15, February, 1979
Death Trips: New York's Unwanted Dead
By Ann Louise Bardach
Should you die in New York City without family, friends or anyone willing and able to arrange your burial, chances are you'll end up at City Mortuary. If you think living in New York is a complicated matter — well, consider it a blessing that you will never know about the business of dying.
An average year in the '70s means 120,000 births and 90,000 deaths (including 600 homicides) in the Big Apple. The bodies of 10% to 20% of those who die here are unclaimed. Sometimes a charity, usually a religious one, will appear at the hospital or local borough mortuary to claim the remains and bury them in the appropriate consecrated grounds. If not, the deceased is taken to City Mortuary.
The man directly responsible for the accounting of the almost 4000 bodies in 1978 at City Mortuary is Terrance Gallagher, acting senior caretaker of City Mortuary. Gallagher, a tidy, lean Irishman, has been at the Morgue for 27 years. "I worked my way up," he explains.
City Mortuary is known to some as Bellevue Mortuary, to others as the Morgue and, sometimes, as just plain Bellevue. Each title is somewhat accurate.
There are five mortuaries in New York City, just as there are five medical examiners, one for each borough. However, the central clearing house for death in the city is located on Bellevue grounds. Dr. Michael Baden, the Medical Examiner for the borough of Manhattan, is also Chief Medical Examiner for the city. Likewise, City Mortuary, and Gallagher, located in the 3rd basement of Bellevue Hospital, serve both Manhattan and the whole city. The CME's office is also on Bellevue turf, two blocks north on First Avenue.
"Gallagher's outfit," as Baden refers to the Morgue, receives all the unclaimed, unknown or unwanted dead if no kin or friend has collected the deceased from the hospital, borough mortuary or the CME office. The Morgue is the last stop before the grave. There is a short limbo of two weeks when a Johnny-come-lately relative or friend may come forth with a "Public Administrators removal affidavit" and claim the deceased for burial.
There is also a chance the body will be picked up by a charity if the deceased was a Catholic, a Jew or a drunk. These chosen dead are attended, respectively, by The Society of St. Vincent de, Paul, Hebrew Free Burial and the Holy Name Center for Homeless Men. No such luck for a sober Anglican.
Gallagher offers the uncollected bodies on a rotating basis to New York City's dozen medical schools, "desperate for cadavers," in the words of Dr. Burton Sherman of Downstate Medical School. When the medical schools are finished with the bodies, they are returned to the Morgue sometimes a year later, sometimes a year and a half, and on one occasion, claims Gallagher, never.
The final and principal job of the City Mortuary is the arrangement for burial of the hapless at City Cemetery, aka Potters Field. Getting to Potters Field, located on Hart Island in the middle of the East River, is no simple task for the living or the dead.
The average unclaimed body passes through the jurisdiction of a minimum of five city agencies on its way to eternal rest in Potter's Field. A Health & Hospitals Corporation hearse will deliver the body to the local borough mortuary or to the CME (which investigates all deaths of a suspicious nature) from a hospital, nursing home or the street. Then the unclaimed bodies are sent to City Mortuary, where preparations are made to send the remains to Potters Field, again through H&HC's hearse service.
Although Potters Field is owned by the city's Dept. of Real Estate, it is run jointly by the Dept. of Social Services and the Dept. of Correction. Our unwanted dead are buried by inmates, usually from Rikers Island Men's House of Detention.
No one is allowed on Hart Island, except inmates, guards and custodians, without written permission from one of the governing departments. For a healthy civilian to get to Hart Island is not unlike Virgil's Aeneas arranging with Charon to be rowed over the River Styx for a visit. The ferry, run by the Marine Transportation Agency, leaves from City Island, near Pelham Park in The Bronx. Nearby is another island for New York's unwanted refuse- the City Garbage Dump. The ferry trip takes about seven minutes shore to shore. Upon arrival, there is but one road to take that leads to a mass grave, identified by just one monument.
Officers Jefferson and Bowers supervise Rikers' 24 inmates in the burial detail. One doesn't find the decorum of the usual funeral or cemetery. Gallows humor is alive and well among the khaki-clad felons who bury the dead. A spokesman for H&HC sees their role as a delivery service, or "flunkies in the whole scheme of events." Commenting on the participation of Rikers inmates, the spokesman explained, "The inmates are on burial detail. It's a way of them working in the fresh air." Whether due to the fresh air or the macabre nature of the job, the mostly black and Puerto Rican inmates exude an unquestionable glee as they perform their tasks.
