To: FJB who wrote (198529 ) 4/10/2020 5:50:02 PM From: Benny-Rubin 3 RecommendationsRecommended By
Read Replies (2) | Respond to Hart Island contains New York City's 131-acre (0.53 km2) potter's field , or public cemetery. The potter's field is variously described as the largest tax-funded cemetery in the United States, [58] the largest-such in the world, [45] [59] and one of the largest mass graves in the United States. [60] [61] More than one million dead are buried on the island, though since the 2000s, the burial rate has declined to fewer than 1,500 a year. [6] [59] [60] [62] One-third of annual burials are infants and stillborn babies, which has been reduced from a proportion of one-half since the Children's Health Insurance Program began to cover all pregnant women in New York State in 1997. [62] According to a 2006 New York Times article, there had been 1,419 burials at the potter's field during the previous year: of these, 826 were adults, 546 were infants and stillborn babies, and 47 were dismembered body parts. [17] edit ]The dead are buried in trenches. Babies are placed in coffins, which are stacked in groups of 1,000, measuring five coffins deep and usually in twenty rows. [6] Adults are placed in larger pine boxes placed according to size, and are stacked in sections of 150, measuring three coffins deep in two rows. [6] [7] :138 [12] There are seven sizes of coffins, which range from 1 to 7 feet (0.30 to 2.13 m) long. [63] Each box is labeled with an identification number, the person's age, ethnicity, and the place where the body was found, if applicable. [51] [64] Inmates from the Rikers Island jail are paid $0.50 per hour to bury bodies on Hart Island. [51] [65] [6] There were an average of 72 disinterments per year from 2007 to 2009. As a result, the adults' coffins are staggered to expedite removal. [7] :138 Children, mostly infants, are rarely disinterred. [6] Regulations stipulate that the coffins generally must remain untouched for 25 years, except in cases of disinterment. [4] :78[66] [65] [67] In 1913, the trenches became separate to facilitate the more frequent disinterment of adults. The potter's field is also used to dispose of amputated body parts, which are placed in boxes labeled "limbs". Ceremonies have not been conducted at the burial site since the 1950s. [6] :83 In the past, burial trenches were re-used after 25–50 years, allowing for sufficient decomposition of the remains. Since then, however, historic buildings have been demolished to make room for new burials. [7] :139 Because of the number of weekly interments made at the potter's field at the expense of taxpayers, these mass burials are straightforward and are conducted by Rikers Island inmates, who stack the coffins in two rows, three high and 25 across, and each plot is marked with a concrete marker. A tall, white, peace monument was erected by New York City prison inmates at the top of a hill that was known as "Cemetery Hill" following World War II [68] and was dedicated in October 1948. [69]
