1:53 I misspoke. It should be "...unclaimed OR unidentifiable dead bodies...." Thanks to @Jonathan Chang for pointing this out. If you like the video, please consider subscribing to the channel for more. See you next time! You can support this channel on Patreon if you want: www.patreon.com/SideNote
@ShB I used to narrate videos on my own but then I realized that I suck at it. I made too many bad pronunciation and viewers were furious about it. Narration is the easiest part of the job but if not done properly, it can ruin the whole video. I don't want to waste weeks/months-long work over unsatisfactory narration, so I asked my friend, Alec, to narrate videos for me. He is quite experienced in this field. I believe that the end goal should be to provide the best viewer experience, and looks like people like his voice, so, that's it...
Not so fun fact: Actor Bobby Driscoll known for his roles in Disney movies like Peter Pan and Song Of The South is buried there. He died homeless and alone in New York in 1968 and was buried there as an unidentified vagrant. A few years later his mother who still lived in California tried to track him down thinking he was still alive found out through a fingerprint match that he was dead and buried on Hart Island
@@DBuckyBoy "Born Robert Cletus Driscoll March 3, 1937 Cedar Rapids, Iowa, U.S. Died March 30, 1968 (aged 31) (body discovered) East Village, Manhattan, New York, U.S. Resting place Hart Island's potter's field, New York, U.S." ~ Wikipedia
My grandfather is buried there. He was born and raised on the North Shore of Massachusetts. His widowed mother made bathtub gin to support the kids during prohibition. To keep the hungry kids quiet, she gave them booze. He was well on his way to becoming an alcoholic by the time he married my grandmother. When his drinking got to be too much, my grandmother took my dad and went back to live with her parents. My grandfather drifted off to New York. My grandmother died of TB in a sanatorium when my dad was 14. The last time my father saw his father was when the old man was back in town for a cousin's wedding. Dad told me he didn't say anything to his father. The old man went back to New York and died in a clinic for alcoholics. He was buried on the island in one of those plain pine boxes. A few years ago, my dad was feeling his own years and conscience weigh on him. He tried to find out where his father was buried. He learned that most of the records of people interred prior to 1970 burned up in an office fire. It's like the old man never existed. This story is probably typical. The island is the resting place of the forgotten, neglected and abandoned of the earth, an island of lost souls. I'm not religious, but I wish for all those buried there some comfort in the hereafter that they didn't receive in this life. Peace
Thank you for sharing that your family’s story. It was heartbreaking but at the same time reminds me of how precious life is and how we should love as much as we can while we can.
My father is one of the souls out there. He passed in 1990 while living on the streets and had no family contact information on him. After two weeks the hospital finally sent him to Hart Island. I was 9 yrs old when this happened and I didn’t find out until I was around 18 yrs old. Ironically inmates from Ryker’s Island do the burying and he was an inmate there as well. He was a good man but had addiction issues.
I'm so sorry.. addiction is such a nasty disease that plagues millions, yet still has a stigma to it unfortunately. Since finding out about your father's resting place, do they allow you to visit?
My aunt passed away homeless in NY and likely buried there. She couldnt handle it when my uncle passed from cancer and lost everything to medical bills and became an alcoholic. There's a lot of past suffering in that island 😢
Aborted and still born babies are burried here. People who were also broken into many pieces do to trauma as well may be burried in smaller boxes if they can't find all the parts. It's dark for sure. You can read about if on the dept of parks website for the island.
The poor who cannot afford a burial - often babies and young children, or the very old with no family or friends - all end up on Hart Island. Those tiny boxes are the bodies of babies and children being laid to rest.
like they said around half of the bodies weren't really identified/claimed so it seems like no one honored them in their life time. also i see you are a Brit..."honour"
spelling honour with a u doesnt mean they are brittish lol, everyone spells it that way except the americans. if youre interested, theirs another fun documentary on why americans do that, it has to do with newspapers charging by the letter, instead of charging by the word
people coming together to celebrate life? That's ridiculous! Never gonna happen. We're all death dealers by design. We give flowers to the dead and when we sell women off to become some man's bride. We don't care about life.
I went in 2015 to visit the relative of my significant other (in large part because of The Hart Island Project). The guards were really nice and noticed that we hadn't brought anything to place on the grave. They brought us a rose to place there. It was wonderful but strange to see all the buildings and graves. The island itself wasn't creepy at all other than the fact that we couldn't go close to any of the buildings.
and that was likely for safety reasons as those building are in danger of collapse and the last thing the guards want is to have people get hurt or killed by that.
@@karlabritfeld7104 Until 2021, all the digging and burials were done by city inmates, and the whole island was run by the Department of Corrections. It’s under Parks now.
@@IchigoMait it's called respect. That's it. No one is arguing it's decaying biological matter. Hell even elephants have brains to respect and mourn the dead of other animals. They get the concept, clearly you do not.
@@IchigoMait Yes, but this dead matter once contained a human-being, that's why most civilisations treat dead bodies with respect. This also comes from many religions - in christianity, for example, the body is usually treated with the utmost respect, because we see our bodies, just like our souls, as the image of God. While it is biologically true what you are saying, I still find it morally questionable to treat bodies like they had no worth. It's also forbidden by law in most countries to mistreat dead bodies, because it's simply seen as disrespectful.
So after some 300 years....you have people being buried on top of other people....wow. Tossing the baby coffins like they were just trash upset me. Yes I know they were dead but gosh
@Hayden Rhead Not sure....but these are really thick heavy duty body bags and they will hold all the liquid as the bodies break down and turns to mush. Maybe so so much of it will not absorb into the ground at one time and filter into the ocean.....I don't really know. With so many bodies...that is a lot of fluid and just those boxes will not last that long. Just a wild guess here.
@@davidsiler5505 In late 1967 or early 1968, the penniless Driscoll left The Factory and disappeared into Manhattan's underground.[citation needed] On March 30, 1968, two boys playing in a deserted East Village tenement at 371 East 10th St. found his body lying on a cot, with two empty beer bottles and religious pamphlets scattered on the ground. A post-mortem determined that he had died from heart failure caused by advanced atherosclerosis[58] from his drug use. There was no identification on the body, and photos shown around the neighborhood yielded no positive identification. His unclaimed body was buried in an unmarked pauper's grave in New York City's Potter's Field on Hart Island.[59][60] Late in 1969, Driscoll's mother sought the help of officials at the Disney studios to contact him, for a hoped-for reunion with his father, who was nearing death. This resulted in a fingerprint match at the New York City Police Department, which located his burial on Hart Island. Although his name appears on his father's gravestone at Eternal Hills Memorial Park in Oceanside, California, his remains are still on Hart Island. In connection with the re-release of Song of the South in 1971, reporters researching the whereabouts of the film's stars first reported his death.[61][62][63]
When I was young, we sailed in that area of Long Island Sound. Hart Island had a monument on it, a monolith with a cross; it was difficult to know how large it was from the water, it appeared large. We knew what the island was used for and never attempted to get too close.
there was also a horror movie called hart island where a group of people go to investigate strange things on the island ,get stranded overnight, and get hunted by ghosts and monsters and stuff like that it was a cheap movie .
My aunt is buried there because she was homeless and a drug addict when she died. Her mother, my grandmother, did not know where she was at the time. My mom and her sisters didn’t know until 20 years later that she had died. They then did research and found that she had died unidentified in new york. About a year ago, my mom and her sisters visited the island and was able identify her by a picture they had taken when she was found.
What a morbid, but deeply, deeply interesting video. Thank you for making this. I had no idea Hart Island existed. I so so so wish that Solomon Riley (sp?) could have fulfilled his dream. Darn the city for shutting down his beautiful, inclusive dream.
I cant imagine how incredibly obnoxious it must be that anywhere you comment someone is gonna comment on ur comment just saying hi or whatever.. Just bc who it is. Amd not adding anything to the conversation.
