Hart Island

Relatives of those buried on the island want more access and a formal voice in the process as the city plans a 20-year overhaul.

The city’s public cemetery could get a welcome center, restored chapel and shoreline protection.

A man has been charged with reckless endangerment in connection with the incident, according to the NYPD.

The new work by Tracy Weller, currently onstage at the Gym at Judson, examines the hole that a hard-to-access island cemetery leaves in the city’s fabric.

The island will be transferred from the oversight of the Department of Correction to the Parks Department.

"These are humans, and they’re basically being treated like they’re toxic waste, like they’re radioactive."

According to the city's Department of Correction, which oversees the process, the burials on Hart Island have increased in frequency from 25 burials a week to 24 burials every day, five days a week.

The city is looking at "temporary interment" sites, where bodies could be buried in trenches ten in a row, according to one council member.

"This increase in gravesite visitation is one more step towards honoring the memory of people buried there."

Donors wanted their remains cremated, but instead they were packed into coffins with 150 other dead bodies.