Hart Island, as seen from New York’s City Island. Each marker represents about 150 adult graves.
Photographer: Brody Ford/Bloomberg
The Biggest Public Graveyard in the U.S. Is Becoming a Park
New York City wants Hart Island, the burial grounds for victims of Covid-19 and AIDS, to be a more accessible and inviting place.
Some were unidentifiable. Some had unclear next-of-kin. Others simply couldn’t afford a private burial.
With bodies piling up during the early days of the Covid-19 outbreak in New York, many were sent to mass graves on Hart Island, the biggest U.S. public cemetery. Last year, burials almost tripled, adding to the more than one million New Yorkers interred on the island.