HART ISLAND PROJECT

NEW YORK, New York, 10163-4327 United States

Mission Statement

Hart Island is the largest municipal cemetery in the United States. Since 1869, over one million New York City residents have been buried in common graves on this 131 acre island located in the eastern Bronx in the Long Island Sound. The mission of the Hart Island Project is to provide personal assistance to families of the buried and increase visibility and public access to Hart Island through an on-line storytelling platform using navigation and augmented reality showing burial locations known as Traveling Cloud Museum. Our work led to ending penal control of Hart Island in 2021. We seek to end mass burials in New York City

About This Cause

The Hart Island Project was founded in 2011 as a public charity providing open access to data and on-line storytelling to reconnect NYC communities to City Cemetery on Hart Island. We work to de-stigmatize city burials for those who cannot afford a private burial or choose a city burial for any reason. Our work led to ending 150 years of penal control of Hart Island in 2019. Our on-line storytelling platform, Traveling Cloud Museum, features award winning software that measures the amount of time a person is buried until someone adds a story, image, video or epitaph restoring that person’s place on the historic record. Families who have been searching for decades discover burial information in browsers linking them to our website. We seek to restore the history of each person buried, reduce shame associated with city burials and rebrand it as an affordable, green burial option for New Yorkers. With the passage of legislation transferring Hart Island to Parks, cellular devices are now authorized on Hart Island. In 2023, we updated Traveling Cloud Museum to mobile first and added navigation and augmented reality tools to engage visitors in locating stories of the buried on location. Augmented reality offers a virtual way to mark graves and preserve Hart Island as the largest municipal cemetery and natural burial ground in the United States. In 2024, we were awarded an NEA Challenge America Grant to use streetview technology to provide views of how Hart Island would appear in the future using a landscape strategy developed in collaboration with landscape architecture researcher at the Knowlton School at Ohio State University. Since 1869, over one million bodies have been buried on this 131 acre island in the eastern Bronx. The burial process is unique to New York City. It was developed during the American Civil War to bury Union Soldiers on battlefields such that bodies could be readily disinterred, identified and reburied in National Cemeteries. New York City adopted this burial process in 1872 and it remains largely unchanged today. A new masterplan by Parks will hopefully reconsider this process. During COVID-19, Hart Island burials became highly visible in a drone video released by the organization on April 5. While the video appeared new and shocking, this burial process is not new. It is an essential service during epidemics. It allows the city to securely bury twenty-five bodies per hour and keep track of where exactly each one is located. Families can request return of the remains for up to twenty-five years after burial. But mass burials may not be necessary beyond pandemics and should be reconsidered. The Hart Island Project has been instrumental in helping families locate their loved ones, understand the burial process and navigate city bureaucracy. In 2020, our advocacy resulted in the creation of an Office Burial Services and increased burial assistance to from $900 to $1750 for low-income families. The Hart Island burial process pre-dates the widespread use of embalming and cremation which are neither ecological or affordable to low-income New Yorkers. Hart Island is the largest natural burial ground in the nation and the only green burial facility in New York City. However, many families fear a Hart Island burial because it remains stigmatized by 150 years of penal control. Working with New York City, The Hart Island Project seeks to assure that every New Yorker receives a decent burial. Toward that end we have developed a landscape strategy, Landscape of Hope, that would allow New York City to provide individual burials and preserve green burials for future generations. We are working with the City Council to legislate an end to mass burials.

HART ISLAND PROJECT
Po Box 4327
NEW YORK, New York 10163-4327
United States
Phone 914-402-5992
Twitter @hartisland
Unique Identifier 275559861