She wants to say a prayer at her baby’s grave — and she’s suing the city to make sure she can.
Dr. Laurie Grant’s only child was stillborn in July 1993, and the tiny body was sent to Potter’s Field on Hart Island off The Bronx.
The Westchester obstetrician, now 59, said it took her 18 years to locate the remains of her daughter, delivered by C-section at Lenox Hill Hospital.
Grant said she was physically and emotionally wrecked over the loss of her baby and doesn’t remember signing any paperwork.
“A nurse said, ‘Well, you can have the city bury the baby.’ She said that it wouldn’t be marked by the baby’s name, but there would be a number, and I would be able to visit,” Grant told The Post.
Because the city recorded the wrong year and date, Grant ran into roadblocks. Finally, a database called The Hart Island Project helped her pinpoint the location.
Grant has no desire to disinter the remains because thousands of infants are buried together in pine boxes on the island.
“It’s a basic human right to be able to visit your dead,” Grant said. “It’s sacred.”
The only way to visit Potter’s Field, maintained by the Department of Correction, is a once-a-month trip to a gazebo overlooking the site. Correction officers accompany visitors, who can’t get near individual graves.
“I refuse to go to the gazebo. I want to go where the baby’s buried,” Grant said.
Her suit, filed this week in New York Supreme Court, is the first seeking to force access to Potter’s Field, said her lawyer, Mark Taylor. The City Council also is mulling bills to ease restrictions.
There are 850,000 graves at Potter’s Field, the world’s largest taxpayer-funded cemetery.