The Battle for Hart Island

Currently the most hotly debated development plan in NYC has nothing to do with new highrise buildings or stadiums or convention centers -- it has to do with that 1-mile long island off the coast of the Bronx called Hart Island.

Small and remote as it is, Hart Island has a storied history -- it was a training ground for black Union troops during the Civil War and, more recently, actual missilles were stored there during the Cold War. However, the island is best known as a potter's field where poor dead New Yorkers found their final rest. In addition, the island and its 19 buildings have been used for drug rehab, tuberculosis and psyche patients, prisoners, the homeless, and juvenile deliquents. 

Basically, the history of Hart Island is a history of a place that's out-of-sight and out-of-mind, just the kind of place where society likes to put people it wants to keep out-of-sight and out-of-mind.

It's those 19 buildings that are the subject of this controversy -- they are old, very historic, imbued with lots of architectural and actual history. But they're also decrepit, unused, and unsafe. Now the city wants to tear them all down and turn the island into a wildlife and graveyard preservation refuge, part of something called the Hart Island Project. Others want to retain the buildings and turn it into an historic attraction.

Both ideas would be noble uses of this oft-forgotten part of the city and, of course, only one vision can prevail. The controversy is currently bogged down in protracted arguments over process, public hearings, transparency rules, and lots of other boring legal stuff.

But the result will be fascinating -- either Hart Island will become a gorgeous natural habitat or an amazing site for previously unknown NYC history. 

For more Mr NYC coverage of Hart Island, go here.