Rethinking New York’s “dark shadow”: managing the unclaimed dead on Hart Island, 1869 to the present day

Addressing the myth of burial shame  

From its earliest incarnation, Hart Island was understood as an extension of the places where those who existed on the fringes of society were kept. The first body buried there in 1869 was a young woman named Louisa Van Slyke who died of tuberculosis at the hospital on Blackwell’s Island.¹⁵ Institutions within this network were utilised throughout the burial process, with inmates at the workhouses put to work building pine coffins and sewing shrouds, and prisoners from the penitentiary burying the bodies.¹⁶ In a time when poverty was largely seen as a personal failing resulting from immorality and inherent criminality, little sympathy was extended to those who ended their days on Hart Island. Instead, contemporary media reinforced existing social and cultural stereotypes about poor, largely immigrant communities. One New York Times article from 1878 describes the ‘horrors’ of a visit to the island, with the journalist claiming to feel ‘no sorrow’ on seeing the bodies of children, imagining instead that these infants born to ‘vile’ mothers must be grateful to have died. When describing one burial, he asserts that ‘the city must care for him dead, although it received no benefit from him while living’.¹⁷

Other press accounts are similarly derogatory and sensationalist, with hearsay references to remains being eaten by police dogs and inappropriate behaviour towards the bodies of young women. Social reformer Jacob Riis, whose writings and photographs have been credited with transforming public awareness of the ‘reality’ of poverty and tenement life in New York in the late 1800s, also photographed the island in 1890. He too emphasised the shame of pauper burial, describing it as:

one free excursion [that] awaits young and old, whom bitter poverty has denied the poor privilege of the choice of home in death they were denied in life, the ride up the Sound to the Potter’s Field … but even there they do not escape their fate … they lie packed three stories deep, shoulder to shoulder, crowded in death as they were in life.¹⁸

Hart Island’s reputation as an exile for the unwanted persisted throughout the century, reinforced by Department of Corrections’ management that ensured it remained part of the penal network. This scenario led visitor Rosalee Grable to describe it as a ‘prison for the dead’ in 2015.¹⁹ Bodies were buried by prisoners from Rikers Island until early April 2020, when the role was taken over by outside contractors as a result of negative publicity surrounding the use of incarcerated labour on Hart Island. Prior to Covid-19, prisoners had been paid $0.50 per hour for the work and were offered an increase of $6 per hour in March 2020, one month before the work was permanently transferred to outside contractors.²⁰

The island has also existed as a reminder, and a reflection, of other marginalised groups, notably becoming the final resting place of untold numbers of AIDS victims after funeral directors refused to handle their bodies.²¹ New York’s first AIDS fatalities were buried here in 1985, in an isolated area geographically separated from other remains, reinforcing the marginalisation and stigmatisation that victims of this epidemic experienced in life. Given that approximately a quarter of AIDS deaths in the 1980s and 1990s occurred in New York, Hart Island is likely to be the largest cemetery for AIDS victims in the USA.²² A small stone pillar marks the grave of the first child with AIDS who was buried on the island, with the inscription, ‘SC-B1, 1985’ (an abbreviation of Special Child, Baby), but to date no proper memorial exists for this tragedy, despite Hart Island playing a major role in the history of the AIDS epidemic in New York. The numbers have also still never been officially released, nor are they available to the public, which prompted The Hart Island Project’s AIDS initiative.²³ New York City Council now admits that staff acted out of an ‘overabundance (and unnecessary level) of caution’ regarding the earliest AIDS burials, but the legacy of this historic reputation continues.²⁴ Combined with the island’s management within the penal network, this has contributed to creating the enduring myth of Hart Island as a barren hellscape that continues to be perpetuated in both domestic and international media coverage.

