Hart Island

 island, cemetery

Hart Island was the site of the Civil War era prison, a mental asylum and eventually a Nike Ajax missile battery during the Cold War. It is currently used as a potter's field: a burial site for New York City's indigent dead.

There are over 1,000,000 people buried on Hart Island by prison labor from Rikers Island on work detail. Medical waste such as amputated body parts and stillborn fetuses are also buried here. Like every great city, New York has developed a funerary culture that mirrors its living culture, and the pronounced disparity between rich and poor is reflected even in death. The wealthy can be buried under elaborate monuments in prestigious cemeteries while some of the least fortunate are relegated to a pauper’s grave.

The Island is administered by the New York City Department of Corrections and trespassing is illegal.

www.nyc.gov/html/doc/html/about/hart_island.shtml
www.correctionhistory.org/html/chronicl/hart/harling/mi...
www.nytimes.com/2023/03/24/nyregion/hart-island-cemeter...®ion=footer
www.hartisland.net/