By José Manuel Serrano
Esparza
Aerial View of Hart Island in 1946.
Throughout a history
starting in 1868 (when it was bought by the New York Department of Charities
and Corrections),
A truck with
some pine wooden coffins containing the bodies of poor New Yorkers has just
arrived at Hart Island. Their families hadn´t got the wherewithal of their own
to lay their beloved ones to rest in a normal grave, so they have been sent
here to be buried at this highly isolated place.
© Claire Yaffa. 1990
Hart Island has always
been a cemetery for New Yorkers who were too poor to afford a private burial or
whose bodies were unidentified or unclaimed at the time of death.
And it was part of New
York City even before Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx or Staten Island.
An inmate takes
from an interment teammate a small pine wooden box holding the body of a very
little child to put it with many other ones for its burial at a big trench of
Potter´s Field.
© Claire Yaffa. 1990
Therefore, during the one
hundred and fifty-two years elapsed between 1868 and 2020, a total figure of
roughly one million poor people were buried in Hart Island.
The access to the whole
area was exceedingly restricted, and very few photographers had been allowed to
go there during XIX and XX Centuries:
- An unknown photographer
working for T.H.McAllister ( a leading optical company during the second half
of XIX Century, manufacturing microscopes, stereopticons, dissolving lanterns,
magic lanterns, spectacles — used by President Abraham Lincoln and so forth ), who during
1870s made fifty pictures of Hart Island
landscapes and burials with a photographic device exposing glass slides for use
in lantern shows.
Two of those very valuable
glass slides were recently found by Bob Ballantine, a great expert on Hart
Island history, who donated them to the New York City Historical Society.
- Jacob Riis, who used an
8 x 10 large format camera (contact of 20 x 25 cm) to get black and white
pictures of the graves at Hart Island in 1890, masterfully depicting the place
and coffins being lowered into trenches in his milestone book How the Other
Half Lives, published that year and including a selected choice of his images
made in New York Potter´s Field.
- Arthur Schatz, who made
an excellent reportage in Hart Island in 1963 with a 24 x 36 mm format Leica M3
rangefinder camera with Leicavit Rapidwinder, SBLOO 35 mm bright-line external
viewfinder and coupled to a Summaron-M 35 mm f/3.5 wideangle lens, sent by Life
magazine, with black and white images particularly focusing on prisoners
burying unclaimed remains.
- Frank Leonardo, who made
some black and white photographs of inmates burying unknown persons in Hart
Island in 1979 for the New York Post.
A HUGELY DIFFICULT TO
ATTAIN PERMISSION
During September of 1989,
Claire Yaffa decided that she had to fight tooth and nail to be allowed to get
pictures of both the existing graves and specially the people being buried in
Hart Island, something really complicated, because no photographer had been
authorized to go there for eleven years, and the longstanding policy was not
permitting photography of any active burial sites in Hart Island.
A prisoner
looking at the pine wooden boxes with the bodies of poor New Yorkers (most of
them very little children) that he has just unloaded from a truck in Hart
Island and will be buried within a few minutes.
© Claire Yaffa. 1990
It was a kind of taboo
place that most people didn´t want to visit, and authorities at the time opted
for drawing a thick veil over it, because of the gruesome context brought about
by the constant interments of dead poor persons who could not afford a burial
and arriving at the New York Potter´s Field in pine wooden boxes, many of them
featuring small sizes and containing the bodies of children.
In addition, any attempt
of getting pictures there could be risky, since the task of burying those
wooden coffins with bodies inside them was carried out by prisoners from the
nearby Rikers Island, something that had kept on since 1869, when prison labour
began to be used to bury unclaimed and unidentified New Yorkers in mass graves
containing either 150 adults or 1,000 children.
Any misunderstanding while
trying to get pictures of these men doing the eerie work that nobody wanted to
do could spawn undesirable stressful instants.
But Claire Yaffa did know
that there was a further disgusting fact: The graves had been inaccessible to
families since 1869, something particularly unfair and above all tremendously
sad, because five generations of relatives of the New Yorkers buried in Hart
Island hadn´t been allowed to visit the resting places of their beloved ones.
That´s why she started
phoning Mr.Tom Anttenon, Director of the Department of Corrections in Hart
Island, asking for permission to do a photographic project there.
But she wasn´t authorized
once and again, until after a whole year insisting on it and through
perseverence, she was allowed to visit New York Potter´s Field on September
15th, 1990, a permit for only one day.