The sociocultural legacy of the pauper dead  

‘Violence done to the living is usually done to their dead,’ writes Jill Lepore in her investigation into the reclamation of Black burial grounds across the United States, and as demonstrated by the many stories collected by The Hart Island Project, a significant number of bodies interred on Hart Island belong to those who have disproportionally suffered in life.²⁵ This suffering was then prolonged as their loved ones were made to endure the complicated bureaucracy of having these remains automatically incorporated into the penal system through the administration of the Department of Corrections, necessitating the need to work with this system in order to go to the island on one of the few permitted visits. It is therefore undeniable that many of the deceased, and their families, have been failed by systems that ought to have protected them – failures that have led to a growing number of long-overdue investigations by journalists and advocates focusing on themes such as the use of convict labour and the burial of stillborn infants without consent.²⁶

However, while it is vital that these stories are told – and those responsible for the failings held to account – a damaging, one-dimensional public perception of the island as a deeply shameful and degrading site has persisted, largely as a result of media and cultural analyses that focus almost exclusively on the island’s penal management and difficult legacy. This reputation, and associated cultural shame, has then created another layer of suffering for the communities of those interred on the island. Therefore, without unpicking the historic threads of this legacy and the ways in which cultural attitudes to pauper burial have endured, any real transformation of the island will be hindered by this powerful public perception.

The sociocultural stigma and shame that surrounds Hart Island is deeper than poverty, anonymity and marginalisation – it touches upon the problem of wider American attitudes to death, specifically the clash between the deeply embedded cultural ideas of what death involves, and the practical realities of dying. Much like the administration and management that have continued almost unchanged since the nineteenth century, the idea of a pauper burial as the ultimate humiliation is born from cultural, religious and moral fears that emerged almost two centuries ago. The nineteenth century saw a significant shift in the way death was understood and approached, as death rites transitioned from a community event into a commercialised, capitalist-driven endeavour managed by funeral directors.²⁷ A rigid organisational structure was developed which allowed the body to remain hidden from view, dealt with only by professionals. Privacy then became a marker of propriety, but one which only the middle and upper classes could afford. Money allowed for a distinct separation from the body, and for the aesthetics that became popular within the growth of what has been referred to as a ‘beautification of death practices’, including elaborate funeral rites and paid mourners.²⁸ Death was sentimentalised, monetised and held at a distance, creating a social reluctance to engage with the reality of dying while overemphasising the ways in which a person’s death rituals – or lack of – reflected their importance in life.

A pauper burial in the unmarked trenches of a potter’s field, with no pomp or ceremony, was the antithesis of the ideal death in the nineteenth century. The potter’s field could therefore also act as a ‘moral corrective’ in the way many institutions did during this period, reminding citizens of the fate that could befall them if they strayed into a life of crime or vice – the life of the ‘undeserving’ poor, as opposed to the ‘deserving’ poor who warranted sympathy.²⁹ This division was clearly visible in New York through the contrast with Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, one of the first ‘rural cemeteries’ built in 1838 and hailed as a prime example of an appropriately dignified final resting place (Figure 4). As a journalist neatly summarised in 1866, ‘it is the ambition of the New Yorker to live upon the Fifth Avenue, to take his airings in the Park, and to sleep with his fathers in Green-Wood’.³⁰ Crucially, in order to reinforce social distinctions; regulations ensured that no citizen who had been convicted of a crime or had died in prison could be buried there, although these rules could be waived through money, influence or politics. This was demonstrated by the approved burial of the powerful Tammany Hall leader, William ‘Boss’ Tweed, a notorious politician and major landowner who was convicted of financial fraud and died in Ludlow Street Jail in 1878.

Figure 4

Green-Wood Cemetery, 2021 (Source: author) 

In contrast to the genteel beauty and dignified appeal of these ‘rural cemeteries’ such as Green-Wood, pauper cemeteries, and all the associations that came with them, were a horrifying prospect for nineteenth-century New Yorkers. This division between resting places for the rich and the poor also contributed to crystallising class boundaries between what were considered to be acceptable and unacceptable members of society. Boundaries, historian Thomas Bahde has argued, were reinforced even when advocating for reform. The bourgeoisie, including those who protested against the conditions of the potter’s field, ‘still expected to find the paupers’ burial ground disgusting and degrading and terrifying because they expected that its occupants, in life, had been the same.’³¹

The precedent for multifunctional cemeteries  

If we are able to move beyond this complex legacy and isolated approach, we can position Hart Island within a broader historical and contemporary context, drawing out the similarities with other distinct sites of death from the fourteenth century to the present day. In doing so, we can then begin to understand some of the possibilities, and indeed the precedents, for multifunctional burial sites that serve the wider community.

