The Unmarked Graveyard: Stories from Hart Island

By: Radio Diaries & Radiotopia
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  • Summary

  • Hart Island, an uninhabited strip of land off the Bronx, is America’s largest public cemetery, sometimes known as a “potter’s field.” Since 1869, more than a million people have been buried on Hart Island, including early AIDS patients, unidentified and unclaimed New Yorkers, immigrants, incarcerated people, artists, and about ten percent of New Yorkers who died of COVID-19. Many people buried there are shrouded in anonymity. The island has no headstones or plaques, just numbered markers. Simple pine coffins are stacked in mass graves. In many cases, explanations for how bodies came to be buried there are hard to find.\ \ Our series tells the stories of seven people buried on Hart Island through a range of circumstances. Some were lost in the system after their deaths, while others had been cut off from family and friends for years. One chose Hart Island as his final resting place. Each story is told by the people who knew them best, some of whom overcame tremendous obstacles to uncover what happened to their loved ones.
    Copyright © 2017. All rights reserved.
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History Social Sciences
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Episodes
  • The Unmarked Graveyard: Live at WNYC

    The Unmarked Graveyard: Live at WNYC
    Dec 19 2023

    We bring you a lot of stories each year, but we don’t often get to share the work behind them. We recently held an event at WNYC’s The Greene Space in New York City, where our subjects and producers reflected on the challenges, and joys, of telling these untold stories. For the last podcast of the year, we’re bringing you that live show: a behind the scenes look at The Unmarked Graveyard.

    We want to bring you as many stories next year as we did this year — and we can’t do that without your help! Please consider making a contribution to support our work by going to radiodiaries.org.
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    1 hr and 1 min
  • The Unmarked Graveyard: LaMont Dottin

    The Unmarked Graveyard: LaMont Dottin
    Nov 21 2023

    Back in 1995, LaMont Dottin was 21 years old and a freshman at Queens College when, one evening, he didn’t come home.

    His mother went to the local police precinct to try to report him missing, and his name was added to a list of thousands of cases that the NYPD’s Missing Persons Squad was supposed to be investigating. Then his case fell through the cracks.

    This is the final episode of The Unmarked Graveyard: Stories from Hart Island. Listen to all 8 stories in our podcast feed, tell a friend and share your thoughts with us on Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), and Facebook. @RadioDiaries

    Radiotopia’s fall fundraiser is here! Donate today to support independent creators like us. Thank you! https://on.prx.org/3Si7UXr
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    15 mins
  • The Unmarked Graveyard: Hisako Hasegawa

    The Unmarked Graveyard: Hisako Hasegawa
    Nov 9 2023

    The Belvedere Hotel is in the heart of New York City’s theater district. Many of its guests come to see the sights, take in a show. But there are a few dozen people who call the Belvedere home. Decades ago, they came to New York and rented rooms there. As the hotel changed hands over the years, they never left.

    One of them was Hisako Hasegawa.

    This is episode seven of our series The Unmarked Graveyard, next week will be our final episode. You can listen to the entire series in the podcast feed.

    Radiotopia’s fall fundraiser is here! Donate today to support independent creators like us. Thank you! https://on.prx.org/3Si7UXr
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    13 mins

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