Anyway, it was a once in a
lifetime chance to do a landmark reportage and above all to help restore the
dignity and memory of the poor New Yorkers buried in this island.
A STRENUOUS PHOTOGRAPHIC
MISSION
After having been granted
access to get pictures in Hart Island, it dawned on Claire Yaffa that this
would be a very challenging and toilsome reportage putting her through her
paces because of a number of reasons:
- The available time was
very short : only one day, so she had to do things very quickly and the best
she could.
- A few days before
arriving at New York Potter´s Field, Tom Anttenon told her on the phone that
discretion on getting the pictures was something of paramount importance. She
would have to do her utmost to go unnoticed.
A prisoner of
the nearby Riker Island holds the very humble pine wooden box containing the
body of a little child, seconds before his burial in a mass grave of Hart
Island. Image made with a Leica M6 coupled to an Elmarit-M 28 mm f/2.8 lens
from a very close range. Though sun light was very powerful, generating harsh
high key areas (particularly visible in the wooden box and the left arm of the
nearest inmate to the camera), it accurately conveyed the very dramatic
atmosphere of instants in which death, sadness, grief and isolation pervaded
everything in New York Potter´s Field. © Claire Yaffa. 1990
- If possible, the
prisoners´ faces shouldn´t appear in the photographs, specially in images made
from very near distances in which their facial traits could be easily
discernible.
- She couldn´t speak to
them, because these inmates were doing a very important work that nobody else
wished to fulfill, so they shouldn´t be disturbed any way.
- It was necessary to get
the pictures in an unobtrusive way, without making any noise.
Vertical picture
of one of the mass graves of Hart Island full of pine wooden coffins containing
the bodies of poor New Yorkers. After having laid the boxes together, the
inmates are spreading sand on them with rakes to put and end to the burial. The
extensive depth of field attained by the photographer shooting at f/8 with her
Leica M6 coupled to a Summicron-M 35 mm f/2 Version IV in synergy with the
exceedingly harsh lights and shadows (specially the diagonal one of an out of
image prisoner — also collaborating in these duties — on the lower right area
of the picture, rendered by the scorching sun, and whose head and right
shoulder are inciding on one of the coffins) and the man standing on one of the
coffins and taking a rake in his right hand, vividly depict what has been
happening in the New York Potter´s Field for five generations.
© Claire Yaffa.
1991
- It wouldn´t be easy to
endure the frequent heart-wrenching scenes taking place during the burial of
the wooden pine coffins holding bodies of poor people inside them, particularly
the smallest ones with very little dead children.
One of the
inmates fulfilling the task of burying corpses at Hart Island grabs three small
wooden boxes with bodies of very little children to unload them from a truck
and take them to the nearby mass grave. He is wearing a short sleeve vest and a
large handkerchief on his head to protect himself from the sun beams, since
heat is suffocating.
© Claire Yaffa. 1990
- The temperature of 24º C
during most of sun hours that September 15th, 1990 would mean in practice a
thermal sensation of around 35º C because of the prevailing high levels of
humidity stemming from the great proximity of sea shore off the Bronx coast, so
she would sweat profusely on having to work very fast in a highly stressful and
sad environment.
- From a photographic
viewpoint, the available light would be far from being the best one, with a
stifling sun, along with very harsh shadows and high key areas.
CHOSEN PHOTOGRAPHIC GEAR
Claire Yaffa wanted to
approach as much as possible to the core of the action during her one day
getting pictures she had been allowed in Hart Island.
And to properly tackle
this reportage in which top speed and discretion were key factors, she chose a
photographic gear looking the part : two Leica M6 rangefinder cameras along
with an Elmarit-M 28 mm f/2.8 Version III, a
Summicron-M 35 mm f/2 Version IV (1979-1996) and a Summicron-M 50 mm f/2
Version IV (1979-1994).
Leica M6 0.72x with black
anodized hand grip, model of camera used by Claire Yaffa attached to a non
aspherical Elmarit-M 28 mm f/2.8 Version 3 and a non aspherical Summicron-M 35
mm f/2 Version IV during her photographic work in Hart Island on September
15th, 1990.
Leica M6 0.85x used by
Claire Yaffa coupled to a Summicron-M 50 mm f/2 during her one day picture
essay in New York Potter´s Field on September 15th, 1990.
The Leica M6, launched
into market in 1984 and manufactured until 2003, was a highly successful 24 x
36 mm format rangefinder camera designed by Peter Loseries (mechanical
components and a new TTL exposure metering system) and Heinrich Janke (contours
and stylish aspects).
