Rikers Island Inmates Maintain Mass Graves On New York's Hart Island For The City's Unclaimed Bodies

NEW YORK, NY - OCTOBER 25: A site which was previously used as a missile base retrofitted with Nike Ajax missile silos and operational for six years, from 1955 through 1961, stands on Hart Island on October 25, 2019 in New York City. The last components of the missile system were closed in 1974. Hart Island, located off the Northeast edge of the Bronx, is the largest public burial ground in the United States. Over one million people have been laid to rest at its 131 acre grounds. New York City's Department of Corrections utilizes sentenced inmates from Rikers Island to maintain the grounds of the island and to perform grave digging duties. The caskets are stacked three deep in a trench 36 inches below the surface, burying between 150 to 162 adults and 1,000 infant and fetal remains per trench which are marked with white headstones. Currently, a legislative package is making the rounds to transfer jurisdiction over Hart Island from the Department of Correction to the Department of Parks and Recreation. (Photo by David Dee Delgado/Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NY - OCTOBER 25: A site which was previously used as a missile base retrofitted with Nike Ajax missile silos and operational for six years, from 1955 through 1961, stands on Hart Island on October 25, 2019 in New York City. The last components of the missile system were closed in 1974. Hart Island, located off the Northeast edge of the Bronx, is the largest public burial ground in the United States. Over one million people have been laid to rest at its 131 acre grounds. New York City's Department of Corrections utilizes sentenced inmates from Rikers Island to maintain the grounds of the island and to perform grave digging duties. The caskets are stacked three deep in a trench 36 inches below the surface, burying between 150 to 162 adults and 1,000 infant and fetal remains per trench which are marked with white headstones. Currently, a legislative package is making the rounds to transfer jurisdiction over Hart Island from the Department of Correction to the Department of Parks and Recreation. (Photo by David Dee Delgado/Getty Images)
Rikers Island Inmates Maintain Mass Graves On New York's Hart Island For The City's Unclaimed Bodies
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