Mourners Make First Visit to New York’s Potter’s Field

Another interesting article, this time in the New York Times.

“The lonely island where New York City buries its unclaimed dead lies off the coast of the Bronx, off-limits to living mourners for so long that it has sometimes seemed like a mirage.

For years, family members and their advocates battled the city for the right to visit the unmarked graves of loved ones buried on Hart Island, the city’s potter’s field at the western end of Long Island Sound. The city refused such visits, with rare exceptions, citing safety concerns and the rules of the Correction Department, which controls the island and uses inmate labor for burials.

But on Sunday morning, under the settlement terms of a federal class-action lawsuit that sought regular grave site access for relatives, a small group was allowed to stand beside the very stretch of ground that holds their kin…” Continue reading the news story in the New York Times.

Since 1980, 63,484 people have been buried in mass graves on Hart Island. The Traveling Cloud Museum is a collection of their stories. For further information and access to these oral histories visit the Hart Island project’s website