Nine New Yorkers who froze to death on city streets last winter will finally be laid to rest Monday, not in the anonymous trenches of Hart Island, but inside one of Manhattan's grandest churches. Saint Thomas Church Fifth Avenue will hold a public Funeral Mass at 5:30 p.m. for the nine, whose cremated remains will then be interred in the church's Resurrection Chapel.
The service falls on All Souls' Day, when the church remembers and honors those who have died, according to Episcopal News Service. The nine were among 18 people experiencing homelessness who died from exposure to freezing temperatures on city streets last winter, the outlet reports. All nine remained unclaimed at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, and without intervention they would have been buried on Hart Island, New York City's public burial ground.
That intervention came from Rhonda Roland Shearer of CutRedTape4Heroes.org, who arranged to claim the remains of all nine individuals so they could receive a proper funeral instead. Housing Works also worked with New York City's Human Resources Administration to register itself as an “Organizational Friend,” a designation that lets the organization claim other deceased people who might otherwise go unclaimed, per the same account. Funeral director Patrick J. Marmo, owner of International Funeral & Cremation Services of New York, donated the funeral arrangements, Episcopal News Service reports.
A Deadly Winter on the Streets
The nine men and women died during a brutal stretch of cold that gripped the five boroughs, with temperatures falling as low as 3 degrees, according to the New York Post. Among them was a man originally from Russia who had lived in Manhattan for ten years; he died of hypothermia on Feb. 10 after being found in a doorway vestibool on East 7th Street in the East Village, Episcopal News Service reports.
By Feb. 4, the death toll for New Yorkers found outside during the record cold stretch had climbed to 17, according to THE CITY. Of those 17 deaths, 13 were preliminarily linked to hypothermia, three to substance overdose, and one had an undetermined cause, the outlet reported at the time. The dossier notes that figure sits alongside the separate count of 18 deaths cited for the broader winter period, and the exact relationship between the two tallies has not been independently reconciled.
City's Response as the Cold Dragged On
New York City continued to observe Enhanced Code Blue protocols through the deadly stretch, stepping up homeless outreach and keeping shelter doors open, the station reported. Between Jan. 19 and the morning of Feb. 4, city workers and homeless outreach specialists involuntarily transported 20 people to hospitals while making more than 1,100 placements to shelters, per THE CITY's reporting. The 17 deaths recorded by that date broke down as five each in Manhattan and Brooklyn, four in Queens, and three in the Bronx, the outlet noted.
The Guardian reported that the city estimated roughly 800 homeless people had been moved indoors during the prolonged cold period. Under the city's Code Blue rules, a Weather Emergency notice goes into effect when temperatures drop to 32 degrees or lower between 4 p.m. and 8 a.m., including wind-chill calculations, and no homeless person seeking shelter during a Code Blue is to be denied access, according to New York City's Department of Homeless Services.
Hart Island's Shadow Over the Unclaimed
Hart Island has served as New York City's burial ground since 1869 for unclaimed New Yorkers and those whose families couldn't afford funeral arrangements, and more than one million people are buried there, according to The City Reporter. Burials on the island rose from 1,138 in 2019 to 2,743 in 2020 before reaching 1,979 in 2023, the outlet reported, and a 2022 city-commissioned study projected the island could run out of burial space as soon as 2030.
The phenomenon of unclaimed remains is not unique to New York. The share of Los Angeles County decedents unclaimed by next of kin rose from less than 1.2% in the 1970s to 2.75% in 2013, according to the Los Angeles Times, while Maryland saw its share of unclaimed decedents climb from 2.1% in 2000 to 4.5% in 2021, the paper reported. Los Angeles County now holds its own interfaith ceremony each December for remains left unclaimed for three years, and recently interred 1,865 unclaimed decedents in a communal grave alongside more than 100,000 others buried there since 1896.
For Monday's service at Saint Thomas Church, the arrangement means nine New Yorkers who died alone and anonymous on the coldest nights of the year will instead be remembered by name, with a public mass and a resting place inside a Fifth Avenue sanctuary rather than a mass grave off the Bronx coast.
