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Re "Piercing the Mystery of Potter's Field" (The City Life, editorial page, Sept. 11):
While I am grateful to be credited with helping to get New York City to open its books and provide personal identity information for recent burials on Hart Island, there needs to be greater effort to provide access to graves and digital location information. Quite simply, the mother of a stillborn child needs to know where her baby is buried.
Recently, the Department of Correction removed the numbered concrete markers from the mass graves on Hart Island. It now refuses to provide GPS (longitude and latitude) information that would allow people to find a grave using free online digital mapping tools. The department cites public safety concerns as a reason to deny even virtual access to grave locations.
Last month, lawyers for the Hart Island Project, a public charity hosting a database of over 60,000 adult and infant burials between 1980 and 2013, filed an appeal to the department's denial of a freedom of information request for GPS information.
One of the problems arising from allowing the prison system to serve as city sexton is that the storytelling traditionally associated with visiting graves becomes blocked. In addition to digital access to grave sites, we encourage the public to submit stories and photos. They will soon be posted in an interactive feature called the Traveling Cloud Museum that I hope will mitigate the distress of those denied access to the graves while the City Council further considers a bill introduced to transfer jurisdiction of the island to the Department of Parks and Recreation.
MELINDA HUNT
Peekskill, N.Y., Sept. 11, 2013
The writer is executive director of the Hart Island Project.
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