In order to be cremated, you need permission from the next of kin to do that. Most of these people are unknown or their family wasn't found/notified prior to burial. The sad thing is you don't have much time before they bury you there. My grandmother passed away back in the 90's and thank goodness my sister (who lived in upstate NY) was notified by the landlord where my grandmother lived before she was buried in potters field. My grandmother had already pre-paid for a cemetery plot but the city doesn't know that and if they can't get ahold of next of kin within 3 days that's where you end up.
@@ThatGuyNikolas Well it seems horrible yes, but they can't just leave corpses around for that long. The only place you could store them is a morgue and morgue space is sadly limited. Meaning that the city has to act fast. So sadly this short of a time is the best they can do probably.
You can see this island off the coast of The Bronx’s, City Island. I saw this island year ago and always wondered what went on. What a crazy history for such a tiny island
It's really damn fake! It's NO WAY all these ppl's bodies are unknown by anyone. Mind You, OVER 166, 000 of said bodies (NO DISRESPECT) came from this plandemic, 🤔... This government is all out BULLSHIT! Over 166,000 "UNKNOWN" ppl passed in New York City & NOT 1 body was claimed!? Not 1 of those ppl, ppl's reported NONE of them missing or anything? That makes less sense than 0!
u dont seem to grasp the sinister doings that people endured that led to their deaths. Experimental viruses, military experiments involving time travel, and hybridization of animal/human entities. You really wanna combine all that and see what happens? You're nutty.
People didn't understand what HIV was at that time yet, a virus isn't going to spread to a dead body. But bacteria can spread to other rotting bodies. Like the bubonic plague for example.
"It was decided that the unidentifiable bodies would be brought here..." "The body of a 24 year old woman named Louisa Van Slyke was the first to call it home." lol?
I've known little about this island over the years because certain information doesn't exist. Thank for giving these souls a voice. They haven't been forgotten. Your team, including the drone, does good work. Much appreciated!!!! ****
They may be dead, but damn me, this was the most inhumane and cruel way to treat those who are gone i have seen, how can they bury the corpses in such shallow graves, and then let erosion wash the caskets and bones to the surface? Haven't they heard of contamination risks?
TheSavageopress. Burning, while it is a good short-term solution, the long-term environmental effects would be insane. There would be tons more pollution going into the atmosphere, with many consequences in the future.
@@unitatao2571 Plus burning bodies thoroughly isn't as straightforward as you'd think. Look up the ins and outs of how a crematorium functions sometime. Very interesting.
Videos like this are what make RUclips special imo. It's just creepy as hell that some bodies are "oozing" out of the ground and bones popping up. Someone needs to film a movie there, stat.
One of the best-composed videos I've watched on RUclips over the past decade. No fluff, no filler, no exaggeration..... just a nice, clean, and straight-forward narration, with great pictures and video clips. I'm going to have to watch more from this channel, for sure!!
The history of Hart Island has always interesting me, but until recently very little information was available. I’ve often wondered if the bodies of those who died from infectious diseases should have been buried at all, and should have been cremated instead, due to the fact that certain viruses could possibly survive and then be spread if unearthed years later.
I would imagine it had a crematorium. I believe that's what that chimney stack is. But, I don't understand why they don't cremate everyone. Why bury any of them ?
The scariest part of actually seeing it is the people moving around. Everytime I see someone walking around out the corner of my eye while I’m fishing I get a mini heart attack
And sitting on the coffins in the back of the truck. I was outraged. Show some respect for the dead, for crying out loud! That's someone's relative, whether they were claimed or not!
Not sure why there's so much children there, every fire department has a sign that if a mother doesn't want her child she can leave him/her there. I assume these are children that were dumped outside somewhere to die by homeless or drug addict mom's.
@@maxter3326 Illness deaths: "Leading causes of death in children under-5 years are preterm birth complications, pneumonia, birth asphyxia, congenital anomalies, diarrhoea and malaria. Nearly half of these deaths are in newborns." Accidental or Injury deaths: "For children less than 1 year of age, two-thirds of injury deaths were due to suffocation. Drowning was the leading cause injury death for those 1 to 4 years of age. " These aren't abandoned children, they're children whose parents could not afford to take them to doctors until it was too late (or who could not afford the expensive procedures to save their children, in the case of accidents). That fighting to save your child can mean a lifetime of debt, bankruptcy, or even losing your home, is a disgusting but inevitable side effect of privatized health insurance with deductibles and maximum allowed amounts.
oh blah blah blah. Yes we know. Everyone lived somewhere before someone else did. Its endless. Enough with the "those people are victims!!" nonsense. No more than the rest of us.
@@kirathompson3653 Nope, if you cared about the dead's feelings or whatever it wouldn't matter how much you got paid. However I wouldn't care either so I'm not blaming them
"But before the plan could be fulfilled, the government seized the land, unwilling to host an amusement park in such close proximity to a jail and a hospital." The government banned the building of an amusement park for African Americans in 1924, something tells me it wasn't out of concern for their safety.
That was painful to watch; but thanks for creating this mini-documentary. My mom lost a baby years before me; but it’s not something my parents, sister, or other close relatives ever bring up, so I don’t ask much. I do have a feeling he ended up on Hart island since I did ask once what happened to him, and my mom just said the hospital took him away. My parents were always hard workers and have always been religious; so never understood why they didn’t burry him. My dad or sister sometimes brings up the topic every couple of years, so I’ll have to have my questions ready.
What is it about infant mortality that adults don’t like to talk about or won’t admit? I’m grown now but as a kid my family never talk about this even to this day and there are always kids who passed in families. A lot of families have gone through grief of an infant baby yet they’re hush about it.
Ara ara Arby's baby. I got some goddamn cupons -only good another week. I'm gonna get the cheese sticks. You can use any coupon on up to 6 items. 24 sticks for $12 or 12 sticks and 16 jalepeno poppers for $12? I dont feel like Tomboy Outback this week.
It's important for family researchers to remember that Hart Island was / is considered a public burial ground you. The earliest burials or often immigrants without families nearby and those who died in Catholic or City hospitals, where no family member claim them. As burials progressed post-world War II, miscarried and deceased babies we're frequently buried here. If you have a New York City death certificate that States the person is interred at City Cemetery, this is the place.
thas exactly what I was thinking, the buildings are all falling apart, why not raze everything and make like Green-Wood cemetry, something along those lines, that way it woulnd tbe so grimmmmmmm
They're not worried about wasting money on that island anytime soon. Sad to say. Just as the people buried there are mostly unknown, the government doesn't care about the upkeep of the island.
I’m willing to buy the island and dig up the remains. I will give them a proper burial to those that can be identified. To those unidentifiable, set up a shrine of some sort. To pay for this, a high rise casino will be built at one end of the island only accessible by water and only millionaires and billionaires are allowed. I will charge $100 thousand dollars just to walk in the door and I will pay all employees $100 per hour. This will be a 24/7 casino and the best security money can buy. PS: Now that I’m awake I’m staying away from crack. Kids, don’t do drugs!
Where do you get your video ideas from? They’re always interesting, I’ve never not been interested in one of them, that’s quite a difficult thing to do. Side note (hehe): The narrator’s voice is incredibly relaxing.
There is one in the UK too. It’s off limits but people sneak in to collect stuff. Like coins, cigar boxes, and chains and whatever else the water and erosion bring back to the surface
I love how they call it a "homeless shelter" when the city clearly just picked them up and threw them in a corner so they would hopefully die. It doesn't even make sense... They can't even get there by foot. It's like having a shelter on Alcatraz.
Yeah, much better to have these people just out on the streets doing drugs or having serious mental issues just wandering about, attacking people and shitting on the streets.
That's because most people have 0 sympathy for the homeless. Who cares if you've stuck them someplace where there is zero opportunity to get a job or improve their situation, as long as you don't have to look at them? It's as if by hiding them you can just pretend they don't exist. So shameful to treat human beings with such contempt and indifference.
I went to college right across from Hart Island. I have been on a small boat right up to Hart Island a few times during my time at school. The place is creepy but would be an urban explorers dream. The place is restricted and monitored by the authorities, at least it was in the 90s.