The purpose of a cemetery is not static, but rather has shifted throughout history to accommodate the needs of both the living and the dead. Western churchyards in the Middle Ages, such as those found throughout Europe, offer a strong initial model for burial grounds that also served as community hubs. As noted by Philippe Ariès and Thomas Kselman in their studies of France, they provided a wide range of functions alongside both private and public burial, the latter in mass graves, before they were gradually moved out of the city in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.³⁷ These cemeteries were effectively social and commercial spaces, where goods were bought and sold, families came together, children played and prostitutes might even be found soliciting. Often located close to commercial marketplaces, they played a key, multifaceted role within the community as a whole, as well as offering both individual and mass burial within the same geographic space.

Although no burials took place here, the Paris morgue is an alternative site of death that can be understood as offering a multifunctional experience, both regarding the multitude of practical functions it served and the opportunity for social and community exchanges. Originally established in 1804 to manage and identify the growing number of anonymous dead found in the city, the Paris morgue attracted a vast audience due to its public display of the dead. As a result, the space arguably evolved into a form of community hub, with all ages and classes of society present. Evidence suggests that a significant number of visitors may have come to the morgue for reasons other than helping to identify the anonymous dead, such as entertainment or social interaction. Compared by both contemporaries and scholars to a department store, a museum, a theatre and even an art salon, the morgue also acted as a locus for commercial activity as vendors set up stalls outside to sell food, drinks and memorabilia associated with tabloid-famous murders.³⁸ In this way, the morgue can then be understood as an evolution of the cemetery-marketplace, which largely no longer served this function by the nineteenth century.

Despite our cultural discomfort with the open discussion of death, and our common aversion to close proximity to it, numerous examples of cemeteries that act as multifunctional sites – in a way that follows the model established by the medieval cemetery – can still be found in contemporary cities. These sites have found a balance between social function and death management, and incorporated tourism in order to promote public education and support costs. This subsequent adaptation is also a relatively old idea – in London, many small parish cemeteries were partially converted into ‘outdoor sitting rooms’ for the poor as part of a nineteenth-century movement led by reformer Octavia Hill, creating social spaces that are still used today.³⁹ St George’s Gardens in Bloomsbury, for example, is a popular lunchtime picnic spot for nearby office workers and regularly hosts events including outdoor Shakespeare performances.⁴⁰ Although no longer an active burial site, the graves are visible and maintained by the local council. Meanwhile, larger London cemeteries, such as Highgate Cemetery, continue to act as active burial sites while catering to visitors and tourists with historic tours, a visitor centre and even a gift shop.⁴¹ In the USA, this approach is taken even further at sites such as the famous Hollywood Forever cemetery in Los Angeles. The management here have actively cultivated a space where celebration can coexist alongside grief with film screenings and a popular annual Dìa de los Muertos event, while in Washington DC, the active Congressional Cemetery also functions as an official dog park. These cemeteries, among others, serve as excellent models for methods of creative commemoration and the vast possibilities of multifunctional cemetery use. Furthermore, these diverse functions also provide vital income – membership fees for the K9-Corps at the Congressional Cemetery provide approximately 25 per cent of the site’s annual operating budget.⁴²

Case study: Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn  

Although it has long existed as the antithesis to Hart Island, Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn serves as a valuable model for how to develop a multifunctional cemetery in New York, with both active burial and recreational use. Built in 1838, Green-Wood followed the rural cemetery model, a movement for the creation of cemeteries outside city boundaries and unattached to churchyards that could be designed with reference to the living as well as the dead. This was achieved by creating much-needed green space on the edges of the city that allowed for appropriate recreational activities, in addition to reflection, memorial and burial of the dead. This multifaceted approach has continued into the present, with locals and tourists visiting every day to enjoy the beautiful grounds, the rich architecture and the stunning views towards Manhattan (Figure 6). These visitors are also able to take advantage of regularly scheduled trolley and walking tours, special events and concerts within the walls of the cemetery.

