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Hart Island is one of those places in New York that many won't ever see. Part of the Bronx, it's currently uninhabited, but in the past has been used as a prisoner of war camp, a missile base and has housed a prison and a women's asylum.
Richard Nickel Jr. of The Kingston Lounge recently snuck on to the patrolled island (for five hours starting at the creepy hour of 4 a.m.), a risk since any trespassers will be fined $600 and could face a year in prison. The only people allowed are those who have family members buried there. "Since 1869, the island has served as New York's sixth potter's field. Approximately 800,000 bodies are buried on the island, making it the largest publicly funded cemetery in the world." Read more at The Hart Island Project.
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Incredible history, incredible writeup and clearly one of Richard's riskiest adventures as of yet in the name of documenting forgotten structures.
Good call on covering this, Gothamist.
I would love to have a chance to look around Hart Island. Must have been fascinating. Unlike like this guy, however, I'm not willing to risk getting arrested.
Wasn't this island featured in that Michael Douglas movie? You know the one. With Michael Douglas.
Fascinating. I'd love to check it out.
how do i get there by subway?
Why is it off limits? They're afraid of grave robbers?
these are awesome! i'm kind of glad that the state keeps people off the island or this place would have been visited by looters and grafitti kids by now (now that i don't love grafitti artists, but...)
Its ridiculous that we still have entire islands in America that are "off limits" by taxpaying citizens. Who gets to decide what places are "off limits" and how do we get some of those insane laws changed. From the looks of those dilapidated buildings what would it hurt for people to go here, and if its just sitting there abandoned why not open it up as a park, build affordable housing there, etc. Instead we just pay people to patrol it and say its a no trespassing piece of land for no real reason.
This could be the next McCarren Pool. Hipster Island.
so does this guy just sneak onto places? cool!
These pics were taken at 4AM?
#8- it's a potters field. People are buried here, and disinterred, and buried again. It's not just a park. It's an active ENORMOUS cemetery for the homeless, nameless and unclaimed of NYC. Not the best place for the uninformed bleeding heart's constant call for "affordable housing and parks". Can you not read or are you just an idiot?
Wow, really #12? No shit. So the entire island is one big ole potters field that no-one can go to unless someone you are related to is buried there? Who is buried under all those acres where the actual cemetery isn't located? So by your logic Brooklyn and Queens should be off limits and uninhabited because we have cemeteries here too? Who's the idiot, idiot.
Wow, f'ing creepy.
Great pictures though.
Washington Square Park is a potters field too, right?
The whole island is 131 acres and 101 of it are the potter's field. Is it really worth developing the necessary infrastructure to support residences on that island for less than 30 acres? I'm sure given another few decades, the potter's field will expand to the rest of the island anyways.
And for further reference, of those 30 acres that aren't the potter's field, I'm sure much of it already contains buildings. And an average Manhattan city block is about 6 acres, so we're really not talking about much available space here. Certainly nothing to get up in arms over.
I'm going to assume it's just easier for the government to restrict all access.
Since there's hardly any transportation to get out there, it's a huge graveyard, a lot of historical buildings that require protecting, prisoners at work...it's probably just easier to call the island off limits so they don't have to worry about all the other logistics.
David's Island should be his next visit. It's way cool and housed a military base until the 1960's.
re David's Island--found this interesting tidbit on wikipedia:
"From 1955 to 1960, Fort Slocum housed a Nike Ajax air-defense battery. The missiles were stored in underground silos on HART ISLAND and the radar and control base was on DAVID'S ISLAND."
These pictures are fascinating, particularly the one that shows the abandoned records room, with stacks of papers and ledgers rotting in the open air. This place needs an archivist.
wow wow wow. this is cool. great work.
Just Saying, you are correct - the bulk of Fort Slocum was housed on David's Island, with a Nike site on the northern point of Hart Island.
Sadly, all of the remaining structures on David's Island were razed earlier this year; I wish I could have made it out there, but sadly I did not.
And GM, yes, Washington Square Park did indeed house one of the earlier potter's fields for the City of New York. So did Bryant Park and Madison Square Park.
And thanks for the reblog and kind comments everybody!
One thing I do want to respond to is there was nothing creepy about either the place or the hour I visited; there was a sort of elegiac solitude that hung above the island, but it was by no means "creepy". It was actually very touching.
This would be great for the next Weird NY book (from the publishers of Weird NJ!).
I made the trip there a couple years ago. I have a bunch of photos on Google Earth...that place is very surreal.