It had a number on it too. It's crazy to think most of these bodys are people that were never identified and just piled into mass graves. Those numbers will all be gone in about a decade from the woods decompositions and the records and numbers lost with the other hundred thousand
its heartbreaking, isn't it....how many people are going unidentified, and whats worse in nyc rn they cut the time to 2 weeks to identify a body or they get buried on the island and put down as a cv19 death.....just another statistic
Reminds me of the Killing fields in Cambodia. There are human bones that rise to the surface all though the fields. A truly horrific and harrowing place.
Regardless of the public’s knowledge about AIDS in the mid-80’s, I’m interested to hear the bizarre thought process of those worried about “contamination” of other DEAD BODIES.
I like the US but sometimes stuff like this comes up and makes it sounds like a third world country. Prisoners burying the bodies of unidentified people on a mass grave island, like wtf.
@@paidinbluess hundreds of people die probably in new york, there's probably not a lot of space to bury because of skyscrapers, and since there's also tons of prisoners, pretty much free labor
Costs more to transport them out of the city and I think prisoners can reduce their time by doing it. It happens all over the US and probably other countries too. I would do it if it meant I could have a little cash and less time in prison. And from a documentary I watched the prisoners tend to be calmer or something after doing it as they don't want to be disrespectful and it's not an event thing to bury hundreds of forgotten people at once
This is wild, I taken my boat through the city many times coming from the north shore of Long Island, meaning I’ve passed buy over a million dead many times and I never knew this was there
I don't know why this guy says it's near Long Island, it isn't. Yes, it's in the Long Island Sound but it's part of the Bronx and only about a mile or two away from City Island where the ferry to and from Hart Island leaves from a dock on Fordham street
*passed by. "buy" is to purchase something with money. WTF! I've seen many people use "buy" for "by". When my manager left the company we had a party for him and the grocery store fucked up the cake and wrote in frosting "Buy Steve".
But wow what a story right! You're at a dinner party and they ask you if you ever played sports. You reply I use to play catch with dead babies when I lived in New York😀. Dinner Party: Go Oooon🤯😶😥😕.
It was heartbreaking to see them tossing the baby caskets around like that. They were precious little souls. All of the dead there should be treated with respect and dignity. Tear down those dilapidated old useless buildings and make the place more pleasant so people can visit their loved ones in a peaceful setting.
When I was in elementary school about 20 years ago we'd always look out at Hart Island during recess (my school was just a few hundred feet away on City Island) and wonder why it was off-limits. Of course, being kids, we didn't know what went on there and I don't think any adults really wanted to talk about it since we were so young so the rumor going around school was that it was because there were a bunch of missile silos/nukes on it and we all kinda just accepted that lol. Did keep me curious enough to look it up myself on Wikipedia once I was old enough though.
mase ofspades hey guys we finally get to open our sushi shop! Other guys: great, where’s the new place? ..... next to an asylum on the island of the dead
me without knowing any history of the island, wathing this video : "Whoa that island looks cool! is that for sal- (This island has house thousands of mass graves) -Nevermind"
NGL, if i was rich enough i'd prob still see if i could get it and setup a proper graveyard elsewhere that families could visit without hassel and transfer all the bones etc. Then set about building my perfect my badass island home. 1 Heart Island, Island of the Dead, New York. Fuck yeah
@@garrett591 to some degree yeah. But I'd totally renovate the entire island. And if most of the mass graves were only 6 ft deep or less I'd just move everything. Most foundations are atleast that deep. Don't really want human remains in my foundations lol.
What got me was how those prisoners were tossing those baby coffins around like it was nothing. What a damn shame. They should've at least given them proper treatment.
It actually was the setting for a horror movie, I forget the title but the movie was about a group of inmates sent to the island to bury the dead who are then attacked by a giant swarm of man eating flies.
The only thing I could think about was how this is definitely what inspired Arkham island in Batman. An island with a poorly managed insane asylum and an abandoned amusement park? Literally spot on
This is disturbing. Idaho, most cemeteries now require a vault, not just a casket. It's to preserve the remains and attempt to filter any ground water contamination, as well as keep the land from creating sink pits as caskets disintegrate very quickly.
RUclips's algorithm is creepy... I was watching a sailing channel and they were sailing New York city and sailed by and mentioned this island.. Few days later this pop's in my feed
This is unbelievable i heard about this but first time seeing it...and you see how from the 80s with Aids patients now corona patients..and they way they handle those dead babies coffins..is very disrespectful
The footage is clearly old (80s to 90s), a much more bigoted time. They have a huge number of childrens bodies that come in (half the island is children under 5) so they have to efficiently unload and bury the bodies. It's still awful seeing the footage
It should be noted that this Island was also an launch site that was a part of the Nike Missile defense system. It's number is NY-15. It's Radar site was at Fort Slocum on David's Island. It was open from 1955 till July of 1960. It was an Nike Hercules site with underground storage. There were two elevators. There are still buildings from the base that are still standing. They are blue in color.
The AIDS victims part really got to me when you consider most were gay so it's likely there birth families abandoned them, and there was no gay marriage back then so there's no way for their partner's to prove they were family so they can't even visit their loved ones grave.
@@Nathan.Klemstein no, just wrap/cover it in fabric, then burry it, no coffin/wood, and no smoke/global warming. Muslim did it all the time, look for "pocong".
@No One Knows Cemeteries currently cover 0.0000008% of the earth's habitable land mass. That's the equivalent of the head of a thumbtack compared to a football field. It's a non-issue.
@@frossbog This estimation is so useless. Cemeteries are always located in city centres, prime locations and such. Look up Montreal's cemetery ; it's the biggest one in Canada and located on top of a beautiful mountain that could be use in so many other ways than miles of tombstones. There are so many other exemples. It IS an issue because dead bodies becomes a burden after a few generations and obviously none of us wants to send or relatives 'in land' or 'up north' in remote areas when there's a passing...
@@ChrisSunshine1 A grave is not forever, with a few exceptions you can use a grave again, sometimes within as little as 25 years. If it's a family grave you can re-use at pretty much any time. Also, a well kept graveyard is a lovely and serene place to take a walk or sit on a bench and read a book. I always try to visit a graveyards when I travel, it's a great way to learn about local history.
Q: "There's a picturesque little island of prime real estate in the bay, what do you want to do with it?" A: "FilL iT wiTh dEAd BoDies, thE sIcK aNd tHe CrImINaLs!"
RUclips algorithm needs to promote this kind of useful and interesting videos (instead of poor quality/garbage/unfunny/dumb/meaningless content from "popular" "influencers". *Like, if you agree* 👍 *_Greetings from NYC_* 🗽
@@moos5221 May be it isn't haunted. For the history it has, the possibility of the place getting inhabitated is remote coz ppl will consider it haunted
I've lived in Upstate NY for many decades and I did not know of this until the pandemic hit. They sure do know how to keep it a secret don't they? This was very informative, thanks for sharing!
1:53 I misspoke. It should be "...unclaimed OR unidentifiable dead bodies...."
Thanks to @Jonathan Chang for pointing this out.
If you like the video, please consider subscribing to the channel for more. See you next time!
You can support this channel on Patreon if you want: www.patreon.com/SideNote
Why don’t you narrate your videos on your own?
@ShB I used to narrate videos on my own but then I realized that I suck at it. I made too many bad pronunciation and viewers were furious about it.
Narration is the easiest part of the job but if not done properly, it can ruin the whole video. I don't want to waste weeks/months-long work over unsatisfactory narration, so I asked my friend, Alec, to narrate videos for me. He is quite experienced in this field.
I believe that the end goal should be to provide the best viewer experience, and looks like people like his voice, so, that's it...
1:54 too many smaller coffins......way to many....
@@toastedorange9106 I didn't like the way they was just throwing the babies coffins to each other.
ummmm tried the link for curiosity and the price you have in the video isn't even close
Not so fun fact: Actor Bobby Driscoll known for his roles in Disney movies like Peter Pan and Song Of The South is buried there. He died homeless and alone in New York in 1968 and was buried there as an unidentified vagrant. A few years later his mother who still lived in California tried to track him down thinking he was still alive found out through a fingerprint match that he was dead and buried on Hart Island
Damn thats sad
Cool, now I'm friggin sad :)
You going to link where you got this info?
