A segment of drone footage shows the harrowing scenes of mass graves in New York State. The place is Hart Island, a place few had heard of.
“Hart Island is a place outside the vision and minds of most New Yorkers, even those who have family buried there. It represents the ultimate melting pot, a place where individual lives are blended beyond recognition.”
MELINDA HUNT
First published in 1998, the book by Melinda Hunt and Joe Sternfeld is a documentary investigation into Hart Island. New York is alone as a US city in maintaining a separate public burial ground for strangers, known as a potter’s field. The term ‘potter’s field’ is taken from a passage in Matthew 27:5-7:
“So Judas flung the money into the temple and left. He went off and hanged himself. The chief priests picked up the silver, observing, ‘It is not right to deposit this in the temple treasury since it is blood money.’ After consultation, they used it to buy the potter’s field as a cemetery for foreigners.”
Writing this post on Good Friday, gives an added poignancy with the insertion of the Easter story into the narrative.
Located in Long Island Sound, 16 miles from the city, Hart Island was first used for burial during the American Civil War (1861-5). The island was purchased by the state in 1869 and went through of period of being used for workhouses, and penal reform initiatives. Inmates could be quarantined on Hart Island for substance abuse, mental illness, homelessness, and infectious diseases including tuberculosis. When the prison on Riker’s Island was built in 1927, there was no further expansion on Hart’s Island.
In World War II, Hart Island became a disciplinary camp for military troops as well as the first staging post for German soldiers arrested off the coast of Long Island. From the 1960’s, there was a drive to de-institutionalise reformatory programmes and the residents were decamped from the island. The last attempt for a residential programme was in 1982 for low level offences.
The remnants of the buildings can be seen in the video clip.
From the 1860s, the inmates were used to provide the labour for the burials. When no more inmates were left living on the island, short-term prisoners from nearby Riker’s Island would be used and travel to the island by boart to prepare the graves.
Between November 1991 - December 1993, Hunt and Sternfeld were able to visit the island once or twice a month. Travelling with the morgue truck and prisoners from City Island. Hunt describes it, “Each time it seemed like we were crossing the river Styx.”
Exploring the island and gaining permission to photograph the prisoners during the burials, the series of images and supporting text builds up layer upon layer.
Sternfeld’s images can be seen on his website here: https://www.joelsternfeld.net/hart-island
As a viewer, you can feel the stillness of place, partly gained from Sternfeld’s technique using a large format camera but also in part from his consideration to the place. There is a preciseness to the frame. These are not ‘shot from the hip’ documentary images but considered views. The amount of images over a time period, allows for rich tapestry of the island to be formed. From the close up details, to wide vista views to portraits with the prisoners and guards. This is an intimate exploration of a place. A place with a forgotten history and its only residents having no voice.
Hunt was able to interview the prisoners and engaged them on a writing project. The quote below is from this work.
“I sometimes get curious about Hart Island. How long has it been here? How long have they been burying bodies here and what will this island be like in the years to come? I sometimes wish I was here at night when everything is still just to see what it’s like, to get the feel of the island and maybe discover something new. To me, this island is like a huge monument surrounded by water. I call it the Land of the Unknown, because only God knows the full history of this island.”
ALBERT CARRASQUILLO, PITO [PRISONER STATEMENT]
Bibliography
Hunt, M. and Sternfeld, J. (1998) Hart Island, Germany:Scalo.
Sternfeld, J (s.d.) Hart Island. At: https://www.joelsternfeld.net/hart-island (Accessed 10/04/20)
The Guardian (2020) ‘Aerial Video Shows mass grave on New York’s Hart Island amid Coronavirus surge’, In The Guardian, 10/04/20. At: https://www.theguardian.com/global/video/2020/apr/10/aerial-video-shows-mass-grave-on-new-york-citys-hart-island-amid-coronavirus-surge-video (Accessed 10/04/20).