New York: landmark Hart Island cemetery deal

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Long inaccessible, the graves of the Hart Island cemetery in New York, where nearly a million destitute, homeless or stillborn children are buried, will now be accessible to families thanks to a “historic agreement” , announced the New York prison authorities.

This agreement puts an end to a collective name complaint filed last December by the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) which claimed that the impossibility for families to go to the graves violated their constitutional rights.

Under the agreement announced on Wednesday, the New York Prison Service, which administers the cemetery, one of the largest in the United States, will allow family visits “one weekend a month,” its official said. responsible Joe Ponte. He said he was “impatient to implement this historic agreement, in collaboration with NYCLU”.

Families, who will be transported to the island by ferry, will be able to leave flowers, stuffed animals, prayers or small flags, which has been impossible until now.

Hart Island is an uninhabited island in the far east of the Bronx. It has belonged to New York City since 1868. The dead are buried there by prisoners from Rikers Island: about 150 adult coffins per 21-meter-long mass grave, and, in separate graves, some 1,000 children in tiny pine coffins.

Until now, the city did not allow any access to mass graves, simply marked with a white marker. Under pressure, she had however set up in recent years one visit per month, during the week, but limited to a marquee overlooking the cemetery.

Several organizations had mobilized to try to obtain greater access.

Among the plaintiffs supported by the NYCLU, Rosaria Cortes Lusero, whose baby girl died at birth was buried by the city in Hart Island in 1995. With her daughter Marie Garcia, she had tried in vain, on numerous occasions, to get to the island.

“For 20 years my mother and I waited to visit my little sister’s grave,” said Marie Garcia. “It will be very difficult, but ultimately, being able to go to her grave will allow us to mourn a sister and a daughter that we have never been able to know.”

“The deal reached today should help parents, children, siblings and other family members of generations who have suffered the indignity of mass burials, and the added insult of a policy preventing families and friends to go there, ”said NYCLU lead attorney in the case, Christopher Dunn.

In total, nearly 1,500 people are still buried each year on Hart Island, according to Melinda Hunt, director of the Hart Island project, who has been documenting the place for years.

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