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.
A Guitar, A Cello, and the Day that Changed Music
The Song That Crossed Party Lines
Campaigning While Female
Serving Time 9-5: Diaries from Prison Guards
Matthew and the Judge
Prisoners of War
Last Witness: Mission to Hiroshima
Nelson Mandela at 100
Busman’s Holiday
Last Witness: The General Slocum
Last Witness: Surviving the Tulsa Race Riot
Fly Girls
Strange Fruit, Revisited
Crime Pays
The Green Book
Deported: Weasel’s Diary
Nine Months Before Rosa Parks
A Voicemail Valentine
The Story of Jane
The Dropped Wrench
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Criminal
Ear Hustle
Song Exploder
The Truth
the memory palace