To all intents and
purposes, this camera meant the consolidation of the Leica M rangefinder
photographic tool concept, that had been saved by Walter Kluck in 1977 when he
convinced Leica top brass to transfer the production of the Leica M4-2 to the
Leitz factory in Midland, Ontario, Canada.
As a matter of fact,
during sixties and seventies, Japanese manufacturers (specially Nikon) had took
the helm of photographic industry, with full-fledged reflex cameras featuring
unbeatable price/performance like the Nikon F, Nikon F2, Canon F1, Olympus OM-1
and OM-2 and others, to such an extent that at the end of seventies and
beginning of eighties, Leica was fighting to survive after the M rangefinder
camera line was about to disappear in mid seventies.
The Leica M6 was the only
24 x 36 mm format rangefindeer camera in the world for fourteen years, until
the amazing beginning of the Renaissance of Rangefinder Cameras from 1998
onwards, with models like the Konica Hexar RF, the Voigtländer Bessa R2, R2A,
R2M, R3A, R3M, R4M, R4A, Zeiss Ikon ZM and others.
Therefore, in early September 1990, when Claire Yaffa was
authorized to visit Hart Island, she realized that two Leica M6 rangefinder
cameras with 28 mm, 35 mm and 50 mm primes were the best option to do the kind
of photographic reportage she wished, with an unswerving commitment, getting
the pictures from a very near distance, striving upon getting unnoticed,
approaching as much as possible to subjects from different angles to capture
defining instants and above all, without making any noise, with all respect and
not disturbing the inmates implementing the task of burying the bodies of poor
New Yorkers.
And albeit being much less
versatile than Japanese dslr cameras of the time, to achieve this unmatched
level of unobtrusiveness, lack of noise on shooting and discretion from very
near distances, the Leica M6 was by far the best photographic camera in the
world during eighties and nineties for picture essays made within the
infighting distance, something greatly enhanced by the tiny size and light
weight of body and lenses in symbiosis with the best Leica mechanical shutter
ever made, created by Peter Loseries (then the most knowledgeable expert on
earth along with his friend Norman Goldberg regarding miniaturized mechanical
devices for photographic cameras ) and whose noise on pressing its releasing
button was whispering, virtually imperceptible.
In addition, the
incredibly short 12 milliseconds shutter lag of the Leica M6 (far superior in
this regard to the superb best analogue reflex cameras and the current cream of
the crop professional digital dslr and mirrorless ones from different respected
brands in XXI Century) is a further highly significant advantage, because there
isn´t virtually any delay between the instant when the photographer presses the
shutter release button and the exposure.
Front view of Elmarit-M 28
mm f/2.8 III (1979-1993), featuring 8 elements in 6 groups and designed by
Walter Mandler in Midland, Ontario (Canada).
Diagonal right back view
of Elmarit-M 28 mm f/2.8. The gorgeous mechanical construction (mostly
implemented by Hans Karl Wiese in synergy with the grinding and polishing of
lens elements handcraftedly made by Ernst Haseneier and the coating of surfaces
of lens elements by Ernst Pausch) and brass focusing helicoid of the Leica pre
aspherical lenses, making possible a flawless working for many decades, is very
apparent in this image.
Summicron-M 35 mm f/2
Version IV (1979-1999), featuring 7 elements in 5 groups, designed by Walter
Mandler in Midland, Ontario (Canada).
It boasts a tiny size,
with length x diameter of 26 x 52 mm and a very light weight of 160 g.
The exceedingly small
dimensions of this wideangle lens were fundamental to preserve discretion
during the photographic act in the pictures made with it by Claire Yaffa in
Hart Island in 1990.
Front view of Summicron-M
35 mm f/2 Version IV showing the letters Leitz Lens Made in Canada. This
wideangle lens became one of the best in the world in the photojournalistic
scope throughout its twenty years of production.
Summicron-M 50 mm f/2
Fourth Version (1979-1994), designed by Walter Mandler in Midland, Ontario
(Canada) and featuring 6 elements in 4 groups.
It was the best standard
50 mm f/2 lens during 34 years, until the introduction of the Apo-Summicron-M
50 mm f/2 ASPH in 2013.
Dr. Walter Mandler had the
tremendous knowledge and ingenuity to increase the image quality of the new
Summicron-M 50 mm f/2 Version 4 (whose optical formula is identical to the
Summicron-M 50 mm f/2 Version 5 1994-2013) while simultaneously reducing the
manufacturing cost, applying common radii through the use of only four new sets
of grinding and polishing tools (instead of the previous twelve sets), as well
as significantly reducing the glass material expenditures.
