Hart Island

New York City’s current Potter’s Field is located on Hart Island, in the Long Island Sound east of City Island in the Bronx. Hart Island is New York's City’s ninth Potter’s Field. Those who pass away in New York City poor, unclaimed or unidentified are buried there. Estimates are that over 800,000 people are now interred in mass graves on Hart Island. During epidemics the numbers have increased to as many as 15,000 bodies per year. Hart Island receives an average of 1500 bodies annually. About half of these are children under five.

Hart Island remains a last vestige of a burial system left over from the British Colonial period. Beginning with the American Civil War, Hart Island was a training camp for Union Soldiers and then, following Gettysburg, a prison camp for Confederate soldiers and finally a burial ground with mass graves as it remains today.
© 1998, Melinda Hunt, www.hartisland.org.



© 1991, Joel Steinfeld, www.hartisland.org 		Early in the 20th Century a number of buildings were constructed for a Boys Reformatory that housed around 2000 teenagers. During World War II, Hart Island was used as a disciplinary camp for 2,800 Naval, Marine and Coastguard troops. After the War, a 30-foot peace monument was erected by Hart Island inmates. Various other hospitals, mental institutions and substance abuse programs occupied Hart Island until the last, Phoenix House, departed 1976.

Today, the buildings that once housed the various activities on Hart Island remain empty and decaying, standing tributes to the empty shells that once housed the sparks of human life.
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( categories: Potter's Field )