Hart Island, NYC potter’s field, can get major upgrades under new plan

The city’s long neglected potter’s field may get an upgrade that includes a new visitor’s center, restrooms and benches.

Hart Island’s facelift would come over 20 years and would include more shade coverage on the 131-acre site to accommodate a growing number of families visiting the isolated site, according to a concept plan that will be officially unveiled next month.

“A lot of the common themes that we heard when hearing from community members was that they wanted this island to continue to be contemplative, peaceful, really to honor those who are buried here,” said NYC Parks Project Planner Laura Melendez, “while at the same time offering amenities such as restrooms and seating to make it a bit more comfortable for the families who come.”

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The projects are not funded to date, Melendez said, and therefore would be years away from happening. As Parks raises money, the improvements will be made “as we go.”

The potter’s field has been the final resting place for one million of New York’s unclaimed, poor, indigent or stillborn since 1869.

The island has seen an “influx” of visitors since NYC Parks took over the burial ground from the Department of Corrections in 2021. Hart Island has welcomed more than 1,900 visiting family members since — but there is still no drinking water available and the only public restrooms are porta-potties.

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After it opened to the public in 2023, 848 lucky tourists who won a coveted biweekly “lottery” for an urban park ranger-led tour have also paid the island a visit — but officials say they have no plans of turning the space into a recreational space a la Governor’s Island.

“We want it to be a respectful place that’s peaceful for families to come and visit … we don’t view it as a public park in the sense that you’re not going to come here for a picnic or to throw a football around,” said urban park ranger Michael Whitten, who provides public tours on the island. 

“We want to keep that feeling to the island of having it be a place of respect.”

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The concept plan is also slated to improve shoreline erosion, manage natural habitats and enhance the island’s maintenance and safety operations.

A “remembrance” walk at the site is also in the works, alongside the preservation of the island’s 90-year-old chapel as a “ruin” and a permanent home for a touchstone monument honoring victims of “global pandemics” – which is temporarily placed at a gazebo area near the island entrance.

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Park rangers at the island said the decades-in-the-making upgrades are imperative to taking care of not only New York’s deceased, but the grieving living as well.

“The future of Hart Island reflects the future of our city,” said urban park ranger Fi Whalen, “how we take care of the people that are buried here going forward, and how we take care of all the loved ones that are coming to visit them here should be a priority, because it’s New Yorkers.”

“We want to make sure people have the experience that they need [when] visiting their loved one and, to me, that needs to be the heart of everything here,” Whitten added.

“It’s a million people, a million stories, a million lives touched.”