Talking Hart Island Michael T. Keene

Episode 39 “The Orphan Trains and Charles Loring Brace”: Michael T. Keene
In 1848 Ireland was gripped by famine. Nearly a million people would die of starvation and typhoid Fever. Desperate for survival a million more Irish would abandon their homeland and come to America. Many settled in the Five Points section of lower Manhattan infamous for its squalor, violence and disease
By the end of the Civil War, an estimated 30,000 orphaned and homeless children roamed the streets of New York City. They survived by resorting to petty crime, by begging, and by selling newspapers for a nickel a piece.
In response to this crisis the age of orphan asylums began, culminating in one of the most improbable and audacious episodes in American history. Inspired by Charles Loring Brace, it was called the Orphan Train Movement. It endeavored to save these children by heroes who fought for their liberation.
 
Michael T. Keene is the author of Folklore and Legends of Rochester, Murder, Mayhem and Madness, Mad~House, Question of Sanity, and now his new book, 
 
NEW YORK CITY’S HART ISLAND: A CEMETERY OF STRANGERS
 
Pre-Order a signed, soft cover copy of the book: New York City's Hart Island, directly from the Author
https://michaeltkeene.com/hart-island-soft-cover-book/
*Orders will ship on or after Oct 14, 2019
 
Learn more about Author / Host / Filmmaker Michael T. Keene
https://michaeltkeene.com/about/
 
Send questions / comments / suggestions to:
https://michaeltkeene.com/contact/
 
Connect with Michael T. Keene on Social Media
Twitter https://twitter.com/talkhartisland
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/TalkingHartIsland/
 

Episode 38 “Lloyd “The Whistler” Threlkeld”: with Douglass Fraser,
Professor and Musicologist.
Lloyd Buford Threlkeld, also known as “The Whistler” for his ability to make sweet melodious sounds emerge from his practiced nose flute, also played the guitar and sang. “Whistler and his Band” was one of the most famous jug bands of its time.
Threlkeld was born in Kentucky and in 1932 moved to Harlem in New York City. He continued performing, but had stopped recording. In May of 1935 he was admitted to Bellevue Hospital with tuberculosis where he died, later that year. He was without family or friends and, like thousands before and since in similar circumstances, was buried on Hart Island.
Listen to Professor Douglass Fraser as he takes us on a musical tour of not only jug band music, but also jazz and rock in-roll, which incredibly owed their very origins to this pioneering music.


Michael T. Keene is the author of Folklore and Legends of Rochester, Murder, Mayhem and Madness, Mad~House, Question of Sanity, and now his new book, 
NEW YORK CITY’S HART ISLAND: A CEMETERY OF STRANGERS
Order a signed, soft cover copy of the book: New York City's Hart Island, directly from the Author
https://michaeltkeene.com/hart-island-soft-cover-book/
Learn more about Author / Host / Filmmaker Michael T. Keene
https://michaeltkeene.com/about/
Send questions / comments / suggestions to:
https://michaeltkeene.com/contact/
Connect with Michael T. Keene on Social Media
Twitter https://twitter.com/talkhartisland
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/TalkingHartIsland/

Episode 37 “AIDS-The First Five Years”: with Jean Ashton,
Director, New York Historical Society Resources & Programs.
It is estimated that during the AIDS epidemic thousands of AIDS victims were buried on Hart Island. Many because they had become disowned by their family and died unclaimed, and many more because there was no one left to take charge of their burials.
AIDS was particularly cruel and terrifying during the first few years of its existence, because of the lack of knowledge of what it actually was. Even the medical community was at a loss to explain this new contagion. The book, “AIDS The First Five Years”, is an attempt to explain what happened and why.


Michael T. Keene is the author of Folklore and Legends of Rochester, Murder, Mayhem and Madness, Mad~House, Question of Sanity, and now his new book, 
NEW YORK CITY’S HART ISLAND: A CEMETERY OF STRANGERS
Order a signed, soft cover copy of the book: New York City's Hart Island, directly from the Author
https://michaeltkeene.com/hart-island-soft-cover-book/
Learn more about Author / Host / Filmmaker Michael T. Keene
https://michaeltkeene.com/about/
Send questions / comments / suggestions to:
https://michaeltkeene.com/contact/
Connect with Michael T. Keene on Social Media
Twitter https://twitter.com/talkhartisland
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/TalkingHartIsland/

