Talking Hart Island

39 episodes listed below

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In their own words

A weekly podcast about America's largest mass grave, located on a small island in New York.

Why you'd press play

A tombstone found in Washington Square is your cue to reconsider what New York remembers.

Press play if you want

  • to hear Michael T. Keene ask what the first years of AIDS felt like before its cause was known
  • to follow the orphan trains west and wonder about the children who were not chosen
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Talks about

Best episodes of Talking Hart Island

Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.

The Orphan Trains and Charles Loring BraceMay 24, 2020

A measured look at the orphan trains as a system where children's futures could turn on public selection.

The episode frames the orphan trains as a public system of selection, following Charles Loring Brace's effort to send homeless, abandoned, and orphaned children from New York City to rural farming families out west.

AIDS-The First Five Years with Jean AshtonMay 10, 2020

Scattered symptoms begin to form a pattern as two observers recognize the first warnings of a new epidemic.

The episode treats the first recognition of a new epidemic as a pattern that only slowly comes into view. Kaposi sarcoma appears as an alarming black spot, unusual pneumonia keeps recurring, and talk of a gay disease is rejected at the CDC before Dr.

AIDS with Michael BronskyApr 26, 2020

Professor Michael Bronski connects early AIDS memories and personal loss to the continuing need for public education.

Professor Michael Bronski gives this single-episode review its weight by recalling Boston men who were already sick in 1981 and 1982, and the roughly 30 men he knew who had died by 1985.

Angels of Mercy with William SeraileApr 12, 2020

A careful history of an orphanage, a race riot, and lives pushed out of the record.

Talking Heart Island shifts from the island's buried past to the Colored Orphan Asylum, founded in New York City in 1836 as the nation's first orphanage for African-American children.

Boroughs of the Dead with Marie CarterApr 5, 2020

A Washington Square burial ground makes urban memory feel physically present.

Washington Square's old burial ground gives this single-episode review its most compelling shape: history is not gone just because a city stops pointing to it.

Podcasts like Talking Hart Island

Episodes

  1. 1

    The Orphan Trains and Charles Loring Brace

    Hidden gem

    Talking Heart Island's "The Orphan Trains and Charles Loring Brace" ties the 1848 Irish famine, New York's street children, and the orphan train movement into one history.

    May 24, 2020·29m·2 clips
  2. 2

    Lloyd “The Whistler” Threlkeld with Douglass Fraser

    May 17, 2020·26m
  3. 3

    AIDS-The First Five Years with Jean Ashton

    Hidden gem

    Jean Ashton connects AIDS in New York City to Hart Island, where she says thousands of unclaimed victims were buried and the citywide toll reached about 100,000 deaths.

    May 10, 2020·28m·2 clips
  4. 4

    Burial Grounds in a Segregated City with Tom Angotti

    Hidden gem

    Talking Heart Island connects Hart Island's potter's-field history with the exclusion of Black New Yorkers from burial grounds in lower Manhattan.

    May 3, 2020·27m·2 clips
  5. 5

    AIDS with Michael Bronsky

    Hidden gem

    Talking Heart Island frames this episode around Heart Island, New York City's potter's field since 1869, where the show says more than 1 million people are buried and DNA and fingerprint work has identified some anonymous dead.

    Apr 26, 2020·32m·2 clips
  6. 6

    Grave Yard of Strangers with Norma Jean Gradsky

    Apr 19, 2020·12m
  7. 7

    Angels of Mercy with William Seraile

    Hidden gem

    Talking Hart Island focuses on the Colored Orphan Asylum, founded in New York City in 1836 and later destroyed in the 1863 draft riots.

    Apr 12, 2020·29m·1 clip
  8. 8

    Boroughs of the Dead with Marie Carter

    Hidden gem

    Talking Hart Island frames New York City’s hidden burial sites through Marie Carter, a Scottish writer, tour guide, and Burrows of the Dead guide based in Astoria.

    Apr 5, 2020·25m·1 clip
  9. 9

    Potters Field(s) with Andrew Berman

    Mar 29, 2020·29m
  10. 10

    Six to Celebrate Simeon Bankoff

    Mar 22, 2020·25m
  11. 11

    Hebrew Free Burial Society with Amy Koplow, Executive Director

    Mar 15, 2020·25m
  12. 12

    Louisa Van Slyke with Author Gail Jarrow.

    Mar 8, 2020·26m
  13. 13

    Greta Garbo with Lois Banner

    Mar 1, 2020·28m
  14. 14

    Ghosts of St Vincents with Tom Eubanks

    Feb 23, 2020·26m
  15. 15

    The Tenement Museum with Kevin Jennings, Director

    Feb 16, 2020·23m
  16. 16

    Still Born with MJ Adams

    Feb 9, 2020·29m
  17. 17

    Leo Birinski with Barbara Kosta

    Feb 2, 2020·27m
  18. 18

    The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Greatest Plague in History by John Barry

    Jan 26, 2020·31m
  19. 19

    The Bowery with Dr. Robert Aronowitz

    Jan 19, 2020·33m
  20. 20

    Ruth Proskauer Smith with Ian Dowbiggin

    Jan 12, 2020·32m
  21. 21

    Ship Ablaze with Edward T. O’Donnell

    Jan 5, 2020·27m
  22. 22

    Leonard Melfi with Edward Berkeley

    Dec 29, 2019·31m
  23. 23

    The Great Arrival with Diane Vecchio

    Dec 22, 2019·33m
  24. 24

    Shelia Terry with Larry Powell

    Dec 15, 2019·29m
  25. 25

    The Manly Arts with Elliott J. Gorn

    Dec 8, 2019·28m
  26. 26

    The Triangle Shirt Waist Factory Fire with Hasia Diner

    Dec 1, 2019·27m
  27. 27

    Leola Dickerson with Peter Strauss

    Nov 24, 2019·31m
  28. 28

    Bellevue with Dr. Danielle Ofri

    Nov 17, 2019·31m
  29. 29

    Dawn Powell with Tim Page

    Nov 10, 2019·28m
  30. 30

    Damnation Island with Stacy Horn

    Nov 3, 2019·22m
  31. 31

    A Pickpockets Tale with Timothy J. Gilfoyle

    Oct 27, 2019·31m
  32. 32

    Inside Rikers: Stories From the World’s Largest Penal Colony

    Oct 20, 2019·25m
  33. 33

    Hart Island A Musical by Michelle Elliot and Danny Larsen

    Oct 13, 2019·32m
  34. 34

    Forgotten Ellis island with Lorie Conway

    Oct 6, 2019·30m
  35. 35

    Five Points with Professor Tyler Anbinder

    Sep 29, 2019·30m
  36. 36

    Bobby Driscoll with Dave Bossert

    A weekly podcast exploring the history of America's largest mass graveyard on Hart Island, revealing identities of the buried through modern technology.

    Sep 22, 2019·31m
  37. 37

    Superstorm with Dr. David A. Robinson

    A weekly podcast exploring the history of America's largest mass graveyard, Hart Island, and revealing identities of the buried through modern technology.

    Sep 15, 2019·29m
  38. 38

    The Treasure of Hart Island with Mike Monahan

    A weekly podcast exploring the history of Hart Island, America's largest mass graveyard, and revealing identities of the buried through modern technology.

    Sep 15, 2019·27m
  39. 39

    The Island at the Center of the World with Russell Shorto

    A weekly podcast exploring the history of Hart Island, America's largest mass graveyard, and revealing identities of the buried through modern technology.

    Sep 15, 2019·32m