In addition, Mandler
managed to get an exceptional contrast, even at the widest f/2 aperture.
Front view of Summicron-M
50 mm f/2 Fourth Version (1979-1994) showing the Leitz Lens Made In Canada
letters referring to the Leica factory in Midland, Ontario (Canada) where it
was made.
Aside from the use of the
Elmarit-M 28 mm f/2.8 third version and Summicron-M 35 mm f/2 Version IV
wideangle lenses, Claire Yaffa got in Hart Island some pictures with this standard
50 mm lens, to keep a security distance in contexts particularly needing top
discretion, yielding a natural perspective or leveraging the true short tele
lens nature of this objective.
After unloading
three pine wooden boxes from a truck arrived at Hart Island by ferry and
containing the bodies of very little New York children, an inmate starts taking
them to the deep trench where they will be buried. None of the three coffins bear
the name of the human beings inside them, something relatively frequent during
the history of Hart Island. © Claire Yaffa. 1990
And from a kind of image
viewpoint, these images are very interesting, since they were made with non
aspherical prime lenses designed by the optical wizard Walter Mandler, showing
an unusual balance between resolving power and contrast giving a nice 3D
roundness to eyes, fingers, face planes, etc, as well as rendering very crisp
edges and keeping wide tonal range, with a philosophy of top sharpness in the
image center and visibly softer on corners at larger apertures.
These classic lenses don´t
deliver such stratospheric values of resolving power and contrast as modern
aspherical lenses, but have a very special signature of their own, a unique
image aesthetics that defined a golden era of photojournalism during sixties,
seventies, eighties and nineties, specially in symbiosis with the Kodak Tri-X
400, the par excellence all around performing and most widespread black and
white film in this professional field at the time.
AN AMAZING REPORTAGE WITH
A TOTAL IMMERSION APPROACH
First picture
made by Claire Yaffa on September 15th, 1990, on arriving at Hart Island on
board of a ferry boat from New York City. To reduce the size and weight to the
minimum feasible, she didn´t put any shade on her wideangle Leica M lenses, and
here the harsh light conditions and manifold reflections on the water while
approaching to the little dock of New York Potter´s Field have generated
visible flare in the Summicron-M 35 mm f/2 Version IV, an excellent lens but
prone to it, particularly without the Leica 12524 lens hood attached.
© Claire
Yaffa. 1990
During his first visit to
Hart Island (she would make some more in subsequent years) Claire Yaffa grasped
that for obvious reasons (she had only been given the nod for a day getting
pictures) she would´t be able to develop a long term project progressively
building up a rapport with the people appearing in the images.
An inmate
standing inside a very deep trench is delivered by a teammate the large pine
wooden box containing the body of an adult poor New Yorker to be buried. The
slanted position of the coffin being raised by the prisoner whose right leg can
be seen on the left of the box, in symbiosis with the strong lights and shadows
of the scene, spawn unutterable drama to the image, which is enhanced by the
head and left hand of the inmate visible on the lower left corner of the frame,
who is looking at the wooden box and supervising things. With her images made
in Hart Island, Claire Yaffa always strove after also dignifying the memory of
those inmates from Rikers Island prison, whose praiseworthy labor, who nobody
else wanted to do, was a key factor for the preservation of the memory and
dignity of the New Yorkers buried in this lonely place.
© Claire Yaffa
Therefore, the only thing
she could do was to do the photographs with utmost respect and carefulness,
trying not to annoy the inmates burying the poor New Yorkers and to go unseen
at every moment.
A huge and very
deep trench dug to be used as a mass grave is beginning to be filled with pine
wood boxes holding the bodies of poor New Yorkers by abundant inmates. Some of
them are inside the trench next to coffins they have just placed on the mass
grave floor, other ones are looking at their teammates and a further group is
visible on the right while unloading more wooden coffins from a truck full of
them. On the left, a man handling a caterpillar and collaborating in the
burying tasks, is also visible. The great depth of field attained by the
Elmarit-M 28 mm f/2.8 used at f/11 by the photographer has yielded a very
extensive sharpness area from foreground to background, in which everything
inside the image is perfectly discernible, something strengthened by the
remarkable acutance of the Kodak Tri-X 400 black and white film used.