The six foot deep plots are long enough for 150 boxed bodies. Sometimes there is a crayoned or magic-markered name on the box, but more often not. Small clay markers denote the mass graves.
The inmates come Tuesday to Friday with their cargo arriving at 9 a.m. and leaving at 2:30. Generally, they bury 25 bodies a week; on a heavy week, maybe 50. Officer Bowers explains that the Potters Field log book goes back to the 1700s and that long ago "we ran out of room. So every 20 years we dig out a plot or two," throw away the decomposed matter and start all over again. Last year the inmates buried 2500. How many are buried on the island? "Not millions," answers Bowers, "but millions and millions and millions."
All in all, it's not a bad place — almost the perfect spot for a picnic. A wonderful view of the city and beyond is afforded by the island's unique station in the middle of the East River. Beautiful, thick old oaks and maples abound, and as there are no burial tablets, you are not aware of walking on the largest mass grave in America.
Give Us Your Dead
Traditional Judaic law prohibits desecration of the dead, including dissection by anatomy students at medical schools. Technically a Jew with any physical mutilation can be refused burial in consecrated Jewish grounds. (According to comic Sandy Baron, one of the Lenny Bruce's pallbearers, Bruce was denied burial in three different Jewish cemeteries because he had a tattoo. The story, as related by Baron, was that Milton Berle had to call one of the major Jewish organizations and threaten "no more benefits unless Bruce gets buried today!")
On behalf of the Hebrew Free Burial Society, Harry Moskowitz has been collecting bodies of dead Jews for as long as Terrance Gallagher can remember. "Yes. Hebrew Free Burial is our biggest pickup charity," says Gallagher. "But there doesn't seem to be that many unclaimed Hebrews anymore, compared to 15-20 years ago, when you had the older people downtown: you know, the old folks on the Lower East Side." For whatever reason, Moskowitz refused to comment or disclose any information concerning his services or even his identity.
Second only to H.F.B., is the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, which has been burying city Catholics since 1848. Since 1972 the society has buried "with Holy Mass" almost 1000 New Yorkers, all claimed from City Mortuary and buried in consecrated Catholic ground. Although Catholic law does not expressly prohibit desecration or dissection for science, Vincent Riley, executive secretary for the society asks, "Would you want them to do this to you? Why pick on the dead poor for medical study? These doctors don't get my sympathy."
The Holy Name Center for Homeless Men buries deceased alcoholics. A shelter for derelicts in N.Y.C. since 1906, the center concerns itself with "showers, shaves, medical care and delousing" some 10,000 card-carrying members." We have a tremendous amount of what people call crazies." says Father Edward O'Brien, "and our last job is to bury them" in the consecrated grounds of Calvary Cemetery in Queens.
Father O'Brien recalls an incident some years back when one of the Center's members called him late one weekend night. "I thought he wanted some money for drink," remembers O'Brien, "but no, not that. I'll never forget this: he had lost his card. We give them all this card to carry with instructions to reach us in case they are found dead." Father O'Brien continues, the man wanted another card right away. "I said, 'What's the rush? Wait till Monday.' And he said, pleading, 'No, what if I die before Monday?' It's funny, isn't it, that these guys who show such little care for their lives while they're living, really care about how and where they are buried."
Last year Holy Name claimed 48 bodies, burying 29 at Calvary, located kin for 17, and buried two WWII vets at Long Island National Veterans Cemetery.
"Ninety nine out of 100," Gallagher points out, "are already posted," the trade term for autopsied. If a body is not claimed within 48 hours after death, it is fair game for hospital interns anxious to earn pathology credits, necessary for their medical ratings. Consequently, these religious organizations are burying desecrated bodies in consecrated ground.
Each charity also collects the death benefits for each entitled deceased, which can run as high as $650. Social Security pays $250, Welfare (Social Services) $255 and the Veterans Administration between $250 and $400. One can get either Welfare or Veterans—never both. The money is paid to whoever claims and bullies the deceased, and medical schools, irate over the shortage of cadavers, are quick to suggest that some of "these charities are into a little profit," in the words of Richard Santore, director of the Anatomical Gift Registry.
But no one can claim great profits are being amassed, since a burial back in 1972 ran $300, and now,- well, not even the dead are immune to inflation. Also, the charities collect all eligible bodies, including those of stillborns and young females who receive no death benefits. "The money is in older men," explains Santore. "They have worked and therefore collect Social Security and most likely they have been in one war or another, and get veterans benefits. If they died impoverished, they get Welfare. Very rarely is there no money involved."