I remember him from Treasure Island as Jim Hawkins.
@@DBuckyBoy "Born Robert Cletus Driscoll
March 3, 1937
Cedar Rapids, Iowa, U.S.
Died March 30, 1968 (aged 31) (body discovered)
East Village, Manhattan, New York, U.S.
Resting place Hart Island's potter's field, New York, U.S."
~ Wikipedia
My grandfather is buried there. He was born and raised on the North Shore of Massachusetts.
His widowed mother made bathtub gin to support the kids during prohibition. To keep the hungry kids quiet, she gave them booze. He was well on his way to becoming an alcoholic by the time he married my grandmother. When his drinking got to be too much, my grandmother took my dad and went back to live with her parents. My grandfather drifted off to New York. My grandmother died of TB in a sanatorium when my dad was 14. The last time my father saw his father was when the old man was back in town for a cousin's wedding. Dad told me he didn't say anything to his father. The old man went back to New York and died in a clinic for alcoholics. He was buried on the island in one of those plain pine boxes. A few years ago, my dad was feeling his own years and conscience weigh on him. He tried to find out where his father was buried. He learned that most of the records of people interred prior to 1970 burned up in an office fire. It's like the old man never existed. This story is probably typical. The island is the resting place of the forgotten, neglected and abandoned of the earth, an island of lost souls.
I'm not religious, but I wish for all those buried there some comfort in the hereafter that they didn't receive in this life.
Peace
Thank you so much for sharing this story! It was very touching. I pray your Grandfather is at peace now. Sending love from Georgia!
Amen 🙏🏻
Hope your grandpop finds peace and your dad accepts the reality. Cherish the living and remember the dead :)
Thank you for sharing your story. May he rest in peace.
Thank you for sharing that your family’s story. It was heartbreaking but at the same time reminds me of how precious life is and how we should love as much as we can while we can.
My father is one of the souls out there. He passed in 1990 while living on the streets and had no family contact information on him. After two weeks the hospital finally sent him to Hart Island. I was 9 yrs old when this happened and I didn’t find out until I was around 18 yrs old. Ironically inmates from Ryker’s Island do the burying and he was an inmate there as well. He was a good man but had addiction issues.
What was your father’s name? Did you add his memorial to the hart Island Project? May all the blessing fall on him.
😂😂😂
@@Brandi6666 ????
@@ceasartorres9442 supposed to be teary eyes😢
I'm so sorry.. addiction is such a nasty disease that plagues millions, yet still has a stigma to it unfortunately. Since finding out about your father's resting place, do they allow you to visit?
My aunt passed away homeless in NY and likely buried there. She couldnt handle it when my uncle passed from cancer and lost everything to medical bills and became an alcoholic. There's a lot of past suffering in that island 😢
Damn Im so sorry.
🙏🙏🙏🙏
Very sad that we work our whole life and during the later years can lose everything because we don't have good health care.
🙏🏽💔
Its very sad. RIP
7:21 What the hell those are miniature coffins? Looking at them throwing those babies like Amazon packages really hit me.
Aborted and still born babies are burried here. People who were also broken into many pieces do to trauma as well may be burried in smaller boxes if they can't find all the parts. It's dark for sure. You can read about if on the dept of parks website for the island.
For some fucked up reason it made me laugh
The poor who cannot afford a burial - often babies and young children, or the very old with no family or friends -
all end up on Hart Island. Those tiny boxes are the bodies of babies and children being laid to rest.
@Sexy Beast Pretty much what you get when you hire slaves to do your dirty work.
It hit you?? Maybe you should learn to catch better... 😜
I think they should plant lots of flowers on that island to honour the dead and support wildlife like pollinating bugs
That's an amazing idea, somebody needs to suggest it to the people in charge
like they said around half of the bodies weren't really identified/claimed so it seems like no one honored them in their life time. also i see you are a Brit..."honour"
spelling honour with a u doesnt mean they are brittish lol, everyone spells it that way except the americans. if youre interested, theirs another fun documentary on why americans do that, it has to do with newspapers charging by the letter, instead of charging by the word
It probably looks a lot nicer in the summer months. The filming was taken before everything was green.
people coming together to celebrate life? That's ridiculous! Never gonna happen. We're all death dealers by design. We give flowers to the dead and when we sell women off to become some man's bride. We don't care about life.
Watching the baby coffins being tossed made my soul hurt. My god that was a gut wrenching sight.😟
they were tossin em like produce on a field
Horrible
I’m going to do that to Kobe 😈
I guess, just another box really, what is truly a shame are all the adults there..shame
Yeah it was hard to see. And to know that half the bodies are under 5
I went in 2015 to visit the relative of my significant other (in large part because of The Hart Island Project). The guards were really nice and noticed that we hadn't brought anything to place on the grave. They brought us a rose to place there. It was wonderful but strange to see all the buildings and graves. The island itself wasn't creepy at all other than the fact that we couldn't go close to any of the buildings.
and that was likely for safety reasons as those building are in danger of collapse and the last thing the guards want is to have people get hurt or killed by that.
Guards???
@@karlabritfeld7104 Until 2021, all the digging and burials were done by city inmates, and the whole island was run by the Department of Corrections. It’s under Parks now.
@@karlabritfeld7104 NYC Dept of Corrections runs the island and Corrections officers run it. 😉
🧢
Something about hucking baby coffins like theyre shoes off the back of a truck seems kind of grim.
IchigoMait just bc you dont care doesnt mean others dont. no need to be insensitive.
Yeah that bothered the fuck out of me
@@IchigoMait it's called respect. That's it. No one is arguing it's decaying biological matter. Hell even elephants have brains to respect and mourn the dead of other animals. They get the concept, clearly you do not.
@@IchigoMait Yes, but this dead matter once contained a human-being, that's why most civilisations treat dead bodies with respect. This also comes from many religions - in christianity, for example, the body is usually treated with the utmost respect, because we see our bodies, just like our souls, as the image of God. While it is biologically true what you are saying, I still find it morally questionable to treat bodies like they had no worth. It's also forbidden by law in most countries to mistreat dead bodies, because it's simply seen as disrespectful.
Gabriel Christian thats what I was thinking. I had to pause and go to the comments for a sec cause I cant handle that shit
Is there any creepy/abandoned location tropes this island doesn't hit?!?!
Insane daughter locked in the basement?
@@ryanmassie448 I imagine the asylum covered that at least once.
@@ryanmassie448 Insane Asylum and Women Prison ruins buildings still on the island. Legends said that you can still hear screams at night.
Wasn't there a missile site as well on the island?
A mansion. The Second Empire (Gothic) style house like from the Addams family and Psycho etc.
In hundreds of years the is going to be one of the most fertile places
And most haunted
lost child meh the ghosts aren’t that bad, but have you SEEN the size of this years gourds?
Haunted or not... think of how big and delicious those tomatoes and cucumbers will be!!!! Holy crap! 😂
Or depending on how the next few hundreds of years are it might not even be their
Soy and Lentils, maybe?
as a new yorker, i’ve only ever heard it called “potter’s field”. never knew it was called hart island 🤔
Its the same. Later they just changed the name. I know because the mother I never met is located somewhere out there.
SAME
Word that’s crazy
Facts
potter's fields are in more places then new york. it is just a term meant for a place for unclaimed dead.
So after some 300 years....you have people being buried on top of other people....wow. Tossing the baby coffins like they were just trash upset me. Yes I know they were dead but gosh
Why even have coffins when a trash bag would do?
@FamilyFirst interesting and good information thank you
Absolutely no respect. This is why my wish is to be cremated, n scattered in the ocean...
@FamilyFirst The bags are probably way more expensive. I'm sure that mist be the reasoning.
@Hayden Rhead Not sure....but these are really thick heavy duty body bags and they will hold all the liquid as the bodies break down and turns to mush. Maybe so so much of it will not absorb into the ground at one time and filter into the ocean.....I don't really know. With so many bodies...that is a lot of fluid and just those boxes will not last that long. Just a wild guess here.
