The Nautical Gazette says: One of the oldest pilots actively engaged in steamboating today [in 1905] is Captain James P. Ackley, who daily steers the Hudson River ferryboat Brinkerhoff on her trips between Poughkeepsie and Highland [in Ulster County, NY]. [Read more…] about Poughkeepsie’s Captain James Ackley: A Boatman’s Life
Hart Island
An End to Mass Burials on Hart Island?
On April 20, 1869, the city of New York opened City Cemetery on Hart Island, now the largest municipal cemetery in the nation and New York’s only green burial ground. At the time, Hart Island was part of Pelham and located in Westchester County. The property had been used during Civil War as a training camp for African American U.S. soldiers and a prisoner of war camp for Confederates. [Read more…] about An End to Mass Burials on Hart Island?
NYC Parks Launches Public Access to Hart Island
Hart Island is the largest public cemetery in the country and has served New York City since 1869. While Hart Island is currently only used for city burials, the island has served many uses since the 19th Century, including a quarantine station, a psychiatric hospital, a tuberculosis ward, a reform school, a homeless shelter, a rehabilitation facility, a military base, and a jail. [Read more…] about NYC Parks Launches Public Access to Hart Island
NYC Plans to Demolish Historic Hart Island Buildings
The city of New York plans to tear down most of the historic buildings on Hart Island, where more than one million people are buried in unmarked graves. The city declared an emergency, which bypasses cultural resource and environmental reviews.
New York State designated the entire island off the coast of the Bronx eligible for listing on the State and National Registers of Historic Places in 2016. About 20 institutional and residential structures remain at the mile-long site, including a women’s insane asylum built in 1885 known as “The Pavilion,” a 1912 electrical generating dynamo building, and a 1930s Catholic chapel – 18 are planned to be demolished. [Read more…] about NYC Plans to Demolish Historic Hart Island Buildings
A Cemetery of Strangers: NYC’s Hart Island
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Michael T. Keene’s new book New York City’s Hart Island: A Cemetery of Strangers takes a look at Hart Island, where more than one million bodies are buried in unmarked graves, just off the coast of the Bronx in Long Island Sound.
The islands first public use was as a Civil War prison and United States Colored Troops training site and later a psychiatric hospital. The island became the repository for New York City’s unclaimed dead. It’s mass graves are a microcosm of New York history, from the 1822 burial crisis to casualties of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire and victims of the AIDS epidemic. Important artists who died in poverty have been discovered buried there, including Disney star Bobby Driscol and playwright Leo Birinski. [Read more…] about A Cemetery of Strangers: NYC’s Hart Island