Real Life

Hart Island — Unearthing the Hidden Mass Graves of NYC

NYC’s depressing secret

By Jacob Riis — Museum of the City of New York, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=29693877

Many New Yorkers have never even heard of Hart Island, as it seems to be one of NYC’s best-kept and also most morbid, secrets.

A potters' field (a term which comes from the Bible) is a burial site for paupers, and unclaimed or unidentified people.

Many of NYC’s most notable parks were once potters fields, including Washington Square Park, Union Square Park, Madison Square Park, and Bryant Park.

Hart Island was purchased by New York City in 1868 after it had originally been used as a prison camp for Confederate soldiers during the Civil War.

Screenshot from Google Earth

After passing through private hands for more than 200 years, in 1869 a year after the City obtained it, 45 acres were set aside for City Cemetery, for people who couldn’t afford private funerals.
Ever since, burials have been the main activity on the island, which is under the jurisdiction of New York’s Department of Corrections.