@8:52, Having prison inmates paid $0.50 an hour to toss those dead babies in shoe box size boxes is very unsettling.
the way they just throw me to each other made me sad.. and at least pay them like $5 and hour
Everything in the states is based on cost/profit their slaves to the dollar most will do just about anything for a buck.
i hope they didnt know those contains babies
Pl ox pretty sure those guys now babies are the only things that can fit in those boxes
It's is, when u only get 0.50 a hour!
Didn't even mention that Bobby Driscol, the voice of Disney's Peter Pan; is buried on Hart Island... perhaps it's most famous burial.
RIP Bobby 😥
Why?
@@davidsiler5505 In late 1967 or early 1968, the penniless Driscoll left The Factory and disappeared into Manhattan's underground.[citation needed]
On March 30, 1968, two boys playing in a deserted East Village tenement at 371 East 10th St. found his body lying on a cot, with two empty beer bottles and religious pamphlets scattered on the ground. A post-mortem determined that he had died from heart failure caused by advanced atherosclerosis[58] from his drug use. There was no identification on the body, and photos shown around the neighborhood yielded no positive identification. His unclaimed body was buried in an unmarked pauper's grave in New York City's Potter's Field on Hart Island.[59][60]
Late in 1969, Driscoll's mother sought the help of officials at the Disney studios to contact him, for a hoped-for reunion with his father, who was nearing death. This resulted in a fingerprint match at the New York City Police Department, which located his burial on Hart Island. Although his name appears on his father's gravestone at Eternal Hills Memorial Park in Oceanside, California, his remains are still on Hart Island. In connection with the re-release of Song of the South in 1971, reporters researching the whereabouts of the film's stars first reported his death.[61][62][63]
@@fadedexile Just for S's and Giggles, I looked up 371 E 10th St, it sure ain't abandoned anymore! That's some prime real estate right there!
@@k1m198 And you know what i just found out, that address is a Substance Abuse Rehab Center. That's a bit unnerving.
Whoa!
When I was young, we sailed in that area of Long Island Sound. Hart Island had a monument on it, a monolith with a cross; it was difficult to know how large it was from the water, it appeared large. We knew what the island was used for and never attempted to get too close.
5:29 What?? Contaminate other bodies? What could possibly happen? Would the bodies become even more dead?
that’s what i was thinking😂😂
user255 this is the unseen start of TWD
As in the other bodies could get contaminated with aids lol.
How do you think we get zombies?
In the 80's people were a special kind of stupid
i'm surprised that nobody in hollywood has thought of making a horror movie out of it.
They did. The movie was called shutter island.
shutter island
@DR Evil Ghosts is old horror, it bores people nowadays
there was also a horror movie called hart island where a group of people go to investigate strange things on the island ,get stranded overnight, and get hunted by ghosts and monsters and stuff like that it was a cheap movie .
I’m sure hollywood would have other ideas for an island 😢
My aunt is buried there because she was homeless and a drug addict when she died. Her mother, my grandmother, did not know where she was at the time. My mom and her sisters didn’t know until 20 years later that she had died. They then did research and found that she had died unidentified in new york. About a year ago, my mom and her sisters visited the island and was able identify her by a picture they had taken when she was found.
Blessings for all.
How heartless does one have to be to toss a babies coffin around like its a beach ball. Disgusting and sickening.
so its got just about every horror movie ghost setup.
it has what some might say...a plethora of ideas at its disposal.
HART ISLAND- Coming soon, (I can see it now)
@@chaddelong998 Jefe, do you even know what "a plethora" is?!!
@@roryross3878 Do you, he used it right?
@@BeyondTheMind007 Would be surprised if the film shutter island was inspired by hart island
What a morbid, but deeply, deeply interesting video. Thank you for making this. I had no idea Hart Island existed. I so so so wish that Solomon Riley (sp?) could have fulfilled his dream. Darn the city for shutting down his beautiful, inclusive dream.
Love ya Garrett. Hope you are doing well🖤
to think Garrett and I would share similar interests😌✨
hi garret i love you
This is the story of many Black focused/owned communities and establishments all around America. Suppression.
I cant imagine how incredibly obnoxious it must be that anywhere you comment someone is gonna comment on ur comment just saying hi or whatever.. Just bc who it is. Amd not adding anything to the conversation.
Seriously- why has no-one thought to build a crematory... seems logical.
You’ve..actually got a point, but people don’t will not won’t to breath in dead people pollution
In order to be cremated, you need permission from the next of kin to do that. Most of these people are unknown or their family wasn't found/notified prior to burial. The sad thing is you don't have much time before they bury you there. My grandmother passed away back in the 90's and thank goodness my sister (who lived in upstate NY) was notified by the landlord where my grandmother lived before she was buried in potters field. My grandmother had already pre-paid for a cemetery plot but the city doesn't know that and if they can't get ahold of next of kin within 3 days that's where you end up.
@@rickdff62 3 days?!? Holy shit. That's horrible!
@@ThatGuyNikolas Well it seems horrible yes, but they can't just leave corpses around for that long. The only place you could store them is a morgue and morgue space is sadly limited. Meaning that the city has to act fast. So sadly this short of a time is the best they can do probably.
Cremation takes roughly 3 hours so the shear volume of bodies makes that not a viable option
You can see this island off the coast of The Bronx’s, City Island. I saw this island year ago and always wondered what went on. What a crazy history for such a tiny island
All those unknown people. That's really damn sad.
It's really damn fake! It's NO WAY all these ppl's bodies are unknown by anyone. Mind You, OVER 166, 000 of said bodies (NO DISRESPECT) came from this plandemic, 🤔... This government is all out BULLSHIT! Over 166,000 "UNKNOWN" ppl passed in New York City & NOT 1 body was claimed!? Not 1 of those ppl, ppl's reported NONE of them missing or anything? That makes less sense than 0!
Blue Cast Well the Dumb Sheeple are just gonna believe as they Wish lol.
@@bluecast1430 it all coded 166,0000 1x6=6
A fear the bodies would contaminate each other? What would that matter? They're already dead...
u dont seem to grasp the sinister doings that people endured that led to their deaths. Experimental viruses, military experiments involving time travel, and hybridization of animal/human entities. You really wanna combine all that and see what happens? You're nutty.
Can you prove it?
@@missymoonwillow6545 🤦♂
People didn't understand what HIV was at that time yet, a virus isn't going to spread to a dead body. But bacteria can spread to other rotting bodies. Like the bubonic plague for example.
Missy Moonwillow
I don’t doubt it !
"It was decided that the unidentifiable bodies would be brought here..."
"The body of a 24 year old woman named Louisa Van Slyke was the first to call it home."
lol?
That made me think for a sec as well
lol..right??!!!!!
It could very well be that she was identified later on after she was placed there. Explains why they would now know the name of the first body.
Unidentifiable and the unclaimed. So some people were able to be identified, but no family could be found to dispose of the remains
@@Rschleg So unidentifiable OR unclaimed?
I've known little about this island over the years because certain information doesn't exist. Thank for giving these souls a voice. They haven't been forgotten. Your team, including the drone, does good work. Much appreciated!!!!
****
They may be dead, but damn me, this was the most inhumane and cruel way to treat those who are gone i have seen, how can they bury the corpses in such shallow graves, and then let erosion wash the caskets and bones to the surface? Haven't they heard of contamination risks?
@John-Carlo Velasco five more minutes working with the tractor as to make the graves deeper?
Isn't there a problem with water seeping into the soil? Parts of the NYC subway have to be continuously pumped or else they'd be flooded.
I mean why not burn wouldt it be cheaper, more humane and profitible you could even rent the island
TheSavageopress. Burning, while it is a good short-term solution, the long-term environmental effects would be insane. There would be tons more pollution going into the atmosphere, with many consequences in the future.
@@unitatao2571 Plus burning bodies thoroughly isn't as straightforward as you'd think. Look up the ins and outs of how a crematorium functions sometime. Very interesting.
Very interesting video. Thank you.
love your videos man
Hiiii!!
🤔
Videos like this are what make RUclips special imo. It's just creepy as hell that some bodies are "oozing" out of the ground and bones popping up. Someone needs to film a movie there, stat.