While critics express reservations about expanding the uses of Hart Island to create a more publicly accessible site that can be used as parkland as well as a cemetery, Green-Wood proves that cultural, social and recreational activity can easily be incorporated without veering into the territory of what might be considered disrespectful at a working burial site. The regulations here are clear – no running, no biking and no ball games – while the exhibitions, tours and cultural programming are designed to improve public understanding of the site’s history, as well as allowing for semi-permanent exhibitions by relevant artists and creators. These include French artist Sophie Calle’s 2017 installation, ‘Here Lie the Secrets of the Visitors of Green-Wood Cemetery’, an obelisk with a slot through which visitors can deposit a sealed envelope of secrets to be burnt, unopened, by Calle in the same facilities that are used for cremation.⁴³ The Fort Hamilton Gatehouse also hosted Joanna Ebenstein’s Morbid Anatomy Library and Museum in 2018, a research library specialising in books and materials relating to the histories of death, medicine and anatomical study.⁴⁴

Figure 6

View from Green-Wood Cemetery, 2021 (Source: author) 

Unlike Hart Island, Green-Wood is a privately owned cemetery, originally designed along a business model whereby plots could be purchased and owned in perpetuity, at a price that was also intended to fund their upkeep. However, as burial plots become increasingly scarce, paid events and memberships are used to fund the maintenance of the cemetery as operating costs rise beyond the income generated by plot purchases.⁴⁵ Furthermore, although it was utilised in a similar function to park space since its inception, Green-Wood’s current educational mission only emerged in 1999, following the establishment of the Green-Wood Cemetery Historic Fund. As a result of its multifunctional, rural cemetery origins, adapting the wider public perception of Green-Wood to allow for mixed recreational activities – although critics do remain – was significantly less challenging than the reputational obstacles faced by Hart Island. However, it can and should be considered as a useful model for a dignified, multifunctional cemetery that can serve both the dead and the living, and one that has successfully utilised public support, membership and heritage tours to fund educational endeavours.

Green-Wood also acts as a significant green space in Brooklyn, occupying a plot of land only slightly smaller than nearby Prospect Park. Only 14 per cent of New York City is classified as green space, and these 2,300 acres are divided unevenly among neighbourhoods, an inequality that has become even more apparent as a result of pandemic restrictions.⁴⁶ A recent study by the New York Times found that on average the park size in predominantly White neighbourhoods was almost four times larger than in predominantly Black neighbourhoods.⁴⁷ Therefore, not only do cemeteries offer vital opportunities for the key physical and mental health benefits that outdoor green space provides, they can also act as an underdeveloped resource for providing this green space for communities with more limited access.

Implications of wider access  

Although only half a mile from the Bronx, the journey to Hart Island is long and relatively complex. Travelling from Brooklyn involves at least two trains, a bus, a ferry ride and another bus to reach the gravesite, with a total journey time of up to three hours depending on bus schedules. As a result, one of the key priorities when discussing the island’s future is how to improve this access, with increased public transport via multiple departure locations and more regular ferries allowing both loved ones and members of the public to visit the island. This could be achieved by improving bus routes to City Island and adding an additional stop on the East River Ferry Service, such as expanding the existing route, which was extended to Throgs Neck in the Bronx in December 2021, to either City Island, or to Hart Island directly.⁵¹ The journey from Wall Street to Throgs Neck currently takes approximately one hour, with a City Island extension likely to add on approximately 15–20 minutes.

