Biggest Mass Grave In US Could Become NYC's Latest Park

NEW YORK, NY — It took Elaine Joseph more than 30 years to find her baby girl. The Manhattan native gave birth to a daughter during the massive snowstorm of 1978. She was taken from one hospital to another and died during an open heart surgery when she was just five days old.

Her body was inadvertently brought to Hart Island, where about a million New Yorkers who went unidentified or couldn't afford a funeral are buried in mass graves.

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After seeing a news story about the island in 2009, Joseph discovered her daughter, Tomika, was among those bodies. She tries to visit the trench where the girl's body lies as often as she can, but it's not easy.

Joseph said she has to schedule visits six months in advance with the Department of Correction, which oversees the island. She and her relatives are taken there on a ferry and escorted by armed guards as they reflect on the baby girl's short life.

"I don't need a correction officer to escort me to the grave of my infant baby," Joseph said. "I would like to be able to walk there. I'd like to be able to go as often as I go to my parents' grave site, where I need no permission."

City lawmakers are trying to make those visits easier for Joseph and others who want to pay their respects to loved ones at the nation's largest public burial site.

Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez (D-Manhattan) reintroduced two bills Wednesday that would transfer control of the island to the Parks Department and establish more frequent city ferry service there.

The changes would allow New Yorkers to visit their relatives' graves as they would at any other cemetery and make the island an educational site for the public, officials and advocates said.

"I believe that the island should be a destination for not only those who lose a loved one, but also for New Yorkers and other individuals (who) would like to learn about the history of those individuals," Rodriguez said.

The city has owned the 101-acre island off the shore of the Bronx since 1868 and the Department of Correction has overseen it for more than a century.

City inmates bury bodies in stacks in long trenches marked only by PVC pipes, Joseph said. Recent erosion has revealed bones and skulls and had long been buried in the soil.

The Department of Correction expanded access to the island in 2015 by offering monthly visits for family members that now can accommodate up to 70 people.

But the still-difficult trips put a heavy burden on the New Yorkers, including many immigrants, who want to see relatives buried on the island, advocates and officials said. The city's existing ferry service could make regular stops at the island to make visits more convenient, Rodriguez said.

"This is truly the tale of two cities. This is a Dickensian system of burials," said Melinda Hunt of the Hart Island Project, an organization that helps New Yorkers find loved ones buried on the island.

Handing the island to the Parks Department isn't a new idea — the Department of Correction tried to transfer control in 1966, but parks officials refused, Hunt said. Lawmakers considered legislation to do so in the last City Council term but it never got a vote.

The Parks Department has refused to take over the island because it's an "active burial site," a spokeswoman said. The department does own some small cemeteries but lacks the resources to manage an island graveyard, the spokeswoman said.

The Department of Correction said it will review Rodriguez's new legislation. A spokesman touted officials' efforts to make the island more accessible to family members.

"Hart Island is not only a sacred place for those who have relatives and friends buried there, it is a part of New York City history," department Press Secretary Jason Kersten said in a statement. "The New York City Department of Correction has managed burial and disinterment services at Hart Island for more than 100 years, and we consider this a solemn responsibility. "

(Lead image: About a million people are buried on Hart Island, New York City's unmarked mass grave.