Talk:Hart Island

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Hart Island has been listed as one of the Geography and places good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
April 3, 2019	Good article nominee	Listed
September 19, 2019	Featured article candidate	Not promoted
November 15, 2019	Featured article candidate	Not promoted
A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on April 16, 2019. The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that more than one million people are buried on Hart Island, the potter's field for New York City?
Current status: Good article

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On 3 March 2023, it was proposed that this article be moved from Hart Island (Bronx) to Hart Island. The result of the discussion was moved.

Untitled[edit]

I strongly disagree with the move of this to the comma form. Hart Island is not a city, or any kind of municipality. It is a geographical feature, and in such cases, I am strongly in favor of the parentheses disambiguation over the comma. If a comma is to be used, it should be Hart Island, Bronx, as a neighborhood in List of Bronx neighborhoods. Using the comma with the state New York puts it into the false representation as a census-designated place in the United States, which it is not. -- Decumanus 17:41, 2004 Dec 11 (UTC)

Hi!, I'll leave all the punctuation up to you. It is an island in Bronx County. Supercool Dude—Preceding unsigned comment added by Supercool Dude (talk • contribs) 12:38, 27 December 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Potter's field[edit]

I remember watching a short documentary film about a small island in NYC where prisoners bury stillborn infants. I assume it was Hart Island. But is the island a potter's field in general, or is it specifically for infants? (Sorry for the morbid subject matter) -- Gyrofrog (talk) 00:52, 12 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

My understanding is that it's still a potter's field, for people of all ages. --RoySmith 01:06, 12 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Prison[edit]

The article says about 100 prisoners are still held on the island, but at least one source says all prisoners were removed to Rikers in 1991. The Corrections website also makes no reference to a current facility on the island. Can anyone confirm this from a source? --Dhartung | Talk 20:05, 28 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

According to [1], In 1966, the jail was closed and the Island was used as a center for the Phoenix House narcotic rehabilitation program. This program was discontinued in 1976 and the Island returned to the Correction Department. However, the Department did not operate the Island as a jail until 1982, when a small prisoner contingent was again housed there. In 1991, the inmates housed on Hart Island were transferred to Rikers Island. I'll fix up the article. -- RoySmith (talk) 20:19, 28 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The prisoners apparently "commute" daily by boat back and forth to Hart Island. http://hartisland.net/wwwebs/Home/History/tabid/64/Default.aspx Wordreader (talk) 00:43, 18 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Mrs. Hart[edit]

The article talks about a certain "Mrs. Hart" donating the land to New York City. I have a published source which says the land was purchased from the Hunter family, as I have now put forth in the article. Therefore I have edited the article to note that the Mrs. Hart claim is just an urban legend. If there is any published source which supports the Mrs. Hart claim, then I will be happy to remove the urban legend description. Otherwise, the information is suspect. Who seriously trusts local legends? Galanskov 07:57, 18 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

POW[edit]

Was a prisoner of war camp established on Hart Island in 1863? Jim.henderson 16:09, 21 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Method of Burial[edit]

In the article's cemetery section, there are two different references to how people are buried: "Inmates stack the pine coffins in two rows, three high and 25 across", and "Adults are placed in cardboard cartons costing $54, and are stacked three coffins high and two coffins across" - quite the difference. Which is it? The source is a NY times article that is not reachable. Ouze 11:41, 13 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The Cemetery section of article[edit]

Please, could someone check the Cemetery section of the article. I noticed that there are information twice in different places. The dublication doesn't bring any additional information but structure should be checked.--Hannu (talk) 14:31, 9 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This section is also somewhat disjoint and rambling, with different topics covered in one paragraph and as noted by Hannu above, repetition across multiple paragraphs. A fairly extensive re-write seems to be called for. ChrisB600 (talk) 20:46, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I read this article from England (am British resident). However, I can't help but question the last line about 'famous screenwriter Chris Weller' being buried here as I have not found any wiki articles that could be him (the Chris Wellers are all listed living, none screenwriters). Googling has turned up a few North American pages with mentions of a Chris Weller in film industry that are as recent as 2010. I suspect a hoax, unless someone can produce a citation that dates his death.Cloptonson (talk) 18:11, 14 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Commentary[edit]

User:Texkayaker inserted the following comment in the article:

I was stationed on Hart Island with the Nike Base from 1955 thru 1958. There were never any Silos on Fort Slocum, only the Radar was located there. It was great duty on Hart Island for the military there.

