US-SOCIETY-CEMETERY-HART ISLAND

US-SOCIETY-CEMETERY-HART ISLAND

The decaying abandoned prison workhouse on Hart Island is seen on March 27, 2014 in New York. Each white plastic pipe near the building marks an infant mass gravesite, one plastic pipe per 1,000 babies. The pile of dirt by the building (R) indicates an active gravesite, according to Melinda Hunt of Hart Island Project. Hart Island, occupying 101 acres in the Long Island Sound on the eastern edge of the Bronx in New York, contains the largest cemetery in the US. One million bodies of still born babies, the poor, the unidentified and the unclaimed are buried by prison labor in common graves. It is run by the department of corrections, and access is nearly impossible. AFP PHOTO/Don Emmert