The Unclaimed Graves of Covid-19 Victims.
New York Island is laying to rest unclaimed victims of Covid-19.
Column // April 11, 2020
The mile-long Hart island, which sits in the Bronx, was purchased by the city from a private landholder in 1869 to bury unknown and unclaimed residents.
Yesterday, an aerial viedo view was shown of workers laying down pine coffins holding the dead. All are victims of Covid-19 that are not being claimed or where familes cannot afford to have private cermonies for them.
Exactly, 1,200 burials take place every year. Victimes are placed in coffins and laid in trenches. There are no gravestones but small white markers that indicate the trenches where they are laid to rest. The island is on occasion referred to “island of the dead” and “jail for the dead.
Since last month, The New York Times has reported that 25 victims are being buried in Hart Island a day due to the Covid- 19 outbrak. This island has been long run by the City of New York prison department that is nearby Rikers Island. Over the past few years, AIDS victims as well as still- born children have been buried in Hart Island. Never was it open to the public for family visitors, but now is accepting families to visit and mourn their loses.
The Washington Post video can be described as an extremely saddening and a very realistic scene of what is really happening and what the end looks like in some cases. A look alike version out of a Saving Private Ryan movie, something straight out of a movie script.
