Free Hart Island tours uncover a hidden chapter of New York history
Free walking tours led by Urban Park Rangers are opening more of that history to the public.
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A half-mile ferry ride from City Island takes visitors to one of New York City’s quietest — and most complicated — places.
Hart Island has served as the city’s public cemetery since 1869. More than 1 million people are buried there, including people who were unclaimed or unidentified and those whose families requested a public burial. Many were laid to rest together in large trenches.
Free walking tours led by Urban Park Rangers are opening more of that history to the public.
“The goal, really, of this tour is to showcase how Hart Island is a New York story,” Urban Park Ranger Fi Whalen said. “This place belongs to all of us.”
The tour explores the island’s different chapters. Rangers share stories about people incarcerated once helped with burials and cemetery maintenance. Visitors also learn about Solomon Riley, a Black businessman who dreamed of building an amusement park there where Black New Yorkers could escape racism and segregation.
The island remains an active cemetery. It holds New Yorkers who died during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, along with people buried generations earlier.
On the southern end are 33 individual graves separated from the island’s larger burial areas. The people buried there died from AIDS-related complications, but their identities remain unknown.
Records do not explain why they were isolated. Rangers said the fear and stigma surrounding AIDS at the time may have played a role.
One grave, set the farthest away, holds the first child known to have died in New York City from an AIDS-related illness.
“They were loved in life,” Whalen said. “They’re neighbors from the past.”
The public can search most Hart Island burial records from 1977 to the present and request a visit to a loved one’s gravesite through the city’s Hart Island website.
Whalen said the free public tours are offered twice a month. Each tour is limited to 30 people, who are selected through a lottery when demand exceeds the available space.
The city’s future plans for Hart Island call for a welcome center, restrooms and more accessible walkways. Upcoming public tours are listed through NYC Parks.
