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Rhiannon12866

(222,181 posts)
Sun May 6, 2018, 10:20 PM May 2018

New York City's Crumbling 'Island of The Dead' Is Unearthing Its Nameless Skeletons

1 million souls who can't stay buried.

It's the largest mass burial site in the US, but for an estimated 1 million souls interred at New York City's 'Island of the Dead', their eternal resting place is disintegrating.

Hart Island in the Bronx, said to be the largest taxpayer-funded cemetery in the world, is crumbling in the face of longstanding erosion, and as the ground gives way, the buried remains of New York's unidentified poor are becoming exposed.

"Skeletal remains are literally just coming out of the earth," the director of non-profit Hart Island Project, Melinda Hunt, told CBS.

"Entire skeletons are sort of falling out of the hill onto the beach, and then they're washed away with the tide."

Hunt's organisation says the affected area – informally known as 'Bones Beach' – has been eroding for decades due to storms and severe weather, and after years of mismanagement by NYC's Department of Correction, which controls the site, the inevitable unearthing of human remains has reached a crisis point.


More: https://www.sciencealert.com/new-york-city-s-crumbling-island-of-the-dead-is-unearthing-its-nameless-skeletons-hart-bronx?perpetual=yes&limitstart=1



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New York City's Crumbling 'Island of The Dead' Is Unearthing Its Nameless Skeletons (Original Post) Rhiannon12866 May 2018 OP
1 million unidentified?? Demovictory9 May 2018 #1
I ran across this story by accident and found it quite disturbing Rhiannon12866 May 2018 #2
Judging from the pic, it looks like a very low lying bit of land. dixiegrrrrl May 2018 #3
It sure does - and with erosion and storms, a lot could have disappeared since 1869. Rhiannon12866 May 2018 #4
so not unidentified. Just poor or unclaimed. those court-appointed guardians can be snakes. Demovictory9 May 2018 #5
It really does sound like something from a horror movie - and it's not just from the 1800s Rhiannon12866 May 2018 #6
More about Hart Island Dennis Donovan May 2018 #7
Thanks! I did look it up, I had never heard about it before Rhiannon12866 May 2018 #8
It goes to show that DonCoquixote May 2018 #9
Our friend died in N.Y.C. four years ago. He had distant relatives and was destitute. 3Hotdogs May 2018 #10
It was amazing to me to learn that this was still going on. Rhiannon12866 May 2018 #11
This is idiocy. Orange Free State May 2018 #12
Interesting timing... BigmanPigman May 2018 #13

Rhiannon12866

(222,181 posts)
2. I ran across this story by accident and found it quite disturbing
Sun May 6, 2018, 10:48 PM
May 2018

I didn't know about it, but further reading revealed that this cemetery is apparently a kind of "potter's field" where the poor and unidentified were buried in mass graves for years.

Over a million people are buried in the city’s potter’s field on Hart Island. A New York Times investigation uncovers some of their stories and the failings of the system that put them there.

Twice a week or so, loaded with bodies boxed in pine, a New York City morgue truck passes through a tall chain-link gate and onto a ferry that has no paying passengers. Its destination is Hart Island, an uninhabited strip of land off the coast of the Bronx in Long Island Sound, where overgrown 19th-century ruins give way to mass graves gouged out by bulldozers and the only pallbearers are jail inmates paid 50 cents an hour.

There, divergent life stories come to the same anonymous end.

No tombstones name the dead in the 101-acre potter’s field that holds Leola Dickerson, who worked as one family’s housekeeper for 50 years, beloved by three generations for her fried chicken and her kindness. She buried her husband as he had wished, in a family plot back in Alabama. But when she died at 88 in a New York hospital in 2008, she was the ward of a court-appointed guardian who let her house go into foreclosure and her body go unclaimed at the morgue.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/05/15/nyregion/new-york-mass-graves-hart-island.html

dixiegrrrrl

(60,011 posts)
3. Judging from the pic, it looks like a very low lying bit of land.
Sun May 6, 2018, 11:35 PM
May 2018

Couple of good storms can wash right over it.