I moved it here because this kind of commentary does not belong in articles, but it appears to indicate a possible error in the article. --Orlady (talk) 23:57, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Original research[edit]

I don't understand this "original research" rule. Wikipedia has literally hundreds of thousands of references to scientific research papers that are undoubtedly primary sources. In fact, the Wikipedia policy states, "a scientific paper documenting a new experiment conducted by the author is a primary source on the outcome of that experiment." But nonetheless there are plenty of references to such papers. So why is it that on any non-scientific topic, the worst gossip website is acceptable, being a secondary source, but a reference to a novel or other primary source is not? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wombatjpw (talk • contribs) 16:09, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You should read WP:NOR, WP:RS, WP:BLP, and WP:MEDRS. Unsubstantiated gossip is not allowed. If you see it, it is an error. Secondary sources are preferred. Primary sources can be used if they they are reliable and don't violate WP policies - see the BLP rules. If you have a concern about a particular issue, you can bring it up in the talk page like you are doing here. MartinezMD (talk) 16:37, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding this "added possible fact". It's your speculation it is about Hart Island because Hart Island is not mentioned. We don't include the idle speculation of editors on what might be true. —DIYeditor (talk) 17:32, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thankfully, there's lots of good original analysis on Wikipedia -- eg in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_VI%2C_Part_3#True_Tragedy_as_a_reported_text

This entry says Hart Island was (a) called the Potter's Field in 1900, (b) operated as New York's Potter's Field in 1900 and (c) the boat mentioned in the quote is consistent with the destination being an island. So why not include this, though with the word "may"?—Preceding unsigned comment added by Wombatjpw (talk • contribs) 21:50, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

WP:SYNTH. You have no basis for "may". If it is an obvious conclusion you would just omit "may" but it is not a given so it would be SYNTH. —DIYeditor (talk) 22:01, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

COVID-19 Burials[edit]

I'd ask editors to consider reframing the COVID-19 section in light of more current and better reporting by the New York Times, New Yorker, etc (early reporting was often in tabloids). Only unclaimed bodies are being buried on Hart island, as usual, regardless of cause of death—it is not a temporary holding ground for COVID-19 burials in specific. Furthermore, while the term "mass grave" is frequently used it may be misleading, since it denotes graves without coffins or a way to retrieve the bodies later. Hart burials include numbered coffins that can be retrieved if families later request it, free of charge. (I have no connection with the NYC government, I am just a writer and researcher interested in Hart.)— Preceding unsigned comment added by Gabriellemeroe (talk • contribs)

Requested move 3 March 2023[edit]

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Moved.(closed by non-admin page mover) Sennecaster (Chat) 01:06, 11 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

– Clear WP:PRIMARYTOPIC; gets almost all the pageviews amongst all the Hart Islands that exist on Wikipedia and is the most notable by a wide margin. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 13:11, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose very little advantage in ambiguating geo articles. In ictu oculi (talk) 13:45, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support per nomination. One of the disambiguation page entries is a book written about this Hart Island. It has also been the subject of documentaries. The other two Hart Islands are represented by a four-sentence stub delineating Hart Miller Island and a three-sentence stub delineating Hart Island (Washington). —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 18:55, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support per nomination. Excluding the book (which isn't even linked), there are four possible subjects to which "Hart Island" can refer. One of these subjects (Hart Miller Island) isn't even named "Hart Island", and another (Hart Island, Nova Scotia) is a redirect to Nova Scotia. But, even when these are included, the island in the Bronx gets 20 times more page views than the other islands combined. I doubt that the proposed move would create ambiguity, as that can be easily resolved using a hatnote, and most readers have Page Previews enabled anyway. – Epicgenius (talk) 20:57, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
https://wikinav.toolforge.org/?language=en&title=Hart_Island shows 64 incoming views in a month, and 50 of these went to the Bronx article. This is still pretty tiny, but does indicate a usage trend. The Bronx island certainly has the most content written about it already - is there potential for a comparable long-term significance of others to be shown in the future? --Joy (talk) 09:29, 4 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support I'm surprised this gets so few page views, it's quite a comprehensive article. There don't really seem to be other major uses of the name. —DIYeditor (talk) 17:52, 4 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@DIYeditor, not that it should affect your !vote, but last year, the Hart Island (Bronx) article received 111,000 page views; it is the Hart Island disambiguation page that receives only 64 views per month. There are other articles that are similarly detailed but just do not receive many page views, though. – Epicgenius (talk) 23:46, 4 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.