Hart Island is open to the public – here are other NYC areas built over mass graves

NEW YORK (PIX11) – Hart Island earned its name as New York City’s final resting place, but it may now become the city’s newest green space.

The island sits between the Bronx and Long Island and has been a public cemetery since 1869. More than 1 million people have been buried there, including indigent Civil War veterans, people who died of AIDS, and those whose bodies went unclaimed after death.

Jurisdiction over the island was transferred to the NYC Parks Department in 2021, and since then, organizers have opened it to the general public. Urban Park Rangers started giving tours for the first time in November 2023.

Hart Island is one of the latest mass graves turned visitor attractions in New York City. Many of the city’s most popular parks were built over public burial grounds known as potter’s fields.

Here are a few of them:

Washington Square Park

While it’s currently one of the city’s most popular and bustling parks, Washington Square Park served as a public burial ground from about 1797 to 1827. More than 20,000 people were buried under the now-famous arch, many of who were victims of the yellow fever epidemic. Some bodies remain buried under “varying depths of fill,” according to a 2005 archaeological assessment by NYC Parks. Washington Square Park was converted into a parade ground in 1825 before becoming a public park in 1827.

Bryant Park

This park, just outside Times Square, served as a potter’s field from 1832 to 1840. Unlike Washington Square Park, the bodies at Bryant Park were removed before the city turned the area into a reservoir and later into the park we know today.

Madison Square Park and Union Square Park

Not much information has been published about the public graves that once sat at these parks. What’s known is that Madison Square Park served as a potter’s field from 1794 to 1797 before the bodies were moved to Washington Square Park. Union Square Park was a public grave until at least 1807, when the intersection was once known as Bloomingdale Road (now Broadway) and Bowery Road (now Fourth Avenue).