Thank you for watching! Big fan of yours.
It’s so inaccessible, people are dying to get in.
vcrbetamax Your profile pic is perfect for the comment you made.
no
o o f
Found where the dead covid bodies are gonna go
Im sure hillary put a few there .
Disturbing, yet fascinating. I wonder how many more places like this exist in the US as well as the world.
Auschwitz
Seems like there are dead bodies all over the place in the woods on the sides of highways.
@@truth4004 sounds like somebody watches a lot of mob movies
@@yell0wberry i grew up in long island...trust me he is right. 🤐
@@truth4004 ?
One of the best-composed videos I've watched on RUclips over the past decade. No fluff, no filler, no exaggeration..... just a nice, clean, and straight-forward narration, with great pictures and video clips. I'm going to have to watch more from this channel, for sure!!
I like the subtle use of newspeak language he used when describing things. Very PC and newsthink approved.
Narration is artificial! So well programmed that people listening get fooled. There goes another human profession.
I have absolutely no idea why I am watching this or why it was recommended
@Morphelia Didn't ask Karen
@Morphelia shut up Karen. Stop liking your own comments too you spastic
@Morphelia just out of curiosity, how much methamphetamine have you smoked today?
@Morphelia Okay sorry about that Karen. But really, stop liking your own comments, it's desperate
Morphelia 😂😂😂😂💀
Excelent video. Congratulations, you are making a good job on RUclips. You put a lot of effort in your content.
Thank you very much!
Totally agree with OP. One of the best channels on RUclips, no doubt
The history of Hart Island has always interesting me, but until recently very little information was available. I’ve often wondered if the bodies of those who died from infectious diseases should have been buried at all, and should have been cremated instead, due to the fact that certain viruses could possibly survive and then be spread if unearthed years later.
Keep your mask on & you will be fine!
I would imagine it had a crematorium. I believe that's what that chimney stack is.
But, I don't understand why they don't cremate everyone. Why bury any of them ?
If any place on earth is haunted, it has to be this place.
Butterkin 3000 I’m never going anywhere near New York then
Ghosts aren't real
Haha I was going to comment exactly the same thing. Spooky :p
@@DBProductions12345-m he said "if any place is haunted", not "this place is haunted"
@@TheTruthKiwi Atheists have to be Atheists whenever possible. "What? People even mentioned spirits? I have to make my presence known."
The scariest part of actually seeing it is the people moving around. Everytime I see someone walking around out the corner of my eye while I’m fishing I get a mini heart attack
you fish there??
Seriously dude, even without the dead bodies on the island, there's still no way I would eat anything caught around NYC.
ever hear of catch and release. some people fish in some areas just for sport then they release the fish back into the water.
The_Legend_Of_Kira thank you lmao everyone’s world view is so little
@@the_legend_of_kira2438 Thats cruelty and you call it sports.
You have a little point of view
It's heartbreaking seeing them throwing around baby coffins like packages, or bricks.
And sitting on the coffins in the back of the truck. I was outraged. Show some respect for the dead, for crying out loud! That's someone's relative, whether they were claimed or not!
@@kitarrah1422 At least there getting buried. More care for them then the living gave them.
Not sure why there's so much children there, every fire department has a sign that if a mother doesn't want her child she can leave him/her there. I assume these are children that were dumped outside somewhere to die by homeless or drug addict mom's.
@@maxter3326
Illness deaths:
"Leading causes of death in children under-5 years are preterm birth complications, pneumonia, birth asphyxia, congenital anomalies, diarrhoea and malaria. Nearly half of these deaths are in newborns."
Accidental or Injury deaths:
"For children less than 1 year of age, two-thirds of injury deaths were due to suffocation.
Drowning was the leading cause injury death for those 1 to 4 years of age.
"
These aren't abandoned children, they're children whose parents could not afford to take them to doctors until it was too late (or who could not afford the expensive procedures to save their children, in the case of accidents). That fighting to save your child can mean a lifetime of debt, bankruptcy, or even losing your home, is a disgusting but inevitable side effect of privatized health insurance with deductibles and maximum allowed amounts.
@@kitarrah1422 probably because they're being paid 50 cents to do this very grim work.
Shout out to this guy who actually acknowledged Native American history of the island and framed it in an honest way. It rarely happens sadly..
oh blah blah blah. Yes we know. Everyone lived somewhere before someone else did. Its endless. Enough with the "those people are victims!!" nonsense. No more than the rest of us.
Oh my gosh people lived on land before other people lived on land!!! WHAT A CRIME! This is so different from anything that has ever happened anywhere!
Why are you calling them "Native Americans" when that's not what they called themselves? Do you even know where the word "America" comes from?
Agreed 😊
The way they treat the Bodies, even the babies bodies, its so depressing to see.
That's the 50c an hour treatment
I don't it's a body, who cares
It's a body, they've got to move it somehow and quicker the better. I can't imagine leaving those things out is a great idea.
It’s just a body, They ain’t using it anymore
@@kirathompson3653
Nope, if you cared about the dead's feelings or whatever it wouldn't matter how much you got paid. However I wouldn't care either so I'm not blaming them
"But before the plan could be fulfilled, the government seized the land, unwilling to host an amusement park in such close proximity to a jail and a hospital."
The government banned the building of an amusement park for African Americans in 1924, something tells me it wasn't out of concern for their safety.
Uhh yes I think it was.... I would never go to a amusement park near a hospital and a jail. Very unsafe.
@@Niko-ri4rs When it's the only way for them to be able to experience an amusement park, I suspect that many of them would take their chances
I dunno, I think for once the government had a point.
True when did they ever care about blacks safety. They just didn't what them to own anything.
KKK really powerful at that time,I wonder...
It broke my heart to see babies tossed, but who am I to ask for reverence for the dead from people who receive no reverence for their very lives?
That was painful to watch; but thanks for creating this mini-documentary. My mom lost a baby years before me; but it’s not something my parents, sister, or other close relatives ever bring up, so I don’t ask much. I do have a feeling he ended up on Hart island since I did ask once what happened to him, and my mom just said the hospital took him away. My parents were always hard workers and have always been religious; so never understood why they didn’t burry him. My dad or sister sometimes brings up the topic every couple of years, so I’ll have to have my questions ready.
What is it about infant mortality that adults don’t like to talk about or won’t admit? I’m grown now but as a kid my family never talk about this even to this day and there are always kids who passed in families. A lot of families have gone through grief of an infant baby yet they’re hush about it.
@@JeanClaudeCOCO too painful. Ppl don't want to relive it.
This is the Starting Location for People who train to become Necromancers
Book Euron Greyjoy sailed there to master the craft, as show Arya will learn.
Some edgy teens row to the island with kayaks filled with spell books and cursed items
The Elder Scrolls Confirmed
Petition to change Hart Island, NY to Tirisfal Glades, NY
There is romance in necromance
Wow that's crazy, just throwing a baby coffin around like it's a sand bag...
it is an empty coffin, after all.
I cant blame the prisoners forced into manual labor, I blame the judges and council that made it legal. cremation would be more dignified.
whats wrong with that. Its just a body
It’s just a lump of flesh. The baby isn’t there anymore.
Baby can’t die twice.
love how during the part showing baby coffins youtube cut for an ad and was like "im thinkin arby's"
"I'm thinkin' dead babies."
Makes you question what are they truly feeding us 🤔???
Christopher Edwards Makes you question the sh*tty ad algorithms. ī\_(^w^)_/ī
Ara ara Arby's baby. I got some goddamn cupons -only good another week. I'm gonna get the cheese sticks. You can use any coupon on up to 6 items. 24 sticks for $12 or 12 sticks and 16 jalepeno poppers for $12? I dont feel like Tomboy Outback this week.
ARBY’S...WE HAVE THE BABIES
It's important for family researchers to remember that Hart Island was / is considered a public burial ground you. The earliest burials or often immigrants without families nearby and those who died in Catholic or City hospitals, where no family member claim them. As burials progressed post-world War II, miscarried and deceased babies we're frequently buried here. If you have a New York City death certificate that States the person is interred at City Cemetery, this is the place.
