Hart Island

Hart Island
	Aerial view of Hart Island, in 2012
	Location in New York City
Geography
Location	Long Island Sound
Coordinates	40°51′9″N 73°46′12″W / 40.85250°N 73.77000°W
Archipelago	Pelham Islands
Area	131.22 acres (53.10 ha)
Length	1.0 mi (1.6 km)
Width	0.33 mi (0.53 km)
State	New York
City	New York City
Borough	The Bronx
Additional information
Time zone	Eastern (UTC– 05:00);
• Summer (DST)	EDT (UTC– 04:00);

Hart Island, sometimes referred to as Hart's Island,^[a] is located at the western end of Long Island Sound, in the northeastern Bronx in New York City. Measuring approximately 1 mile (1.6 km) long by 0.33 miles (0.53 km) 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 Potters' Field continued after the transfer.

^ Cite error: The named reference nyt18690227 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ Federal Writers' Project (1939). New York City Guide. New York: Random House. ISBN 978-1-60354-055-1. (Reprinted by Scholarly Press, 1976; often referred to as WPA Guide to New York City.)

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[2] Federal Writers' Project (1939). New York City Guide. New York: Random House. ISBN 978-1-60354-055-1. (Reprinted by Scholarly Press, 1976; often referred to as WPA Guide to New York City.)

[a]