Episode 36 “Burial Grounds in a Segregated City”: with Tom Angotti,
Professor Emertis, Hunter College.
During the period of Dutch and English settlement, New York City was one of the nation’s largest urban centers for the slave trade and served as a financial patron, of the plantation economy, in the South. In the Dutch colony, as many as 40 percent of the population were slaves.
Slaves had no choice of residence, were treated like a commodity, and even in burial were denied equal access. At the end of the 17th century, Trinity Church formally banned blacks from its cemetery in lower Manhattan as land in the fortified city became scarce. The African Burial Grounds in lower Manhattan were a result of this process. And perhaps most shocking of all, it even limited their access to New York City’s Potters Field, Hart Island. Even in death their discrimination persisted.


Michael T. Keene is the author of Folklore and Legends of Rochester, Murder, Mayhem and Madness, Mad~House, Question of Sanity, and now his new book, 
NEW YORK CITY’S HART ISLAND: A CEMETERY OF STRANGERS
Order a signed, soft cover copy of the book: New York City's Hart Island, directly from the Author
https://michaeltkeene.com/hart-island-soft-cover-book/
Learn more about Author / Host / Filmmaker Michael T. Keene
https://michaeltkeene.com/about/
Send questions / comments / suggestions to:
https://michaeltkeene.com/contact/
Connect with Michael T. Keene on Social Media
Twitter https://twitter.com/talkhartisland
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/TalkingHartIsland/

Episode 35 “AIDS”: with Michael Bronsky,
Professor, Harvard University.
On a hot midsummer night in June of 1969, a group of police officers stormed into Greenwich Village’s tiny Stonewall Inn, one of Manhattans early gay and lesbian bars. The patrons of Stonewall revolted. For many this confrontation would eventually become known as the Gay Liberation Movement.   
As a result, New York City became the rallying place for gay men throughout the country.
Beginning in the early 1980’s a terrifying and mysterious disease appeared. For the next twenty years the disease known as AIDS, would eventually take the lives of over 100,000 people in New York City alone. Many would end up on Hart Island.
This is their story.


Michael T. Keene is the author of Folklore and Legends of Rochester, Murder, Mayhem and Madness, Mad~House, Question of Sanity, and now his new book, 
NEW YORK CITY’S HART ISLAND: A CEMETERY OF STRANGERS
Order a signed, soft cover copy of the book: New York City's Hart Island, directly from the Author
https://michaeltkeene.com/hart-island-soft-cover-book/
Learn more about Author / Host / Filmmaker Michael T. Keene
https://michaeltkeene.com/about/
Send questions / comments / suggestions to:
https://michaeltkeene.com/contact/
Connect with Michael T. Keene on Social Media
Twitter https://twitter.com/talkhartisland
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/TalkingHartIsland/

Episode 34 “Grave Yard of Strangers”: with Norma Jean Gradsky.
Leo Birinski was a playwright, screenwriter and director. He worked in Austria-Hungary, Germany and in the United States.
Birinski was the screenwriter of many Hollywood productions including, “Song of Song”s starring Marlene Dietrich, “The Lady Has Plans”, starring Paulette Goddard, and perhaps his most famous, “Mata Hari” starring the screen legend Greta Garbo.
Until recently, only a minimal amount of information about his life was available. In addition there were many legends and rumors concerning Birinski’s person, some of them even spread by himself. For example, the false report of his “suicide” in 1920 even found its way from the newspaper obituaries into encyclopedias. But it wouldn’t be until 1951 that Birininski actually died. At the time he was alone and penniless, interred for all eternity on Hart Island.


Michael T. Keene is the author of Folklore and Legends of Rochester, Murder, Mayhem and Madness, Mad~House, Question of Sanity, and now his new book, 
NEW YORK CITY’S HART ISLAND: A CEMETERY OF STRANGERS
Order a signed, soft cover copy of the book: New York City's Hart Island, directly from the Author
https://michaeltkeene.com/hart-island-soft-cover-book/
Learn more about Author / Host / Filmmaker Michael T. Keene
https://michaeltkeene.com/about/
Send questions / comments / suggestions to:
https://michaeltkeene.com/contact/
Connect with Michael T. Keene on Social Media
Twitter https://twitter.com/talkhartisland
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/TalkingHartIsland/