© Claire
Yaffa. 1990
Besides, it was a unique
opportunity to visually tell through images what had been going on in New York
Potter´s Field since 1869 and above all to do her bit to preserve the memory of
those New Yorkers buried in Hart Island and avoid them falling into oblivion.
A much more
dramatic picture than could seem at first blush : A lot of pine wood boxes with
the bodies of very little New Yorkers inside them are being unloaded from a
truck to be taken to the mass grave where they will be buried. The inmate on
far left of the image and holding three wooden boxes with his hands, has
already realized that one of the coffins doesn´t bear the name of the dead
human being inside it ( something relatively frequent in New York Potter´s
Field), an eerie context clearly depicted in his engrossed in his thoughts
countenance. If it were not enough, boxes often contained fetuses of babies and
amputated body parts.
© Claire Yaffa. 1990
It was fundamentally a
matter of returning them their dignity and very significant human, historical
and social dimension, in the same way as has been done hitherto by other
photographers like Joel Sternfeld (author of the best colour photographs ever
made in Hart Island, masterfully using a large format 8 x 10 camera during
nineties and providing the pictures for the milestone 119 pages book Hart Island,
published by Scalo Verlag in 1998 and written by Melinda Hunt, top authority on
Hart Island History and founder of the Hart Island Project), Aaron Asis,
Augustin Pasquet, Ben Helmer, Andrew Theodorakis, George Steinmetz, John
Minchillo and others.
This way, Claire Yaffa got
to work on September 15th, 1990 with a headstrong true to form
photojournalistic frame of mind : she would fight tooth and nail to get the
best possible pictures
An inmate whose
mission is to put earth on the coffins placed inside the deep trench to bury
them is photographed from behind while doing his toil. The strong diagonal to
the right described by the man´s body with the camera slant in that direction
and the harsh shadows of rake and legs in the lower area of the picture spawn a
dramatic image, whose strength is reinforced by the left foot raised in motion
over the large wooden box of an adult dead poor New Yorker, the massive
quantity of earth visible in the background, the left arm and hand of another
prisoner who is touching a further coffin and the plants visible on left upper
corner of the picture and growing from a location of death, suggesting that life
always finds its path.
© Claire Yaffa. 1990
from every angle, with two
Leica M6 cameras and three lenses,
Two trucks full
of coffins are being unloaded, when a veteran and burly inmate about to get one
pine wooden box from the nearby vehicle, detects the presence of the
photographer and stops without knowing what to do. In spite of using the
Summicron-M 50 mm f/2 Version IV from a distance of many meters, inevitably
some stress (which was quickly solved) arises, depicted by the right foot of
the prisoner (who has turned his head and is looking at the photojournalist),
raised in the air and with its heel strongly lying on the ground, while in the
background many other inmates are waiting to be delivered their coffins to take
them to the mass graves and bury them. Once more, the lens has been stopped
down to get great depth of field.
© Claire Yaffa. 1990
in the midst of highly
stressful conditions, full-blast,
A picture made
during the burial of a lot of pine wood boxes containing the bodies of poor New
Yorkers in one of the massive deep trenches in Hart Island, under a searing
sun. Three men are spreading earth on the coffins, while the right hand of a
further inmate giving instructions is visible on top right of the image, whose
drama is boosted by the strong diagonal shadows of two prisoners out of image,
on the right, the exceedingly powerful sun beams inciding on the wooden boxes
and the shovel lying on the ground in the background of the picture, besides
the man standing on one coffin, depicted in full body.
© Claire Yaffa. 1990
The selective
reframing of the upper left area of the picture reveals that this man is
staring at the hand of his teammate giving orders.
And the movement of his
rake putting earth (which appears tremulous, conveying a feeling of motion) on
the coffin has been masterfully captured by the photographer selecting a slow
shutter speed.
sweating buckets under a
blistering sun,
Inmates from
Rikers Island prison take the coffin of a poor New Yorker to be buried in a
mass grave of Hart Island. This picture, made from a very near distance with a
Summicron-M 35 mm f/2 Version IV wideangle lens and shooting very fast doing a
very close framing, embodies the kind of context the photographer had to face
during her reportage in New York Potter´s Field on September 15th, 1990.
©
Claire Yaffa. 1990
surrounded by inmates
burying the bodies of poor New Yorkers in Hart Island and making highly
instintive shots to get defining instants.
That´s to say, a body and
soul commitment to get the pictures, a make no bones about rationale
exceedingly difficult to implement, since weariness would appear soon and she
would have to work very hard and quickly from dusk till dawn.
