The Unmarked Graveyard: Neil Harris Jr.

Radio Diaries

Radio Diaries & Radiotopia

Documentary, Society & Culture

4.6 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 28 September 2023

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

A few years ago, a young man who called himself Stephen became a fixture in Manhattan’s Riverside Park. Locals started noticing him sitting on the same park bench day after day. He said little and asked for nothing.

When Stephen’s body was found in 2017, the police were unable to identify him, and he was buried on Hart Island. Then, one day, a woman who knew him from the park stumbled upon his true identity, and his backstory came to light.

This is the first episode in our new series The Unmarked Graveyard, untangling mysteries from America’s largest public cemetery. Each week, we’re bringing you stories of how people ended up on Hart Island, the lives they lived and the people they left behind.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	I want to tell you about another podcast we love.
0:02.7	The folks at Brooklyn Public Library just launched a new podcast series called Barrowed
0:06.8	and Band.
0:08.3	Over seven episodes, the hosts tell the story of America's ideological war with its bookshelves.
0:14.0	The series explores how and why books are being removed from library shelves across the
0:18.0	country today, and what people are doing about it.
0:21.0	We hear from students, teachers, and librarians, and the writers whose books have become a political
0:26.2	battleground.
0:27.6	You can subscribe to Barrowed and Band wherever you get your podcasts.
0:32.6	Radio Tapio from PRX.
0:42.2	In 2017, a man was buried on a narrow, mile-long island off the coast of the Bronx in New York
0:48.4	City.
0:49.4	He'd been dead for months, but the city hadn't figured out his name, so he was placed
0:54.8	in a simple pine coffin that was stacked in a mass grave.
0:58.8	The only marker was a white post that read Plot 383.
1:05.4	Since 1869, more than a million people have been buried on hard island.
1:10.4	It doesn't look like a typical cemetery.
1:12.7	There are no headstones or plaques, just white posts with numbers on them.
1:17.4	Each one marks a trench with about 150 coffins inside.
1:22.4	There's a broad range of people buried here.
1:25.0	People whose families couldn't afford a private burial.
1:27.8	People who couldn't be identified, and people who died in various waves of epidemics as
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Radio Diaries & Radiotopia, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Radio Diaries & Radiotopia and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.