In one victory in a battle for public access to the city's potter's field. Beginning Sunday, relatives of people buried in the municipal cemetery on Hart Island will have easier access to the graves of loved ones. NY1's Erin Clarke filed this report.

The ferry to Hart Island will soon be open to the public more often, and people from near and far who have relatives buried in the city's potter's field will be able to visit those graves much more easily.

"For the very first time families will be able to visit the gravesites. They'll be able to leave momentos, perform religious ceremonies there if they want to," says NYCLU Associate Legal Director Christopher Dunn.

The change is the result of a settlement between the city and the New York Civil Liberties Union. Until now, visitors could only go alone to Hart Island—and only to a gazebo nowhere close to the graves.

Under the new policy, one day a month—a Saturday or Sunday—25 people will be permitted to visit Hart Island for two hours.

For the first time, visitors will also be allowed to bring as many as four other people with them.

"They can walk to a gravesite so that you know that that person has been interred," says Elaine Joseph. 

Joseph was one of seven women who did just this last spring with the help of the Hart Island Project. Her infant was buried on Hart Island in 1978 because of a mistake by a hospital. The trip gave her closure that she says millions of others deserve.

With this victory, advocates and family members believe they're one step closer to achieving another goal: turning Hart island into a park.

"It is a physically beautiful island. It just needs some work on the infrastructure," Joseph says.

"It would become a woodland again and a much nicer place for families to visit," says Hart Island Project Director Melinda Hunt. 

The Parks Department manages former burial sites at Washington Square and Madison Square parks, but it would have to figure out how to operate a park alongside an active cemetery.

Legislation to transfer jurisdiction of Hart Island to the Parks Department from the Correction Department is awaiting a City Council hearing.

"We expect over the next year or two Hart Island will be more and more open and within a couple of years anyone can visit," Dunn says.

Now, it is truly a sanctuary for those who are buried here, and their loved ones.