Hi everyone. Former NYC funeral director here. There's a lot of misinformation/misinterpretation going on right now about the burials on Hart Island so here's a brief thread giving some history and insight into this.

Hart Island has been the location of NYC's potter's field for about 150 years. A potter's field is for human remains that have been unclaimed. In other words, no family came forward to claim them and facilitate a funeral. That is a sad thing, but the city can't hold them forever.

There's over a million remains buried on Hart Island. They're always in sections of 150 over two rows, three caskets deep – as we see in the photos. Incarcerated people from Rikers are typically the ones who perform these burials. The island is overseen by the Corrections Dept.

On average, there's about two dozen remains placed there a week. Over the last week or so, that has escalated to about two dozen a day, according the news. However, these are still unclaimed remains, as have always been buried on Hart Island.

Why the increase? NYC morgues have cut down their previous very long holding times to 14 days. That means that any remains not claimed in 14 days, or who were already being held for that long or longer, are being moved out and into the earth on Hart Island.

So is this a result of Covid? Yes, sort of. City morgues need to make more room for the increased death NYC has suffered under this pandemic. As such, they're speeding up the existent process for moving unclaimed remains to Hart Island.

And there is probably statistically some overlap between Covid deaths & these burials. It'd be silly to say no unclaimed person who passed in the last 2 wks didn't have Covid. But that isn't the same as saying that all folks who die of C19 are being buried in the potter's field.

The headlines would imply differently. What we're seeing here is not the same as we've (apparently) seen in Iran. As someone who worked for years with the city's deceased, I just wanted to clarify for folks who don't know the history/process of how unclaimed burials work in NYC.

Anyway. Stay inside. Wash your hands. Tip the heck out of your delivery people.

(And if any folks currently working in mortuary service in NYC have corrections for me about this, let me know. Admittedly I've been out of the industry for a while now, but I'm all ears.)

And! And! If you want to know more about Hart Island, its history, and its occupants, this project is hecking amazing: https://www.hartisland.net/