemetery hidden in plain sight Al Jazeera, December 15, 2010
- Buried in Bureaucracy: A Look at Hart Island, the City's Cemetery WNYC News, August 2, 2010.
- "Sketching Lives Long Buried and Forgotten" New York Times, April 23, 2010.
- "Poets to honor the dead at Potter's field on Mother's Day, as part of the Hart Island Project" New York Daily News, May 4, 2010.
- The Nature of Hart Island Essay by Melinda Hunt from Book: Hart Island, Scalo 1998.
- Fox5 Investigative Report on Hart Island Baby Burials, May 23, 2009 http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/news/investigative/090523_Hart_Island_Babies
- New York City Releases Burial Records 1985-2007 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/24/nyregion/24hart.html?_r=2&st=cse&sq=melinda+hunt&scp=3&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
- ABC News Investigative Report: "Finding the Dead in Potter's Field", February 19, 2008 http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/media?id=5968674http://hartisland.net/wwwebs/NewsFindingrelativesinPottersField/tabid/285/Default.aspxtitle
- ABC News Investigative Report: "Missing Babies on Hart Island", June 15, 2009 http://hartisland.net/wwwebs/
- Hart Island at Google Sightseeing
- Gallery of Hart Island Photos 1890-2008
- The Hart Island Project at hartisland.org
- Hart Island website by the New York Correction History Society
- A Historical Resumé of Potter's Field, 1869-1967 - a 16-page flyer published by the NYC Department of Correction in 1967. (Excerpts in HTML here).
- In Essentials, Unity; In Non-Essentials, Liberty; and in All Things Charity: A Historical Account of the Mission of the Diocese of New York of the Protestant Episcopal Church to the Institutions and the Potter's Field on Hart Island, by Wayne Kempton, archivist of the Episcopal Diocese of New YorkEpiscopal Diocese of New YorkThe Episcopal Diocese of New York is a diocese of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America, encompassing the boroughs of Manhattan, the Bronx, and Staten Island in New York City, and the New York state counties of Westchester, Rockland, Dutchess, Orange, Putnam, Sullivan, and...
- The Fort Slocum Nike Installation
- Brief History of Hart Island Nike Missile Site by the New York Correction History Society
- http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/DTTable?_bm=y&-show_geoid=Y&-tree_id=4001&-_showChild=Y&-context=dt&-errMsg=&-all_geo_types=N&-mt_name=DEC_2000_SF1_U_P001&-redoLog=false&-transpose=N&-search_map_config=|b=50|l=en|t=4001|zf=0.0|ms=sel_00dec|dw=0.05330623177477046|dh=0.030289650719350046|dt=gov.census.aff.domain.map.EnglishMapExtent|if=gif|cx=-73.79045224939611|cy=40.84675414435856|zl=3|pz=3|bo=318:317:316:314:313:323:319|bl=362:393:358:357:356:355:354|ft=350:349:335:389:388:332:331|fl=381:403:204:380:369:379:368|g=01000US&-PANEL_ID=p_dt_geo_map&-_lang=en&-geo_id=100$10000US360050516009000&-geo_id=100$10000US360050516009001&-geo_id=100$10000US360050516009002&-geo_id=100$10000US360050516009003&-geo_id=100$10000US360050516009004&-geo_id=100$10000US360050516009005&-geo_id=100$10000US360050516009006&-geo_id=100$10000US360050516009007&-geo_id=100$10000US360050516009008&-geo_id=100$10000US360050516009009&-geo_id=100$10000US360050516009010&-geo_id=100$10000US360050516009011&-geo_id=100$10000US360050516009012&-geo_id=100$10000US360050516009013&-geo_id=100$10000US360050516009014&-geo_id=100$10000US360050516009015&-CONTEXT=dt&-format=&-search_results=01000US&-ds_name=DEC_2000_SF1_UHart Island: Blocks 9000 thru 9015, Block Group 9, Census Tract 516, Bronx County, New York] United States Census Bureau
- Photoessay on Hart Island from August, 2008
- Hart Island: An American Cemetery, documentary film by Melinda Hunt