For those who are unacquainted with the name Potter's Field - it's a burial ground for unidentified bodies, bums. Potter's Field for NYC is on an island in the Long Island Sound off of the northeast coast of the Bronx. It's called Hart Island. This place has a creepy history to begin with. It has been a POW camp, a sanitarium, a missile base and was once home to a tuberculosis hospital. In more recent years it is an annex of Rikers Island prison and inmated are shipped over at 25 cents or so an hour to bury the unknown dead. It is off limits to the public with few exceptions, although, if you're a creepy fuck like me and curious about these kinds of places, all you need is a small boat (preferably inflatable, so you can carry it onto the island and avoid being spotted by the coast guard). It's a fairly short row from City Island or Orchard Beach. The inmates are shipped in infrequently and they don't stick around long. I was there some years ago with a friend and coming from someone who's not impressed by ghost stories or ideas of an afterlife, believe me, it is not a happy place. There is an eerie feel to that place and maybe it's just 'cause of the knowledge of its history and present purpose, but I definitely felt an uneasyness there. The ground is disurbed over and over again, old mass graves being churned up for new burials, so just about everywhere you go there are bone fragments in and on the ground. There are abandoned buildings that once housed a staff and prison colony. With the exception of the NIKE missiles themselves, the underground silos are still there. There is just one large monument with the word "peace" on one side and a cross on the other.
There is a forest in Japan where thousands of people go to die. Its actually considered an epidemic. Most are never found. People leave a note, go off and hope that they are never found! I actually think they should set up a place where people should be allowed to go to rejoin the ecological cycle. New religion, keep your body clean enough to grow tomatoes from! On the anniversary of your death your family would eat a salad made from the tomatoes grown from your body.
There is a forest in Japan where thousands of people go to die. Its actually considered an epidemic. Most are never found. People leave a note, go off and hope that they are never found! I actually think they should set up a place where people should be allowed to go to rejoin the ecological cycle. New religion, keep your body clean enough to grow tomatoes from! On the anniversary of your death your family would eat a salad made from the tomatoes grown from your body.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/02/06/1044498914569.html