2023-10-17
23 分钟This is the first episode in Radio Diaries’ new series The Unmarked Graveyard, untangling mysteries from America’s largest public cemetery. Each week, they’re bringing you stories of how people ended up on Hart Island, the lives they lived and the people they left behind.
Hey there, Dreamtown listeners.
This is Joe Richman.
I'm the host of the radio Diaries podcast and I'm dropping into your feed today to share the first episode of a new series we just launched.
It's called the Unmarked Graveyard, and I hope you enjoy this episode.
And if you do, you can check out the radio diaries feed to hear the rest of the series.
Here's the story.
In 2017, a man was buried on a narrow mile long island off the coast of the Bronx in New York City.
He'd been dead for months, but the city hadn't figured out his name, so he was placed in a simple pine coffin that was stacked in a mass grave.
The only marker was a white post that read plot 383.
Since 1869, more than a million people have been buried on Heart island.
It doesnt look like a typical cemetery.
There are no headstones or plaques, just white posts with numbers on them.
Each one marks a trench with about 150 coffins inside.
Theres a broad range of people buried here, people whose families couldnt afford a private burial, people who couldnt be identified, and people who died in various waves of epidemics that swept the city in the 1980s.
It was AIDS and most recently Covid-19 but for more than a century, Heart island has been mostly off limits.
This is the unmarked graveyard, a new series from radio diaries where were untangling mysteries from Heart Island, Americas largest public cemetery.
Im Joe Richman.
Over the next several weeks, well be bringing you stories about people who ended up on Heart island, the lives they lived, and the people they left behind.
Hi Pt.
There were thousands of questions.