place

Hart Island (Bronx)

American Civil War prison campsBuildings and structures in the BronxCemeteries in the BronxDefunct prisons in New York CityIslands of New York City
Islands of the BronxLong Island SoundMass gravesMilitary facilities in the BronxUse mdy dates from April 2020
Hart Island, Bronx, 2012 (cropped)
Hart Island, Bronx, 2012 (cropped)

Hart Island, sometimes referred to as Hart's Island, is located at the western end of Long Island Sound, in the northeastern Bronx in New York City. Measuring approximately 1 mile (1.6 km) long by 0.33 miles (0.53 km) wide, Hart Island is part of the Pelham Islands archipelago, to the east of City Island. The island's first public use was as a training ground for the United States Colored Troops in 1864. Since then, Hart Island has been the location of a Union Civil War prison camp, a psychiatric institution, a tuberculosis sanatorium, a potter's field with mass burials, a homeless shelter, a boys' reformatory, a jail, and a drug rehabilitation center. Several other structures, such as an amusement park, were planned for Hart Island but not built. During the Cold War, Nike defense missiles were stationed on Hart Island. The island was intermittently used as a prison and a homeless shelter until 1967; the last inhabited structures were abandoned in 1977. The potter's field on Hart Island was run by the New York City Department of Correction until 2019, when the New York City Council voted to transfer jurisdiction to the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. The remains of more than one million people are buried on Hart Island, though since the first decade of the 21st century, there are fewer than 1,500 burials a year. Burials on Hart Island include individuals who were not claimed by their families or did not have private funerals; the homeless and the indigent; and mass burials of disease victims. Access to the island was restricted by the Department of Correction, which operated an infrequent ferryboat service and imposed strict visitation quotas. Burials were conducted by inmates from the nearby Rikers Island jail. The Hart Island Project, a public charity founded by visual artist Melinda Hunt, worked to improve access to the island and make burial records more easily available. Transfer to the Parks Department in 2019 had been sought for over twenty years and was hoped to ease public access to the Island. Burials in the island's Potters' Field continued after the transfer.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Hart Island (Bronx) (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Hart Island (Bronx)
Soundview Road, New York The Bronx

Geographical coordinates (GPS) Address Nearby Places
placeShow on map

Wikipedia: Hart Island (Bronx)Continue reading on Wikipedia

Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 40.8525 ° E -73.77 °
placeShow on map

Address

Soundview Road

Soundview Road
10464 New York, The Bronx
New York, United States
mapOpen on Google Maps

Hart Island, Bronx, 2012 (cropped)
Hart Island, Bronx, 2012 (cropped)
Share experience

Nearby Places

Columbia Island (New York)
Columbia Island (New York)

Columbia Island (formerly Little Pea Island), is an island in the Long Island Sound and part of New Rochelle, New York. It is situated off the south-eastern coast of Davids' Island, immediately adjacent to Pea Island. The island varies in size from about one acre to 175 square feet depending on the tide. It was once owned by the Iselin family who sold it to the Huguenot Yacht Club along with Pea Island in 1936. Three years later the club sold Little Pea Island to the Columbia Broadcasting System, which appropriately renamed it "Columbia". As a result of engineering surveys designating the area around New Rochelle and Port Washington on Long Island Sound as the ideal locality for a radio transmitter to serve the metropolitan New York area, new stations were constructed on these sites by both the Columbia ("CBS") and National ("NBC") broadcasting systems in 1940. CBS purchased the island as the site for a new broadcast antenna tower for WCBS (then known by the call sign WABC).CBS spent approximately $500,000 to construct the transmitter building with emergency housing for ten workers, and the 410-foot (125 m) broadcast tower. The station contained a 50,000-watt transmitter housed in a 75-square-foot (7.0 m2) copper-walled building. There also was a 5,000-watt transmitter unit for emergency use. Electric power was supplied through two submarine cables, which were connected to separate power plants to prevent interruption of service. Emergency generators were installed on the island for protection against power failure. The men who operated the station lived within a grounded metal shell under which were living quarters for engineers, workshops, electrical units that supplied tube voltages, and the backup generator. The transmitter remained in operation until 1963, when it became obsolete, and the station was moved to nearby High Island. CBS's work to build a high-power broadcasting station included drilling through bedrock to a source of fresh water, found at a depth of 910 feet (280 m).The island was then purchased by the show-business couple Peter Lind Hayes and Mary Healy, who broadcast a breakfast conversation show from their home there. It was part of a package that included a strip of waterfront property, a speedboat, and a tugboat. The couple later gave the island to the College of New Rochelle. In 2005, the then-current owner of the island sought to demolish the old transmitter building and replace it with a private residence. Pathologist Al Sutton bought Columbia Island in 2007. To make the island more livable, he constructed an off-the-grid "green" home within the concrete building with solar panels. In June 2019, Columbia Island and nearby Pea island were jointly put on sale with a list price of $13 million. According to The New York Times Sutton described the property as a "money pit". Sutton spent $8 million on the property.