Because irrespective of
technical aspects, cameras, lenses and black and white film used, etc, these
pictures were made with the heart, within the realm of social realism.
A STRENUOUS EFFORT PAYING
OFF
An inmate taking
a pinee wood coffin containing the body of a child awaits to deliver it to
another prisoner for him to accurately put it in its place besides the many
stacked one on top of another one coffins of other New York infants for their
subsequent interment .
© Claire Yaffa
Thirty years after her
first photographic coverage of Hart Island New York Potter´s Field, Claire
Yaffa´s pictures speak by themselves and are probably the images ever made more
faithfully and vividly depicting what had been happening there since 1869 and
how the inmates continued laying coffins into mass graves, so her images of
Hart Island made in 1990 (also featuring some coffins including the bodies of
abandoned children with HIV/AIDS buried in the island) are held at the New York
Historical Society building in 170 Central Park West, New York.
Two inmates
unloading small boxes containing the bodies of little children from New York to
take them to the deep trenches of Hart Island for their burial. The slow
shutter speed chosen by the photographer has yielded blurred the left hands of
both the man on the right of the image (whose arms appear slightly out of
focus) and the one on the left, conveying motion and dynamism to the scene,
bluntly showing what has unabatedly been happening in Hart Island for
approximately 150 years. © Claire Yaffa. 1990
Right off the bat, Claire
Yaffa realized that her first visit to New York Potter´s Field in 1990
Not all the
families of the buried people in New York Potter´s Field will be able to visit
them in Hart Island. Here we can see some empty coffins inside one of the many
mass graves of this lonely place. Now and then inmates discovered that some of
the pine wood boxes didn´t contain any bodies, since they had previously been
lost because of a raft of different reasons. The great depth and width of the
trench, very apparent in the image, gives an idea of the size of burial grounds
in Hart Island and the huge quantity of poor New Yorkers buried in them.
©
Claire Yaffa
would be something much
more significant than a picture story, and could result in generating social
and political awareness about the need of granting access to relatives of these
poor New Yorkers buried in Hart Island throughout roughly 150 years.
An aim which was attained
in 2014, a commendable achievement whose fulfilment was chiefly merit of two
persons : Melinda Hunt, who has spent almost three decades since 1993
investigating Hart Island through photographs, film and public records, and the
great photographer Joel Sternfeld.
By dint of strenuous
effort and perseverance, both of them made an arduous labor of around 25 years
struggling passionately to keep alive the memory and dignity of the hundreds of
thousands of people who vanished in Hart Island during XIX, XX and XXI
centuries, giving birth to the Hart Island Project and obtaining the right of
access to graves for their kinspersons one weekend per month, in addition to
creating a database of burials and the Travelling Cloud Museum storytelling
platform, in an attempt to preserve the histories of those who are buried in
New York Potter´s Field for present and future generations.
And on
December 4, 2019, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio signed legislation to turn Hart
Island into a public park in July of 2021.
Furthermore, they provide
personal support to families of the buried in Hart Island.
All of it has been
epitomized hitherto by people like Vicki Pavia (who in 1994 accompanied Melinda
Hunt and Joel Sternfeld during their fourth trip to Hart Island to produce
their illustrated book, and visited the gravesite of her baby Denise), Annette
Gallo (who is now 96 years old and spent much of her life searching for the
grave of her father Luigi Roma, buried in Hart Island), Elaine Joseph
(whose daughter Tomika was born premature in 1978 in a Manhattan hospital,
dying a few days later, and couldn´t be found by her mother until 2014 in Hart
Island), Sharone
Palmer (whose stillborn granddaughter Chloe Mckayla Bellevue Palmer is believed
to be buried in Hart Island), Jeanne Frey (who was stillborn and is also
believed to be buried in the New York Potter´s Field), Laurie Grant (who has
been trying to find her stillborn baby daughter, buried in Hart Island, since
1997) and many others who after so many years waiting, have been able to visit
the graves of their beloved ones in Hart Island thanks to the Hart Island
Project.
Efforts to provide the public with easier access to the island have been facilitated by the Hart Island Project, which collaborated with British landscape architects Ann Sharrock and Ian Fisher, and hopes to transform the burial grounds into a public park.
Claire Yaffa´s photographs
have been published in The New York Times, The Daily News, Vanity Fair and
Vogue, as well as having served as photography editor of Westchester Magazine,
Photography Coordinator of the United Nations Women´s Arts Festival and as a
Member of the Board of Directors of ICP New York´s Archival and Acquisition
Committee.
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