Hart Island
Hart Island, sometimes referred to as Hart's Island, is located at the western end of Long Island Sound, in the northeastern Bronx in New York City. Measuring approximately long by wide, Hart Island is part of the Pelham Islands archipelago and is east of City Island.
The island's first public use was as a training ground for the United States Colored Troops in 1864. Since then, Hart Island has been the location of a Union Civil War prison camp, a psychiatric institution, a tuberculosis sanatorium, a potter's field used for both individual and mass burials, a homeless shelter, a boys' reformatory and workhouse, a jail, and a drug rehabilitation center. Several other structures, such as an amusement park, were planned for Hart Island but not built. During the Cold War, Nike defense missiles were stationed on Hart Island. The island was intermittently used as a prison and a homeless shelter until 1967; the last inhabited structures were abandoned in 1977. The potter's field on Hart Island was run by the New York City Department of Correction until 2019, when the New York City Council voted to transfer jurisdiction to the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation.
The remains of more than one million people are buried on Hart Island. Since the first decade of the 21st century, however, there have been fewer than 1,500 burials a year. Burials on Hart Island include individuals who were not claimed by their families or did not have private funerals; the homeless and the indigent; and mass burials of disease victims. Access to the island was restricted by the Department of Correction, which operated an infrequent ferryboat service and imposed strict visitation quotas. Burials were conducted by inmates from the nearby Rikers Island jail until 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic. The Hart Island Project, a public charity founded by visual artist Melinda Hunt, worked to improve access to the island and make burial records more easily available. Transfer to the Parks Department in 2019 had been sought for over twenty years and was hoped to ease public access to the Island. Burials in the island's potter's field continued after the transfer.
Toponymy
There are numerous theories about the origins of the island's place name. One theory posits that British cartographers named it "Heart Island" in 1775 due to its organ-like shape but the 'e' was dropped shortly after. A map drawn in 1777 and subsequent maps refer to the island as "Hart Island". Other names given to the island during the late 18th century were "Little Minneford Island" and "Spectacle Island", the latter because the island's shape was thought to resemble spectacles.Another theory, based on the meaning of the English word "hart", which means "stag", is that the island was named when it was used as a game reserve. Another version holds that it was named in reference to deer that migrated from the mainland during periods when ice covered that part of Long Island Sound.
Geography
Hart Island is approximately long by wide at its widest point. It lies about off the eastern shore of City Island. The island's area is disputed; according to some sources, it is, while others state that it is. Hart Island is isolated from the rest of the city: there is no electricity and the only means of access is via ferryboat.History
Early history
Before European colonization, Hart Island was occupied by the Siwanoy tribe of Native Americans, who were indigenous to the area. In 1654, English physician Thomas Pell purchased the island from the Siwanoy as part of a property. Pell died in 1669 and ownership passed to his nephew Sir John Pell, the son of British mathematician John Pell. The island remained in the Pell family until 1774, when it was sold to Oliver De Lancey. It was later sold to the Rodman, Haight, and Hunter families, in that order. According to Elliott Gorn, Hart Island had become "a favorite pugilistic hideaway" by the early 19th century. Bouts of bare-knuckle boxing held on the island could draw thousands of spectators.The first public use of Hart Island was training the 31st Infantry Regiment of the United States Colored Troops beginning in 1864. A steamboat called John Romer shuttled recruits to the island from the Battery at the southern tip of Manhattan. A commander's house and a recruits' barracks were built; the barracks included a library and a concert room; it could house 2,000 to 3,000 recruits at a time, and over 50,000 men were ultimately trained there.
In November 1864, construction of a prisoner-of-war camp on Hart Island with room for 5,000 prisoners started. The camp was used for four months in 1865 during the American Civil War. The island housed 3,413 captured Confederate Army soldiers. Of these, 235 died in the camp and were buried in Cypress Hills Cemetery. Following the Civil War, indigent veterans were buried on the island in soldier's plots, which were separate from the potter's field and at the same location. Some of these soldiers were moved to West Farms Soldiers Cemetery in 1916 and others were removed to Cypress Hills Cemetery in 1941.
Addition of cemetery
The first burials on Hart Island were those of 20 Union Army soldiers during the American Civil War. On May 27, 1868, New York City purchased the island for $75,000 from Edward Hunter, who also owned the nearby Hunter Island. City burials started shortly afterward. In 1869, a 24-year-old woman named Louisa Van Slyke, who died in Charity Hospital, was the first person to be buried in the island's public graveyard. The cemetery then became known as "City Cemetery" and "Potter's Field".By 1880, The New York Times described the island as "the Green-Wood of Five Points", comparing an expansive cemetery in Brooklyn with a historically poor neighborhood in Manhattan. The newspaper also said of Hart Island, "This is where the rough pine boxes go that come from Blackwell's Island", in reference to the influx of corpses being transported from the hospitals on modern-day Roosevelt Island. The potter's field on Hart Island replaced two previous potter's fields on the current sites of Washington Square Park and New York Public Library Main Branch in Manhattan. The number of burials on Hart Island exceeded 500,000 by 1958.