They should remove all of the buildings and simply use it as a graveyard from now on, especially since the buildings are rotting.
thas exactly what I was thinking, the buildings are all falling apart, why not raze everything and make like Green-Wood cemetry, something along those lines, that way it woulnd tbe so grimmmmmmm
They probably will some time in the future if or when they run out of space.
Why bother, nature will do it for them, did you notice the trees growing on some of the rooftops?
They're not worried about wasting money on that island anytime soon. Sad to say. Just as the people buried there are mostly unknown, the government doesn't care about the upkeep of the island.
I’m willing to buy the island and dig up the remains. I will give them a proper burial to those that can be identified. To those unidentifiable, set up a shrine of some sort. To pay for this, a high rise casino will be built at one end of the island only accessible by water and only millionaires and billionaires are allowed. I will charge $100 thousand dollars just to walk in the door and I will pay all employees $100 per hour. This will be a 24/7 casino and the best security money can buy.
PS: Now that I’m awake I’m staying away from crack. Kids, don’t do drugs!
The way they threw the baby's coffins broke my heart 💔🕊️
Where do you get your video ideas from?
They’re always interesting, I’ve never not been interested in one of them, that’s quite a difficult thing to do.
Side note (hehe): The narrator’s voice is incredibly relaxing.
Glad you like them!
I agree Sir Apple
This reminds me of Poveglia Island in Venice, Italy. It was also used for many of the same purposes, and is largely off-limits to the public.
There is one in the UK too. It’s off limits but people sneak in to collect stuff. Like coins, cigar boxes, and chains and whatever else the water and erosion bring back to the surface
@PatricioGarcia1973 what is that one called?
Can you imagine during a zombie apocalypse trying rally hard to get to that island because you think it's safe lol
rally?
Lol 😆 and you I’m sure will be met with demons haha
@@LNMBEATS Typo :)
@You're fake and gay I think he means the zombies, lol.
@You're fake and gay Yes, climbing up out of the dirt.
Title correction: Why this tiny island is inaccessible to most *living* people
Unless the dead can rise up and travel, it's pretty much inaccessible to most dead people too...
Cute clap back!
I mean not really
People are dying to get to that island...
I love how they call it a "homeless shelter" when the city clearly just picked them up and threw them in a corner so they would hopefully die. It doesn't even make sense... They can't even get there by foot. It's like having a shelter on Alcatraz.
Yeah, much better to have these people just out on the streets doing drugs or having serious mental issues just wandering about, attacking people and shitting on the streets.
That's because most people have 0 sympathy for the homeless. Who cares if you've stuck them someplace where there is zero opportunity to get a job or improve their situation, as long as you don't have to look at them? It's as if by hiding them you can just pretend they don't exist. So shameful to treat human beings with such contempt and indifference.
I went to college right across from Hart Island. I have been on a small boat right up to Hart Island a few times during my time at school. The place is creepy but would be an urban explorers dream. The place is restricted and monitored by the authorities, at least it was in the 90s.
Unknown hispanic male,freaking broke my heart!!!!
😭😭😭😭me too
It had a number on it too. It's crazy to think most of these bodys are people that were never identified and just piled into mass graves. Those numbers will all be gone in about a decade from the woods decompositions and the records and numbers lost with the other hundred thousand
@@cmcm5878 we Hispanics on our knees in repentance Lord 🙌🏽😭🙌🏽
Lord plz forgive us 🙌🏽😭🙌🏽
its heartbreaking, isn't it....how many people are going unidentified, and whats worse in nyc rn they cut the time to 2 weeks to identify a body or they get buried on the island and put down as a cv19 death.....just another statistic
But God knows who they are!
Reminds me of the Killing fields in Cambodia. There are human bones that rise to the surface all though the fields. A truly horrific and harrowing place.
During Katrina a Lot of the coffens floated up in the waters
My buddy visited the killing fields on vacation. The infamous tree that they smashed babies against was there.
I hope you mean the mass buried bodies because nothing even touches the killing fields brutality
David M the horror doesn’t come from the bones itself, it’s from what happened there. The bones are just a reminder.
@ What's horrific about former Nazi death camps? It's just a fence and some ovens.
I just felt some type of way seeing them throw those little boxes from the truck, knowing they contain babies.
Me too.
Same!
I can't even describe it...some kind of way is much more than pain or anger. Ugh. That broke me.
I felt the same way.
Regardless of the public’s knowledge about AIDS in the mid-80’s, I’m interested to hear the bizarre thought process of those worried about “contamination” of other DEAD BODIES.
This place is basically screaming "Look! I'm haunted!".
Bury the A.I.D.S victim far away from the other bodies. Cause we wouldn't want the other dead to catch A.I.D.S. Sounds reasonable.
@Iron Hands Terminator Those are the worse kind. 😁
Of course they’d bury the AIDS victim far away from other bodies. What about a necrophile’s safety?
Lmao
And that they could contaminate the land...which is why they buried them everywhere on the island so it couldn't be used for anything else anyway xD
And that was only 30ish years ago
I like the US but sometimes stuff like this comes up and makes it sounds like a third world country. Prisoners burying the bodies of unidentified people on a mass grave island, like wtf.
Yeah sounds so uncivilized
and especially given the fact it’s new york, probably the richest city in america
@@paidinbluess hundreds of people die probably in new york, there's probably not a lot of space to bury because of skyscrapers, and since there's also tons of prisoners, pretty much free labor
@@captainclasher6459 bury them out of the city
Why they gotta be in the city?
Ruined a perfectly good island
Costs more to transport them out of the city and I think prisoners can reduce their time by doing it. It happens all over the US and probably other countries too. I would do it if it meant I could have a little cash and less time in prison. And from a documentary I watched the prisoners tend to be calmer or something after doing it as they don't want to be disrespectful and it's not an event thing to bury hundreds of forgotten people at once
It’s crazy how they won’t even pay enough to put a decent amount of soil on top. Disgusting
This is definitely the most haunted island in the world.
Some resident evil shit
Do you really believe in these supernatural shits? lol
Imagine spending a night there.
@@AtheistMorax I worked for years in a large funeral home at night. I can tell you for certain that spirits exist.
@@Adino1 Okay...
This is wild, I taken my boat through the city many times coming from the north shore of Long Island, meaning I’ve passed buy over a million dead many times and I never knew this was there
I don't know why this guy says it's near Long Island, it isn't. Yes, it's in the Long Island Sound but it's part of the Bronx and only about a mile or two away from City Island where the ferry to and from Hart Island leaves from a dock on Fordham street
Imagine living near or frequenting the area around the former death camps of the Nazi regime.
You are always surrounded by spirits, angels, energy and vibrations. All connected
*passed by. "buy" is to purchase something with money. WTF! I've seen many people use "buy" for "by". When my manager left the company we had a party for him and the grocery store fucked up the cake and wrote in frosting "Buy Steve".
me on the inside "umm..hey guys maybe dont throw dead babies like that!"
me on the outside: let's see if i can catch 2 of them little suckas at the same time YEET
I’m going to hell. I burst out laughing when I saw them playing catch with them. Didn’t expect that at all 😂😂💀💀
But wow what a story right! You're at a dinner party and they ask you if you ever played sports. You reply I use to play catch with dead babies when I lived in New York😀.
Dinner Party: Go Oooon🤯😶😥😕.
Did I just eat?
What are the dead babies gonna do? Fight back?
It was heartbreaking to see them tossing the baby caskets around like that. They were precious little souls. All of the dead there should be treated with respect and dignity. Tear down those dilapidated old useless buildings and make the place more pleasant so people can visit their loved ones in a peaceful setting.
When I was in elementary school about 20 years ago we'd always look out at Hart Island during recess (my school was just a few hundred feet away on City Island) and wonder why it was off-limits. Of course, being kids, we didn't know what went on there and I don't think any adults really wanted to talk about it since we were so young so the rumor going around school was that it was because there were a bunch of missile silos/nukes on it and we all kinda just accepted that lol. Did keep me curious enough to look it up myself on Wikipedia once I was old enough though.
