2020:To remove or disinter a body from the City Cemetery, you must first contact a licensed funeral director. The director will help you obtain a Disinterment Permit from the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Office of Vital Records. Disinterment can only be requested for people buried after 1978, as location records for earlier burials are not available.
Once you have the permit, the following documents must be sent to the Department of Correction: A copy of the death certificate; The original Disinterment Permit; and A formal request for disinterment on letterhead from a licensed funeral home. The documents must be mailed to: Warden Department of Correction 1307 Hazen Street East Elmhurst, NY 11370
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Years of Use: April 20, 1869 to date
Location: Hart Island, east of City Island, Long Island Sound, Bronx
History: Louisa Van Slyke died in Charity Hospital without family of friends to claim her body. On 20 April 1869, she became the first person buried in Hart Cemetery. One million others are buried with her. Today, Hart Island Cemetery is the largest potter's field in the United States. Inmates from the prison on Riker's Island receive the dead, shipped to Hart Island on a ferry run by the Department of Corrections. The deceased's name and identification number are both carved into the coffin. A packet with other identifying information is attached to the coffin, and the deceased's name is again marked upon it, in indelible ink. The remains of all unidentified bodies are sent to Hart Island for interment after being photographed at the morgue. John and Jane Does constitute one-tenth of all burials. Approximately one hundred bodies are identified by relatives or friends each year. A body can be disinterred for up to eight years after the burial.
The cemetery is dotted with white markers, each denoting a mass burial of 150 bodies laid out in two rows, three coffins deep. None of the dead have personal grave markers, but there are two large monuments dedicated to all. Over the years, various sections of the island were developed by private and government entities. The cemetery continues to spread across the island and around these ruins as gravediggers clear the land for new burials.