Juxtaposition of uses
Hart Island was used as a quarantine station during the 1870 yellow fever epidemic. In that period, the island contained a women's psychiatric hospital called The Pavilion, which was built 1885, as well as a tubercularium. There was also an industrial school with 300 students on the island. After an 1892 investigation found the city's asylums were overcrowded, it was proposed to expand those on Hart Island from 1,100 to 1,500 beds.Image:Convalescent Hospital on Hart Island.jpg|thumb|alt=A black-on-yellow sketch showing the Convalescent Hospital on Hart Island|Convalescent Hospital on Hart Island, 1877
In the late 19th century, Hart Island became the location of a boys' workhouse, which was an extension of the prison and almshouse on Blackwell Island. A workhouse for men was established in 1895, and was followed by a workhouse for young boys ten years later. By the early 20th century, Hart Island housed about 2,000 delinquent boys as well as elderly male prisoners from Blackwell's penitentiary. The prison on Hart Island grew; it had its own band and a Catholic prison chapel. The cornerstone for the $60,000 chapel was laid in 1931 and it was opened the following year.
In 1924, John Hunter sold his tract of land on Hart Island's west side to Solomon Riley, a millionaire real estate speculator from Barbados. Riley subsequently proposed to build an amusement park on Hart Island, which would have served the primarily black community of Harlem in Manhattan. It was referred to as the "Negro Coney Island" because at the time, African Americans were banned from the Rye Playland and Dobbs Ferry amusement parks in the New York City area. Riley had started building a dance hall, boardinghouses, and a boardwalk, and purchased sixty steamboats for the operation. The state government raised concerns about the proposed park's proximity to a jail and hospital, and the city condemned the land in 1925. Riley was later paid $144,000 for the seizure.
After World War II
The prison population of Hart Island was moved to Rikers Island during World War II, and Hart Island's former workhouse was used as a disciplinary barracks by the United States Armed Forces. Rikers Island soon became overcrowded with prisoners. The New York City Department of Correction reopened Hart Island as a prison following the war, but the facilities were considered inadequate. The New York City Board of Estimate approved the construction of a homeless shelter on the island in 1950; it was intended to serve 2,000 people. The homeless shelter operated from 1951 to 1954; it was also used to house alcoholics. Residents of nearby City Island opposed the inclusion of the homeless shelter. The New York City Welfare Department closed the homeless shelter and the Department of Correction regained control of the island. The Department of Correction opened an alcoholism treatment center on Hart Island in 1955. A courthouse, which ruled on cases involving the homeless, was opened on Hart Island. The island housed between 1,200 and 1,800 prisoners serving short sentences of between 10 days and two years.In 1956, the island was retrofitted with Nike Ajax missile silos. Battery NY-15, as the silos were known, were part of the United States Army base Fort Slocum from 1956 to 1961 and were operated by the army's 66th Antiaircraft Artillery Missile Battalion. The silos were underground and were powered by large generators. Some silos were also built on Davids Island. The integrated fire control system that tracked the targets and directed missiles was at Fort Slocum. The last components of the missile system were closed in 1974.
Construction of a new $7 million workhouse on Hart Island to replace the existing facility was announced in 1959. A baseball field was dedicated at the Hart Island prison the following year. It was named Kratter Field, after Marvin Kratter, a businessman who had donated 2,200 seats saved from the demolished Ebbets Field stadium. The seats deteriorated after being outdoors for several years, and by 2000, had been donated to various people and organizations.
The island continued to be used as a prison until 1966, when the prison was closed due to changes in the penal code. After it closed, a drug rehabilitation center was proposed for Hart Island. The center became Phoenix House, which opened in 1967; it quickly grew into a settlement with 350 residents and a vegetable garden. Phoenix House hosted festivals that sometimes attracted crowds of more than 10,000 people. Phoenix House published a newsletter known as The Hart Beat and organized baseball games against other organizations such as City Island's and NBC's teams. In 1977, after regular ferry service to Hart Island ended, Phoenix House moved from the island to a building in Manhattan.
Since then, proposals to re-inhabit the island have failed. In 1972, the city considered converting it into a residential resort but the plan was abandoned. New York City mayor Ed Koch created a workhouse on the island for persons charged with misdemeanors in 1982 but not enough prisoners were sent there. Six years later, another proposal called for a homeless shelter and a workhouse to be built on Hart Island, but this plan was abandoned because of opposition from residents of City Island.