February 10, 2026, 9:09 am | Read time: 4 minutes
For 150 years, Hart Island has been New York’s cemetery island. The small, isolated island off the Bronx was supposed to be transformed into a park even before the COVID-19 crisis, but the pandemic cast a somber spotlight on Hart Island. Now, the park plans are finally set to be realized.
Hart Island lay forgotten off the Bronx—an island cut off from the bustling life of New York. Hardly anyone paid attention or cared about the lack of activity on the cemetery island, which houses the bodies of the homeless, the poor, and those who could not be identified. Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit. The island not only saw an increase in the number of dead, but images of mass graves for COVID-19 victims on Hart Island spread worldwide. A tragic symbol.
Now, New York is once again focusing on its island of the dead. Old plans are being revived: Hart Island is to become a park. After many years without visitors, it will become a place where people are welcome to remember their dead.
The Eventful History of Hart Island
For about 150 years, Hart Island has been New York’s cemetery island. The island, largely inaccessible to the public, has also served as a war prison—during the American Civil War and World War II, when three German prisoners of war were held there. It has also housed a quarantine station, a tuberculosis sanatorium, a poorhouse, and a psychiatric clinic. Over the past 150 years, more than a million dead have been buried on the approximately 400,000-square-meter island off the coast of the Bronx. Normally, about 1,100 bodies are buried there each year, but during the COVID-19 pandemic, the numbers were significantly higher.
“For most New Yorkers, Hart Island doesn’t even exist,” wrote the “New York Times” in May 2020. “It’s out of sight and out of mind, a necropolis in the metropolis, geographically and psychologically isolated from the living residents.” Burials there happen constantly—normally, before the COVID-19 pandemic, no one paid attention. “Hart Island has always been there. The privilege of ignoring it is another prerogative that the current crisis has shelved.”
Visitor Plans for the Island of the Forgotten
For a long time, Hart Island was one of the most restricted places in New York. Only a few relatives of those buried there could visit. That is set to change. The stigma surrounding Hart Island is soon to be a thing of the past. The island of the dead is to get a new image and, with it, new visitors.
For some time now, the New York Department of Parks & Recreation has been working with landscape architects from Starr Whitehouse to transform Hart Island into a vibrant public park—a place where visitors can still quietly visit their deceased friends and family members. In mid-July, the concrete plans for the transformation were presented, as reported by the U.S. magazine “The Architect’s Newspaper.”
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What Is Specifically Planned
Over the next 20 years, various measures are to be implemented to make Hart Island a place of encounter again. These include:
- Creation of a memorial path for visitors who wish to visit the gravesites on Hart Island.
- Construction of a new visitor center
- Equipping the dock with new trees, benches, and accessible ramps
- Greening the island with trees and meadows
- Restoration of existing monuments
- Restoration of the 20th-century Catholic chapel
Given the threat to Hart Island from rising sea levels, the 4.5-kilometer coastline is also to be reinforced. Existing walls will be replaced by natural reinforcements, embankments, and wetland plantings. The island’s fields, lawns, and beaches will remain accessible to all.
Continued Burials
Burials are also to continue—there is enough space to use the island as a cemetery for about ten more years, according to the New York City administration in 2023. However, under the new plans, the dead will share their final resting place with visitors who come to the island for nature courses and guided tours.
How quickly the plans for Hart Island can actually be implemented is still unclear, as “The Architect’s Newspaper” reports that the necessary funding is still lacking. “We will seek funding for these improvements and implement the projects as soon as they become available,” the magazine quotes a spokesperson for the New York Parks & Recreation Department.