New York’s long-forbidden graveyard island to be converted to a park

New York City’s Hart Island may be marked by crumbling buildings and more than a million graves — but for Melinda Hunt, it’s a beautiful place.

“From the first day I walked in, I felt misunderstood, not a dark place,” he said. As it happens hosted by Nil Köksal. “The place is beautiful. So I became obedient to the landscape.”

The island, which has been closed to the public, will be open to the public sometime this year, according to the city. A public consultation will be held next year to develop plans to turn it into a park.

Since 1869, New York City has been burying its unclaimed dead on the island, which is just over a mile east of Orchard Beach in the Bronx.

This includes people whose families never claim their remains, often because they cannot afford the funeral costs. It also includes mass graves of people who died from diseases such as COVID-19, newborn babies, crime victims, and people who came from abroad.

Hart has been working to open the island to the public.

“I think it has something to do with connecting the island with people around the world who have people buried there and giving it a voice,” Hart said.

History of Hart Island

Hart Island was originally a penal colony. To this day, the city still buries more than 1,000 people there each year in mass graves, according to New York Times.

The city’s website says it is also used as a quarantine station, psychiatric hospital, rehabilitation facility, military base and prison.

The island had been operated by the city’s Department of Corrections, with inmates handling funerals there until 2020, when COVID-19 spread rapidly through the prison population.

During New York’s HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1980s and ’90s, many of those who died were buried on the island.

Hunt, an artist, knew many people from the art community who were lost at the time. So he went to Hart Island to look for her.

“You’d think I’d find him there,” Hunt said. “And all this later, there is another epidemic. And I am very connected to many families around the world who have people there.”

In 1991, Hunt was given permission to walk around the island while he worked on the book Hart Island: The Discovery of an Unknown Region with photographer Joel Sternfeld.

“It’s surprising how beautiful these 19th-century cemeteries are,” Hunt said.

“I really felt over the years that it was misunderstood, and if we can manage the landscape better and get rid of scary buildings, we can provide a better experience for people.”

Give voice to the dead

In 2021, New York transferred the management of cemeteries to the Department of Social Services, while the Department of Parks and Recreation began managing visitation.

People can take a boat to the island for free vist order with park departmentor by taking a guided tour.

Hunt and the Hart Island Project hope to help people find the island and its grave. The group has developed an online tool which uses augmented reality to allow people to learn more about the people buried there when they come to different locations.

“I hope they feel that the city of New York cares about them when, you know, a lot of people feel like their lives don’t matter in the United States. This place represents that in a really big way,” Hunt said. .

He said this would inspire other municipalities to undertake similar projects.

“We hope it will be restored as a wilderness area to teach people about the importance of natural burials and to use digital tools to mark graves instead of physical monuments.”