For years, New York’s Hart Island has been a source of bureaucratic cruelty and secrecy, sparking controversy. Since its creation, the island has seen a multitude of purposes, ranging from a psychiatric institution to a tuberculosis sanitarium, but it is perhaps best known as the final resting place of New York’s unknown and forgotten. Melinda Hunt’s work with The Hart Island Project has made it easier over the years for New Yorkers to track down their loved ones and negotiate visits with the Department of Corrections. However, despite the project’s progress over the years, such visitations may be coming to an indefinite close.
“We've seen government choppers flying over and back for a while now,” says Joe Ramirez (whose name has been changed upon request), a long time employee of New York's Department of Corrections. “Occasionally we'll get boats coming in that look packed to maximum capacity. It's clear they're building something [on the island]. There hasn't been a day the past month or so that that place hasn't seen some kind of action.”
But action is the opposite of what Marilyn Haus has been experiencing in her efforts to visit the grave of her stillborn son. Like many others, Haus is no stranger to the delays involved with visiting Hart Island; the process of granting civilians access is a generally long-winded, grievous affair. Only a spare few fortunate individuals have been permitted beyond the gazebo, a kindness currently barred from possibly despite the progress seen in recent years.
“We’ve been petitioning the government for weeks to improve access to the island on behalf of bereaved families. The amount of red tape that has now surrounded the visitation process is unacceptable. How is it right for the government to lay claim on a site containing the remains of civilians and insist on visiting permits, of which only half get approved and even less than that achieve long-term visitation rights? These restrictions have got to stop.”
The Island is actually the largest tax-funded cemetery in the world, with close to a million graves enclosed in a complex system of trenches housed on its grounds. The site is maintained by a dedicated body of staff who oversee a number of community initiatives developed in partnership with the Rikers Island Correctional Center. These initiatives are dedicated to instilling positive values in inmates by employing them to perform new burials for 50¢ an hour.
The program has been lauded as a constructive way to encourage responsibility among the inmates by having them contribute to a branch of local infrastructure in need of continued support. Managing staff have observed that further restrictions placed upon Hart Island would jeopardize the program and likely lead to its termination.
The development on the island has not only raised concerns among those engaging with the cemetery on a day-to-day basis. Conservationist Amelia Silberman, renowned for her various environmental impact studies, has expressed her worries over the construction’s effects on the island's heron population.
“Due to the scale of the construction currently taking place on Hart Island, the parties involved in the project have already built a docking bay and a helipad, disturbing vital nesting habitat for the birds,” Silberman explains. “New York City is already an unforgivable environment for wildlife. We should be working to protect what little sanctuaries we have, not destroying them.”
Public outcry has arisen as a result of increased activity on the island. “We recognize the array of concerns that the government-sanctioned development of Hart Island has raised,” says Senator Vincent Stern (R - PA). “But the public can rest assured that these ongoing operations are in the best interest of their safety and security and, at their resolution, will not inhibit the island’s usual activity.”
The company contracted for the Hart Island development could not be reached for comment.
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