Erosion at New York's Hart Island graveyard unearths human bones
NEW YORK -- Hart Island, a massive burial ground near the Bronx borough of New York City, is eroding, unearthing human bones along the shoreline, CBS New York station WCBS-TV reports . Advocates said the city hasn't done anything – until now.
"Skeletal remains are literally just coming out of the earth," Melinda Hunt of the Hart Island Project told WCBS.
On Monday, 174 exposed bones were recovered from the Hart Island cemetery. It's a giant potter's field on an island where the East River meets the Long Island Sound.
More than a million unclaimed New Yorkers with no family or no money are buried there, including many infants.
But years of storms have eroded the island's shores, unearthing graves.
Hunt has been monitoring the situation since the 1990s, demanding that the city's Department of Corrections, which runs the island, do something.
"They know that it's happening because I learned about it from the correction officers, who referred to this area as 'bones beach,'" she said.
Hart Island is only open to visitors by appointment months in advance. Last week, Hunt and a photographer captured pictures from a boat, showing bones scattered among the rocks.
Suddenly this week, officials fast-tracked the process.
If you're interested in learning more about Hart Island, please watch the many You Tube videos.
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A Rare Tour Of Hart Island, NYC's Isle Of Lost Souls
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From a historical and humane standpoint it should be maintained, cremate those that follow.
But having said that, no disrespect to the dearly departed but I feel we have graver concerns in regards to the living.
Nice historical piece.
Indeed we do have graver concerns in the USA, but IMO, there's nothing wrong with discussing other topics as well.
I appreciate your input. Thanks for taking the time to comment.
Absolutely, it was not my intention to diminish the import of this I hope you did not take it as such.
I didn't, and I'm truly sorry if you felt that my comment was critical. It wasn't!
Nope, good to go here.
They once stacked tiny baby coffins like cord-wood on Hart Island. If an unclaimed body accidentally got sent to Hart Island that was that. There was no way for families to get them back. Over a million poor, unclaimed and unwanted corpses lie upon Hart Island making it an irresistible place for morbid souvenir hunters as it is now basically a giant mound of human bones. It that doesn't creep you out nothing will. Hart Island stands in contrast to the elaborate tombs of New York's aristocrats. The dead of Woodlawn Cemetary live in mansions on manicured grounds within a national park. The kings of ancient Persia had nothing on the robber barons of America's Gilded Age. New York's upper crust is segregated from its hoi polloi in life as in death...
Thank you for adding a different Bronx cemetery's 180 degree perspective to my seed, JBB. Woodlawn Cemetery's well-manicured grounds are safely located on solid ground in The Bronx, and Hart Island's neglected grounds are located at river's edge.
I suspect that it would cost tens of millions of dollars to replicate even one of the more elaborate tombs in Woodland. Those who chose to spend so lavishly on their final resting places must have possessed a massive degree of vanity. I have been to Forrest Lawn in LA and to Metairie in New Orleans but I really never imagined a place like Woodlawn existed. Hart Island does stand in stark contrast with Woodlawn considering they are both in the Bronx and from similar time periods. The same society that entombed some of its business leaders in massive replicas of ancient wonders also discarded and abused hundreds of thousands of baby corpses. If the idea of being left alone on Hart Island for the night does not terrify you than I don't know what would...
Good comment. Thanks again for contributing to my seed.
I watched a show on PBS about the Granite Quarries in Westerly RI where most of the granite for those elaborate tombs came from because it was the very best. "The Pink, Red and Blue granites from Westerly can be seen in statues and buildings the world over. Statues such as those at the Gettysburg battlefield, in Central Park and the statue of George Washington in Allegheny City, PA represent the beauty and workability of Westerly Granite."