OK, I see today’s hysteria is, “New York City is throwing dead COVID-19 patients in mass graves you can see from space,” so here’s the truth about Hart Island: (1/n)

Hart Island, off the east side of the Bronx, has been the city’s potter’s field for decades. It has also served as a Civil War prison camp, a Cold War missile storage site, a drug rehab facility, and lots of other things throughout NYC history.

It is not a park. It is not open to the public. You can’t get there unless you can prove a relationship to someone buried there, and then you are allowed onto a ferry. This is not “dig a trench in Central Park and throw bodies in it.”

Why are people buried there? Many reasons. Most are either destitute, unidentified, and/or have had no family member or friend claim them from the morgue. That’s not true in every case. Some next of kin have not known what “city burial” meant or simply couldn’t afford more.

The timeline for going to Hart Island used to be 30 days unclaimed. Because of the skyrocketing numbers of deaths here, it has been shortened to 14. It doesn’t mean the instant your loved one dies, they are taken to the trenches. Not at all.

Bodies are treated respectfully. The caskets are labeled so that if someone steps forward in the future to claim a body, the person can be disinterred and moved to a cemetery elsewhere.

Obviously nobody under any circumstance wants a family member buried in a potter’s field. But even before coronavirus, such a place has been necessary for a large city where every day, people die unidentified and alone. That is urban life.

The Office of the City Medical Examiner is full of experts on this difficult subject. I have full trust in them to be respectful and make the wise decisions. When I found my uncle dead and I was the only one around to handle it, they treated me with the utmost professionalism.

What they are doing on Hart Island is not new, it is not shocking. It is a shift in the timeline of what has been done for ages on a designated burial site, from 30 to 14 days, because we’re in a state of emergency. That’s all. This is not the apocalypse.

Melinda Hunt started the Hart Island Project to help people identify their loved ones there and to humanize the anonymous dead. The satellite photo on her website shows this is not some hellhole. It’s a quiet place for a very specific, necessary function. https://www.hartisland.net 

People understandably don’t think about what has to be done with unclaimed bodies unless it’s their job. So, now you know. New York City has an island for burials. More people are dying so there are more and faster burials. That is really the entire story - sorry, tabloids.

What I personally hope people take away from these strange times:

Experienced, smart people are having to make impossible decisions that by definition will not please everybody. They take into account factors you wouldn’t know exist - because why would you? They’re specialists.

Whatever alternative you think is better - I guarantee you an expert has thought of it, considered it, and could tell you why it’s not the best choice if only they weren’t busy getting things done.

There is no joy, and certainly no sadism, in tough decisions at a time like this.

Post-script: Wow, this took off more than I expected! To clarify, I am no expert on mortuary science or burials. Ages ago, as a college student, I began to study Hart Island simply out of curiosity about a place hidden in plain sight that served such an essential function.

And I only speak in a personal capacity here, to hopefully give context behind sensationalized stories that understandably frighten people. I know it’s hard to not panic and think the world is falling apart. Hopefully knowing history and that context can help a bit.