Talk:Hart Island, New York

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I strongly disagree with the move of this to the comma form. Hart Island is not a city, or any kind of municipality. It is a geographical feature, and in such cases, I am strongly in favor of the parentheses disambiguation over the comma. If a comma is to be used, it should be Hart Island, Bronx, as a neighborhood in List of Bronx neighborhoods. Using the comma with the state New York puts it into the false representation as a census-designated place in the United States, which it is not. -- Decumanus 17:41, 2004 Dec 11 (UTC)

Hi!,

I'll leave all the punctuation up to you.

It is an island in Bronx County.

Supercool Dude

Contents 1 Potter's field 2 Prison 3 Mrs. Hart 4 POW 5 Method of Burial

[edit] Potter's field

I remember watching a short documentary film about a small island in NYC where prisoners bury stillborn infants. I assume it was Hart Island. But is the island a potter's field in general, or is it specifically for infants? (Sorry for the morbid subject matter) -- Gyrofrog (talk) 00:52, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

My understanding is that it's still a potter's field, for people of all ages. --RoySmith 01:06, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Prison

The article says about 100 prisoners are still held on the island, but at least one source says all prisoners were removed to Rikers in 1991. The Corrections website also makes no reference to a current facility on the island. Can anyone confirm this from a source? --Dhartung | Talk 20:05, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

According to [1], In 1966, the jail was closed and the Island was used as a center for the Phoenix House narcotic rehabilitation program. This program was discontinued in 1976 and the Island returned to the Correction Department. However, the Department did not operate the Island as a jail until 1982, when a small prisoner contingent was again housed there. In 1991, the inmates housed on Hart Island were transferred to Rikers Island. I'll fix up the article. -- RoySmith (talk) 20:19, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mrs. Hart

The article talks about a certain "Mrs. Hart" donating the land to New York City. I have a published source which says the land was purchased from the Hunter family, as I have now put forth in the article. Therefore I have edited the article to note that the Mrs. Hart claim is just an urban legend. If there is any published source which supports the Mrs. Hart claim, then I will be happy to remove the urban legend description. Otherwise, the information is suspect. Who seriously trusts local legends? Galanskov 07:57, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] POW

Was a prisoner of war camp established on Hart Island in 1863? Jim.henderson 16:09, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Method of Burial

In the article's cemetery section, there are two different references to how people are buried: "Inmates stack the pine coffins in two rows, three high and 25 across", and "Adults are placed in cardboard cartons costing $54, and are stacked three coffins high and two coffins across" - quite the difference. Which is it? The source is a NY times article that is not reachable. Ouze 11:41, 13 November 2007 (UTC)