Furthermore, given the lack of green space available in New York, improving public access to Hart Island would benefit all citizens, particularly communities in the Bronx and Queens with limited parkland, rather than just those with a personal connection to the island. Along with parkland, the remaining cemeteries in the city offer a rare opportunity for green space and biodiversity, and the physical, psychological and environmental benefits that these spaces provide. The stigma surrounding the island has led to it being overlooked as a beautiful, natural site, with stunning views across the Long Island Sound and an atmosphere of peace and quiet that is almost impossible to find in the modern metropolis. Any development and increased public access will undoubtedly disturb this peace somewhat, but the isolated nature of Hart Island permits the Department of Parks to strictly regulate access in a way that ensures respectful behaviour and restricts visitor levels to limit environmental damage. An example of this can be seen in access to Governor’s Island, where ferry transport varies by season and is controlled by ferry capacity.

Paradoxically, making the island more accessible to the wider public could also make it more difficult for loved ones to access their dead. One possible future for Hart Island that has been suggested by advocates is to either stop using the island for burials or limit them severely in order to transform the site into a protected national park with a memorial or museum for victims of Covid-19, as well as other historic mass casualties. Despite initially presenting as a potentially positive development, this initiative could actually contribute to hiding the reality of city burial yet again, something which will always be required, while also adding further practical challenges for those wishing to visit their dead. If not on Hart Island, these burials would likely take place at cemeteries far removed from the city, in places with reduced or limited public transport access.

During a virtual public meeting with the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation on 30 March 2022, representatives outlined the findings of a recent transportation study undertaken to explore ways in which public access to the island could be improved. They confirmed that the remaining buildings would soon be demolished, and that Hart Island would continue to function as an active burial site. Various access options were discussed, including additional parking at Orchard Beach and improved ferry access, although they all remain at the conceptual stage and no plans have been confirmed.

A number of attendees, however, expressed frustration with the process so far, citing concerns with access for the elderly and disabled, as well as what they viewed as the department prioritising the residents of City Island over the loved ones of those buried on Hart Island. It is clear that numerous groups still feel distinctly overlooked by the new proposals, a feeling that only exacerbates the longstanding frustration and anger that exists among many of those with personal connections to the island.

Memorialising the dead  

Although no plans have yet been put forward for a memorial on the island, given the media attention around the transfer of the site and the impact of Covid-19, it is likely that some form of collective or cultural memorial may be erected on the island in the near future. Although this memorial – and possible accompanying educational structure – is a necessary addition, particularly as the former institutions will no longer exist to provide historical context, the prospect of memorialising the dead on Hart Island is rife with potential challenges and clashing ideologies. How do you memorialise such a wide scope of experiences and sensitivities without inevitably creating a hierarchy of trauma? Who decides which deaths are most significant? The only memorial that currently exists on Hart Island is for the Civil War dead, while the island’s role in the AIDS crisis as well as its long history as a burial place for cholera, tuberculosis, typhoid and influenza outbreaks throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries continues to be overlooked. Meanwhile, the countries of origin listed in the earliest burial records for Hart Island, held at the New York Municipal Archives, reflect the city’s historic and continued reliance on immigrant labour. This labour, particularly the contributions of Irish and German immigrants, has already been partially memorialised – and romanticised – within what has been referred to as ‘ethnic heritage tourism’ of the white ethnic experience that routinely ignores historic non-white experiences in New York.⁵²

Crucially, the demographics of New York’s most impoverished populations has shifted throughout the twentieth century, with an investigation by Vox in collaboration with Columbia Journalism School’s Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism finding that Black and Latinx residents were now most likely to be buried on Hart Island.⁵³ This reflects studies demonstrating that in 2019 more than half of Black and Latinx residents were living in poverty or were considered low-income, a situation that has worsened since the pandemic.⁵⁴ Therefore there is a risk that in attempting to potentially design a memorial for the collective experience, the complex memory of the island will be simplified, and as a result of funding priorities, the communities who currently have the most dominant ties to the island will continue to be marginalised.