New York, NY
- Today Wednesday, May 23rd at 8:00AM, Council Member Ydanis Rodriguez visited the burial grounds of Hart Island in commemoration of the 150th anniversary since the purchase of the island by the City of New York in 1868.
On Wednesday, May 9th, Council Member Rodriguez reintroduced two bills, 906 and 909, to transfer jurisdiction of the island from the Department of Correction to the Department of Parks and Recreation, and establish city ferry service to the island. Council Member Rodriguez reiterated this call and added that the City should invest the capital necessary to stabilize the structures on island and include its history in our school curricula.
Hart Island is the site of a mass graveyard that has been used since the Civil War and it is the largest tax-funded cemetery in the United States.
The City Cemetery on the island is 101 acres and is located in the Long Island Sound on the eastern edge of the Bronx. Since 1869, prison labor is used to bury unclaimed and unidentified New Yorkers in mass graves. Family members of those buried there were only granted access in 2015 one weekend a month; otherwise, it is largely inaccessible to the public.
To learn more about the history of The Hart Island Project and the work of Melinda Hunt, visit their site and look at their interactive map of the burial grounds.
Council Member Ydanis Rodriguez and Melinda Hunt published the following article on
Medium:
At the end of the American Civil War in 1866, the New York City Council passed sanitary codes prohibiting new burial grounds from opening in Manhattan and created a new agency, the Department of Charities and Correction. This agency had oversight of Bellevue Hospital, the Almshouse, the Workhouse, the House of Refuge, and Blackwell's Penitentiary, the forerunner of Rikers Island. The agency hired a medical examiner and opened the first municipal morgue in North America at Bellevue. Then on May 16, 1868, Charities and Correction purchased Hart Island from the Hunter family of Pelham, Westchester County. Since that time, it has been the site of a psychiatric ward, a tubercularium, a juvenile delinquent facility, a boys' workhouse, and a prison.
This year marks the sesquicentennial of the purchase of Hart Island by the City of New York and penal control over municipal burials for the poor and unidentified.
Rather than individual marked graves, a Civil War burial process was adopted consisting of long, numbered trenches and ledgers documenting each "grave" consisting of a box and a location within the common plot of 150. This process was developed for use on battlefields where lots of bodies were buried quickly and often disinterred later. Plots were organized into a grid for easier identification and disinterment. Photographs of the unclaimed were kept at the Medical Examiner where relatives could access them, also a Civil War practice.
This highly efficient burial practice has meant that New York City has been able to bury and disinter unclaimed people for a century and a half, and there is still plenty of open burial space for future generations. We no longer need burial trenches this large. An infant grave of 1000 is not filled and closed in over three years. The mother of a stillborn child last year will be taken to a still open gravesite this year. While useful during epidemics, in 2018 this method is outdated and undignified.
The Department of Correction is no longer the appropriate agency to oversee the work of this cemetery and jurisdiction must be transferred to a better suited agency.
The management of the burial grounds must be seen from a social perspective. Many of those buried on the island are low-income New Yorkers who could not afford arranging a burial in a private cemetery or were not identified by family members. By neglecting Hart Island, we neglect some of the neediest New Yorkers.
Family members were only granted access to the island in 2015 to visit the gravesite of their loved ones, one weekend a month with limited guests. It took decades of hard work and a lawsuit to give these families the same rights as other New Yorkers who could afford to make burial arrangements in a private cemetery. The tale of two cities haunts us from cradle to grave.
All New Yorkers should be able to access the island and do so through frequent and predictable public ferry service.
It is inconceivable that New Yorkers are not allowed to freely visit their loved ones, but it is unfathomable that now that they can go on the island, they are escorted by correction officers. The current practice of requiring relatives to register with the Department of Correction, show identification, relinquish mobile devices, sign waivers and be escorted to graves by correction officers, is not normal. It must be part of our mandate that, as we tackle equity in early childhood education and closing the pay gap, we ensure that all New Yorkers can mourn without discrimination.
In a time where race has become such a large part of the national discourse, rectifying the situation on Hart Island will be part of coming to terms with the racial history of the city and our country. Drew Gilpin Faust described segregated African American burial details during the Civil War in her 2008 book This Republic of Suffering: "Almost invariably, units of US Colored Troops were assigned the disagreeable work of burial and reburial..." In 2018, young men of color continue to work as gravediggers. Now, they are men convicted of misdemeanors and imprisoned on Rikers Island. We are unconsciously propagating and enabling a system of oppression through a matter as innocuous as burying the deceased.
Our outlook on the island must change.
Hart Island is a national treasure and hallowed ground that must be acknowledged as such. So many elements and moments of our nation's history can be found in one place, from aristocratic families of New York to the Civil War to the AIDS epidemic. A government of, for and by the people with this great responsibility must ensure a peaceful and dignified final resting place for all who are buried on the island. We must call attention to all we can learn from the island, include it in our school curricula, and not hide it as a shameful blemish or secret. It is a great public service; a remarkable environmental asset; and living and breathing monument of our history.