In 1973 and '74, M.A. Farber wrote a series of pieces for the New York Times about abuses and fraud in the city's burial system. People, usually morticians, misrepresented themselves as "friends" to claim the bodies and collect the money, possibly with tip offs from the Public Administrators Office. Because the law is so poorly written, just about anyone who can prove himself "a friend of the deceased" can claim the body and collect. Clearly, this would not be terribly difficult for an unsavory undertaker, already well connected with the public administrators and the mortuaries.
Gallagher claims he is not aware of any such incidents with City Mortuary but doesn't doubt that they are possibilities. Investigation is outside of his jurisdiction. Once the proper papas are presented to him, he is obliged to hand over the body. "Like any other profession," says Gallagher, "there's always a couple of bad apples in the barrel."
Help Wanted, Must Be Dead
New York City has more than 15% of all medical students in the country in its dozen- plus medical schools including Columbia, Albert Einstein, Connell, Downstate SUNY, NYU. Dental Schools, Podiatry, Optometry and two embalming schools at Bellevue Hospital.
Students, depending upon field and specialization, must spend a certain number of hours practicing on the dead before they are licensed to practice on the living. Every medical student must study anatomy and must perform a certain number of dissections. Prof. Charles R. Noback, professor of anatomy at Columbia Medical School, frequently complains to his growing number of students about the dearth of cadavers for them to work on. In 1965, N.Y.C.'s medical schools received almost 1000 unclaimed bodies from the city morgue. In 1977 they received 81, 40 of which had been autopsied, rendering them useless for anatomy students.
Dr. Burton Sherman, professor of anatomy at Downstate and former chairman of the anatomical committee of N.Y. medical schools, has been pushing for state legislation since the early 1970s to rectify the dwindling shortage of cadavers for science. Sherman and his colleagues would like to see the law tightened so that "not any so-called friend can claim a body" and the City Mortuary be mandated to donate a certain number of unclaimed bodies annually.
N.Y.C.'s medical schools need 1000 cadavers annually, but "make do with around 600." according to Sherman. More than 500 bodies were imported this year from out of state at a cost of $450 to $800 each, depending from where they came. Ironically, N.Y.C. has more deaths and unclaimed bodies than any other city in the country. The medical profession vents its frustration at the charities, which collect most of the bodies, and at Gallagher, the mortuary, H&HC and Albany.
The real problem is a lack of communication within the medical profession. "If anatomy departments and the rest of the hospitals, got their act together," says CME Michael Baden, "they could find a solution." Gallagher explains, "they [interns] already went through medical school. They say 'To heck with the medical schools. We want the pathology ratings!' They want the whole loaf." Gallagher says he has recommended legislation to H&HC that they post only two out of five bodies to assure an adequate number for medical schools.
In the interim, Dr. Sherman and colleagues, along with funeral director Richard Santore, have formed the Anatomical Gift Registry. The registry sends any interested person a donor card which serves as a legal document, protecting an individual's right to have their re-mains donated to science, and superseding objections of any living next of kin.
Dr. Sherman tells the trying saga of a man who asked that his body be donated to the appropriate medical school. But the man's son accused the facility of "dismembering and desecrating” the body. Medical schools, who know the topic is sensitive, were afraid to take legal action. Instead, they returned the father's remains rather than a risk sensational story about how "Science Tortured My Father." "We would rather have no publicity," states Sherman, "than bad publicity, even if we're in the right."
If you are interested in donating your body to a medical college or simply want information, contact The Anatomical Gift Registry Ltd., P.O. Box No. 1644, NY, NY 10001,(212)595-4444.
Sidebar:
Death Politics
Terrance Gallagher, acting senior caretaker of City Mortuary, is not happy with his tentative title. He didn't understand why it should take the Health and Hospitals Corp. more than four years to make his title permanent — his predecessor, Michael J. Ambrose, died in 1974. But then Gallagher didn't know that H&HC was not aware that the morgue was even in its jurisdiction.
Perhaps it had something to do with the confusion following Chairman of the Board Henry Axel Schupf's resignation from H&HC on Sept. 6, 1978; perhaps no one made it clear when H&HC was formed during the Lindsay years. When H&HC's president, Joe Lynaugh, was asked on Oct. 9 for records of the City Mortuary, he said he had "absolutely no idea where they were, but assumed that the mortuary was "under the Chief Medical Examiner's Office," which is responsible to the Health Commissioner. It was not until H&HC was confronted with the fact that the mortuary's annual records are printed on their stationery that they began to consider the possibility they had forgotten something.
Informed of the situation, Gallagher commented, "Oh, I guess that's why I never get any answers. Well, I'm not surprised. That's the City. If you got A wrong, you get Z wrong."