Grim delays await New York's unclaimed dead before burial

Brooke Kavit
Updated

Hart Island is where New York City's unclaimed dead have been laid to rest since 1869.

Every year, about 1,500 bodies are transported to this strip of land near the Bronx, and inmates from Rikers Island earn 50 cents an hour for stacking coffins three deep.

But tragically, some bodies slated for burial on the island were kept in storage, sometimes for years.

Learn more about the mysterious island and the people laid to rest there in the gallery below:

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