Hart Island is about a mile long and approximately a quarter of a mile wide, this small inaccessible landscape functions as the burial ground of more people than any other cemetery in the country and is the largest tax funded cemetery in the world. With close to a million interments spanning a time period of approximately 150 years of continual use, it is the final resting place of generations of Americans. It is also the current potter’s field, or city cemetery, of New York City, the land into which the bodies of unclaimed and unidentified New Yorkers are deposited.
The 101 acre island, as it exists today, is home to crumbling ruins of institutional architecture and is largely forgotten by the majority of New York City residents. The reasons for this “hidden” island are many and it boasts a rich history and a complex and uncertain future. This paper will examine the history of the island, how it has functioned as an institutional landscape in addition to a burial site, and the possibilities of its future use.
About the presenterHeather Veneziano
Heather Veneziano has an undergraduate degree in Crafts from the University of the Arts as well as a MFA from the University of Edinburgh and a Masters of Preservation Studies from Tulane University. She is currently employed in New Orleans, as a cemetery tomb and mausoleum conservator as well as an independent researcher and freelance writer with a focus on deathscapes, ritual, craft, and architectural/landscape preservation.