A homeless shelter? Seems like an odd locale for a homeless shelter.
they also hosted a hair salon, a sushi shop and a brothel there too. Next to the mental asylum. Prime real-estate
mase ofspades hey guys we finally get to open our sushi shop! Other guys: great, where’s the new place? ..... next to an asylum on the island of the dead
Well it makes the commute (one way, of course) a lot shorter.
Out of sight, out of mind.
it just goes to show that homeless shelters, mental asylums and rehab centers fill the same role as prisons in the 'free' world.
me without knowing any history of the island, wathing this video : "Whoa that island looks cool! is that for sal- (This island has house thousands of mass graves) -Nevermind"
*I don't see the issue?*
NGL, if i was rich enough i'd prob still see if i could get it and setup a proper graveyard elsewhere that families could visit without hassel and transfer all the bones etc. Then set about building my perfect my badass island home. 1 Heart Island, Island of the Dead, New York. Fuck yeah
John Davis I feel like that would make it cooler to be on tbh I would love to live there
@@garrett591 to some degree yeah. But I'd totally renovate the entire island. And if most of the mass graves were only 6 ft deep or less I'd just move everything. Most foundations are atleast that deep. Don't really want human remains in my foundations lol.
Yoji yea that’s fair lol
What got me was how those prisoners were tossing those baby coffins around like it was nothing. What a damn shame. They should've at least given them proper treatment.
You are expecting too much from prisoners/criminals? Many of them might have even been killers.
I have no idea this island even existed, Turned out it is close to City Island in the Bronx.
My Grandfather used to point to it from Orchard Beach and say "there is Potters' Field". Never called it Hart Island.
It actually was the setting for a horror movie, I forget the title but the movie was about a group of inmates sent to the island to bury the dead who are then attacked by a giant swarm of man eating flies.
Wow, what wasted potential, seems like a prime setting for something like Silent Hill.
You have an insane asylum and hordes of buried bodies and you decide to go with man-eating flies?
GoonCoon18
Aparently lol
I don't typically subscribe to the idea of spirits haunting places, but if anywhere on Earth is haunted, this place is definitely one of them.
I didn't know that it was used for a horror movie. I don't watch them, so I wouldn't have known that anyway.
Man when you see them throwing the babies coffins like a loaf of bread or something it kinda hits home.
The only thing I could think about was how this is definitely what inspired Arkham island in Batman. An island with a poorly managed insane asylum and an abandoned amusement park? Literally spot on
This is disturbing. Idaho, most cemeteries now require a vault, not just a casket.
It's to preserve the remains and attempt to filter any ground water contamination, as well as keep the land from creating sink pits as caskets disintegrate very quickly.
I don't want a casket and dam sure not a vault, I want to be thrown in a dirt hole so the bugs can eat me.
Embalming fluid is very toxic. However unclaimed bodies aren’t pumped full of chemicals before burial so the risk is negligible. Dust to dust.
Yes, it's all seeping into the aquifers
it was sad to start and then the tossing of the baby coffins took a toll
When the ice shelf falls and the oceans rise 3 meters it’s going to be real interesting in the bay
I can't wait 😁😁😁
They will create a mob city like feeling
Yeah how long ago did al gore clame this bs also 😂😂😂😂
Keep holding your breath for that McRussian.
@@TheStig_TG DLM ? Dead Lives Matter
RUclips's algorithm is creepy... I was watching a sailing channel and they were sailing New York city and sailed by and mentioned this island.. Few days later this pop's in my feed
This is unbelievable i heard about this but first time seeing it...and you see how from the 80s with Aids patients now corona patients..and they way they handle those dead babies coffins..is very disrespectful
The footage is clearly old (80s to 90s), a much more bigoted time.
They have a huge number of childrens bodies that come in (half the island is children under 5) so they have to efficiently unload and bury the bodies. It's still awful seeing the footage
I think they have to be detached to do that kind of work
They were prisoners who were paid few cents to do this job
9:17...there are literally trees growing out of the top of the roofs...amazing.
Let's plant flowers there!
Many.
Fill it with them.
I remember watching a movie about this island with Malcom McDowell! Didn’t know it was a real island! Learn something new everyday!
7:21 jesus, the way they toss around the baby coffins like they’re unloading cases of smokes
imagine the ghost parties that go on there, damn you probably gotta make reservations while you're still alive just to get in em lol
Those men digging those graves, will be burried on that island a few years latter
That same thought came to me when the fellows sat down on the pine box in the back of the truck.
Or released when their sentence is up, and hopefully use their thousand dollars to get out of that god forsaken city.
It should be noted that this Island was also an launch site that was a part of the Nike Missile defense system. It's number is NY-15. It's Radar site was at Fort Slocum on David's Island. It was open from 1955 till July of 1960. It was an Nike Hercules site with underground storage. There were two elevators. There are still buildings from the base that are still standing. They are blue in color.
The AIDS victims part really got to me when you consider most were gay so it's likely there birth families abandoned them, and there was no gay marriage back then so there's no way for their partner's to prove they were family so they can't even visit their loved ones grave.
@rawguy24 who hurt you?
@rawguy24 it's just a question?
@@jamesmackes4531 but isn't God against gays tho?
@@jamesmackes4531 is but some people don't like gays because of religion which I think should be a protected right
@rawguy24 lmao
Cremation is the best disposal. We waste too much of the earth for coffins.
@@Nathan.Klemstein no, just wrap/cover it in fabric, then burry it, no coffin/wood, and no smoke/global warming. Muslim did it all the time, look for "pocong".
Waste of good worm food to burn them.
@No One Knows Cemeteries currently cover 0.0000008% of the earth's habitable land mass. That's the equivalent of the head of a thumbtack compared to a football field. It's a non-issue.
@@frossbog This estimation is so useless. Cemeteries are always located in city centres, prime locations and such. Look up Montreal's cemetery ; it's the biggest one in Canada and located on top of a beautiful mountain that could be use in so many other ways than miles of tombstones. There are so many other exemples. It IS an issue because dead bodies becomes a burden after a few generations and obviously none of us wants to send or relatives 'in land' or 'up north' in remote areas when there's a passing...
@@ChrisSunshine1 A grave is not forever, with a few exceptions you can use a grave again, sometimes within as little as 25 years. If it's a family grave you can re-use at pretty much any time.
Also, a well kept graveyard is a lovely and serene place to take a walk or sit on a bench and read a book. I always try to visit a graveyards when I travel, it's a great way to learn about local history.
Q: "There's a picturesque little island of prime real estate in the bay, what do you want to do with it?"
A: "FilL iT wiTh dEAd BoDies, thE sIcK aNd tHe CrImINaLs!"
Imagine being left behind after a long day of burying babies. Just gave myself chills
RUclips algorithm needs to promote this kind of useful and interesting videos (instead of poor quality/garbage/unfunny/dumb/meaningless content from "popular" "influencers".
*Like, if you agree* 👍
*_Greetings from NYC_* 🗽
The algorithm promotes what it thinks you'll be interested in based on your history
It's creepy how history seems to repeat itself. It's also heartbreaking.
It's Hartbreaking
Thank you for the history lesson. I had no idea that such a place existed in New York. I have lived in Brooklyn for almost all my life. Wow
Imagine how haunted this island is
Lot of disturbed souls on this piece of land.. So much of pain, atrocities committed. No wonder it is haunted
well, nobody ever said it was haunted, which it obviously isn't, but it's a shameful place better hidden from the public view, that's right.
@@moos5221 May be it isn't haunted. For the history it has, the possibility of the place getting inhabitated is remote coz ppl will consider it haunted
@Erudite di'Cosmos true..
I've lived in Upstate NY for many decades and I did not know of this until the pandemic hit. They sure do know how to keep it a secret don't they? This was very informative, thanks for sharing!
Tells you how shameful it is. Secrets. Just like families with secrets. Shame.
this was never a secret
Grew Up in Western Pennsylvania and I knew of it mostly due to it being NYC's Potter's Field. Wasn't really ever secret.
Protagonist: The villain's lair could be anywhere!
The Villain's Lair: