Hart Island, a small and largely inaccessible island in New York City, is home to over one million nameless and forgotten souls.
For decades, this eerie, desolate location has served as a potter’s field—a mass burial site for the city’s unclaimed and indigent dead.
Located off the coast of the Bronx, Hart Island has long been shrouded in mystery, with its grim history making it one of the most haunting places in New York.
The burials, typically conducted by Rikers Island inmates, have contributed to its reputation as a place of solitude and sorrow. Many of the deceased buried there succumbed to poverty, disease, or abandonment, their identities often lost to time.
Efforts to provide greater access to the island for grieving families and historians have increased in recent years.
However, with no official records easily accessible and no permanent memorials, the island continues to be one of the city’s most tragic and overlooked landmarks.
