TALKING HART ISLAND PODCAST EPISODE 1
TALKING HART ISLAND PODCAST Episode 1 “The Island at the Center of the World”: with Russell Shorto, Author, Historian, and Journalist. Before there was a Hart Island, even before there was a New York City, there was, “The Island at the Center of the World”. Join us as we explore the epic story of Dutch […]
TALKING HART ISLAND PODCAST EPISODE 2
Episode 2 “The Treasure of Hart Island”: A Novel, by Mike Monahan. Hart Island is haunted by the spirits of the dead. It is used as a potter’s field for indigenous peoples. Each grave is dug by the convicts on nearby Rikers Island. Underneath its sandy shores lie bones and death….. It also holds a […]
TALKING HART ISLAND PODCAST EPISODE 3
Episode 3 “Superstorm”: with Dr. David A. Robinson, Professor at Rutgers University and the New Jersey Climatologist. What would become the largest Atlantic storm on record swirled violently from the Caribbean creating a devastating oceanic force that, at its zenith reached 900 miles across and 1000 miles long. It was called Super-storm Sandy. Sandy would […]
TALKING HART ISLAND PODCAST EPISODE 4
Episode 4 “Bobby Driscoll”: with Dave Bossert, Director/producer Disney Animation Studios. The clean cut child star with an impish, upturned nose, and beguiling expression was handpicked for an acting career by Walt Disney, himself—Of all the roles he played, Peter Pan seemed most like his alter-ego. He grew up—and worked—in Hollywood, but it might have […]
TALKING HART ISLAND PODCAST EPISODE 5
Episode 5 “Five Points”: with Professor Tyler Anbinder. By the late 1820’s the Five Points had already been considered a slum where poor immigrant and African American’s came to live and toil amid filthy tenements and converted industrial dwellings. Author Charles Dickens visited Five Points in 1842 and noted, “So far, nearly every house is […]
TALKING HART ISLAND PODCAST EPISODE 6
Episode 6 “Forgotten Ellis island”: with Lorie Conway. The lost story of the Ellis Island Immigrant Hospital saved tens of thousands of lives, as immigrants flooded onto Ellis Island over a century ago. It was here that the germs of the world converged. The hospital was both welcoming and foreboding to those too sick to […]
TALKING HART ISLAND PODCAST EPISODE 7
Episode 7 “Hart Island A Musical”: by Michelle Elliot and Danny Larsen. “Hart Island”, is the story of two people on the fringe of society. Their lives intersect on Hart Island, New York City’s public burial ground. Although marginalized by the rest of society, they come to appreciate each other’s humanity-a powerful action in a […]
TALKING HART ISLAND PODCAST EPISODE 8
Episode 8 “Inside Rikers: Stories From the World’s Largest Penal Colony”: with Jennifer Wynn, Professor, City University of New York. Wynn teaches a writing class to male inmates at Rikers Prison, as part of a rehabilitation program known as Fresh Start, and is the editor of Rikers Review, an illustrated magazine featuring short stories, profiles, […]
TALKING HART ISLAND PODCAST EPISODE 9
Episode 9 “A Pickpockets Tale”: with Timothy J. Gilfoyle, Professor, Loyola University. In George Appo’s world, child pickpockets swarmed the crowded streets, addicts drifted in furtive opium dens, and expert swindlers worked the lucrative green-goods game. On a good night, Appo made as much as a skilled laborer made in a year. Bad nights left […]
TALKING HART ISLAND PODCAST EPISODE 10
Episode 10 “Damnation Island”: with Stacy Horn, Author. Purchased by the city in 1828, the island soon harbored an almshouse, an insane asylum, a hospital, a prison and a workhouse along its narrow two-mile strip. Heating and ventilation were nonexistent, disease ran rampant. Over the next 100 years, mayhem ensued, with wrongly admitted patients, death […]