New York City S Hart Island A Cemetery Of Strangers

Just off the coast of the Bronx in Long Island Sound sits Hart Island, where more than one million bodies are buried in unmarked graves. Beginning as a Civil War prison and training site and later a psychiatric hospital, the location became the repository for New York City�s unclaimed dead. The island�s mass graves are a microcosm of New York history, from the 1822 burial crisis to casualties of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire and victims of the AIDS epidemic. Important artists who died in poverty have been discovered, including Disney star Bobby Driscol and playwright Leo Birinski. Author Michael T. Keene reveals the history of New York�s potter�s field and the stories of some of its lost souls.

Just off the coast of the Bronx in Long Island Sound sits Hart Island, where more than one million bodies are buried in unmarked graves. Beginning as a Civil War prison and training site and later a psychiatric hospital, the location became the repository for New York City�s unclaimed dead. The island�s mass graves are a microcosm of New York history, from the 1822 burial crisis to casualties of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire and victims of the AIDS epidemic. Important artists who died in poverty have been discovered, including Disney star Bobby Driscol and playwright Leo Birinski. Author Michael T. Keene reveals the history of New York�s potter�s field and the stories of some of its lost souls.

When Stacy Horn--single, deeply addicted to television, and hopelessly attached to two diabetic cats--turned forty, she free-falled into a mid-life crisis. Waiting for My Cats to Die is a passionately and profoundly honest look at what happens the moment you realize--beyond a shadow of a doubt--that some day the credits will roll on your life. There are all those things you haven't done yet. There are all those things you have and wish you hadn't. In the battle against time, a frontal attack is the best strategy. Horn explores abandoned cemeteries and descends into crypts. She researches long-lost relatives, interviews the elderly, and learns all she can about the ghost haunting her apartment. No sign indicating the downward pull of things goes unnoticed. And yet life, with so much to celebrate, is irresistible. Here is a wonderful, quirky, refreshing memoir of hilarity and heartache: life at the mid-point of life.

Like every aspect of life in the Big Apple, how New Yorkers have interacted with death is as diverse as each of the countless individuals who have called the city home. Waves of immigration brought unique burial customs as archaeological excavations uncovered the graves of indigenous Lenape and enslaved Africans. Events such as the 1788 Doctors' Riot--a response to years of body snatching by medical students and physicians--contributed to new laws protecting the deceased. Overcrowding and epidemics led to the construction of the "Cemetery Belt," a wide stretch of multi-faith burial grounds throughout Brooklyn and Queens. From experiments in embalming to capital punishment and the far-reaching industry of handling the dead, author K. Krombie unveils a tapestry of stories centered on death in New York.

COVID-19: Surviving a Pandemic provides critical insights into survival strategies employed by communities and individuals around the world during the pandemic. A central question since this pandemic began has been how to survive it. That question has applied not just to staying alive, but also to staying healthy, both physically and mentally. Survival is certainly key, but surviving, and what that means, is also critical. The scholarship included in this volume will take a closer look at what it means to survive by addressing such issues as the importance of ethnicity in vaccine uptake, the gendered and racialized impacts of the pandemic, the impact on those with disabilities, questions of food security, and what it means to grieve. Drawing on the expertise of scholars from around the world, the work presented here represents a remarkable diversity and quality of impassioned scholarship on the impact of COVID-19 and is a timely and critical advance in knowledge related to the pandemic.

Hart Island is a place outside the vision and minds of most New Yorkers, even those who have family buried there. It represents the ultimate melting pot, a place where individual lives are blended beyond recognition. Melinda Hunt

“A well-written and comprehensive tale . . . a lively history of the people and events that forged modern-day New York City.”—The Urban Audubon Experience a seldom-seen New York City with journalists and NYC natives Sharon Seitz and Stuart Miller as they show you the 42 islands in this city’s diverse archipelago. Within the city’s boundaries there are dozens of islands—some famous, like Ellis, some infamous, like Rikers, and others forgotten, like North Brother, where Typhoid Mary spent nearly 30 years in confinement. While the spotlight often falls on the museums, trends, and restaurants of Manhattan, the city’s other islands have vivid and intriguing stories to tell. They offer the day-tripper everything from nature trails to military garrisons. This detailed guide and comprehensive history will give you a sense of how New York City’s politics, population, and landscape have evolved over the last several centuries through the prism of its islands. Full of practical information on how to reach each island, what you’ll see there, and colorful stories, facts, and legends, The Other Islands of New York City is much more than a travel guide.