Rhiannon12866

(222,181 posts)
4. It sure does - and with erosion and storms, a lot could have disappeared since 1869.
Sun May 6, 2018, 11:40 PM
May 2018

And it's not like anyone thought about it or cared.

Rhiannon12866

(222,181 posts)
6. It really does sound like something from a horror movie - and it's not just from the 1800s
Mon May 7, 2018, 03:25 AM
May 2018

The biographies of some of these people are heart wrenching.

Rhiannon12866

(222,181 posts)
8. Thanks! I did look it up, I had never heard about it before
Mon May 7, 2018, 05:31 AM
May 2018

I ran across this article when I was reading something else. It's certainly disturbing, but it not much of a surprise. These are the people no one cared about or they wouldn't have been put out of sight and mind there.

DonCoquixote

(13,711 posts)
9. It goes to show that
Mon May 7, 2018, 06:15 AM
May 2018

Even for people that did the right things, who signed the right forms, and that put the right amount of money away, the wolves and scavengers of our society, the lawyers, hospitals, and nursing homes, will take everything they can, including the bones. It is one thing when an estranged person in left this way, though it is still a high crime and an affront to humanity.

However, the fact that there is an industry of "guardians" many of whom wealthy, that uses the court to feed on helpless people is something that needs to have a heavy hammer taken to it.

Two disgusting images from this article: the fact that that guardian lawyers shown had enough money to wear a bunch of gold rings, yet he acted like he had no idea what was happening. Pawn you damn rings and bury the people you were responsible for. The other is the medical school being angry that the mortuary science folks got to use the corpse before they did. Even Vultures have the class to have an honest fight over remains, not use lawyers. Here is a news flash: if doctors are complaining about why they have such a low rep, have them read this article and one of the countless ones (often found right here at DU) about the way they can drive people into the poorhouse.

3Hotdogs

(13,394 posts)
10. Our friend died in N.Y.C. four years ago. He had distant relatives and was destitute.
Mon May 7, 2018, 06:38 AM
May 2018

His remains were destined for Hart. We chipped together and bought him a plot on Long Island. For some reason, his relatives didn't want this to happen but relented and gave us permission. Their objection may be because he was gay.



He was the kind of guy that always brought a smile with him. He earned money acting as a tour guide for out of town groups visiting the city. I recall his description of one of the tours. It was a 9th. grade class from Texas on a three day tour. He described the kids complaining to their teacher.

"Mr. x, can't we ask for another guide?"

By the middle of the second day, "Mr. Ken, can we get our picture with you?"

I still miss him.

Rhiannon12866

(222,181 posts)
11. It was amazing to me to learn that this was still going on.
Mon May 7, 2018, 07:11 AM
May 2018

And that conditions there had been allowed to get so bad - even now!

And that was wonderful that you were able to do that for your friend. I can't imagine abandoning anyone, but then there have to be plenty of people without families. And having lost both my parents not that long ago, I know that the costs can be quite a lot. It does seem ridiculous though that you had to get permission when his relatives abdicated responsibility. He sounds like a very special guy.

Orange Free State

(611 posts)
12. This is idiocy.
Mon May 7, 2018, 07:41 AM
May 2018

It is not difficult to harden the shoreline by dumping rock along it. In fact, I would imagine that NYC has plenty of concrete sidewalks that have been broken up and need a place to be disposed of, on a daily basis. Why sit around and write stories about it? Just send the concrete there instead of wherever it is disposed of. Come on New York, you are smarter than that and can kill two birds with one stone. If it is considered too ugly to look at, then nice clean stone can be used for the outer visible part.

BigmanPigman

(52,258 posts)
13. Interesting timing...
Mon May 7, 2018, 08:10 AM
May 2018

On Thurs I watched a show on the Smithsonian Channel about Aerial New York and they showed prisoners burying people here. I never had heard of it before then.

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