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1:01

From Radio Diaries, I'm Joe Richman, and this

1:03

is The Unmarked Graveyard, a series

1:05

about people buried on Heart Island, the

1:07

lives they lived, and the people they left behind.

1:11

There were

1:13

thousands

1:14

of questions. Where's his family? Where's his

1:16

people? Neil

1:18

Harris was last seen in Inwood,

1:20

New York on December 12, 2014. The playwright,

1:22

novelist, and author of Happy Island, Miss Dawn Powell.

1:25

And that found

1:27

you, she found us, and we're here. And now

1:29

we know who you are. If

1:33

you've been listening to our series, you know we've been

1:35

attempting to bring you stories

1:37

If you've been listening to our series, you know

1:39

we've been attempting to untangle mysteries

1:41

from America's largest public cemetery.

1:44

There was a story about a woman's search for the father

1:47

she never knew, a successful writer

1:49

who was largely forgotten, and a

1:51

guy who spent every day for two years on the

1:53

same park bench.

1:55

But there are some mysteries on Heart Island we

1:58

have not been able to solve. The

2:01

Belvedere Hotel is in the heart of New York City's

2:04

theater district. Many of its guests

2:06

come to see the sites, taken a show, but

2:09

there are also a few dozen people who call the Belvedere

2:11

home. Decades ago, they came

2:13

to New York and rented rooms there, and

2:15

as the hotel changed hands over the years, they

2:18

never left. One of them was Hisiko

2:20

Hasagawa, who lived a private

2:22

and quiet life. Nobody at

2:24

the hotel knew much about her. Today,

2:27

Episode 7, The Woman in Room 208.

2:35

My name is Ali Mamoud, and I work at the Belvedere

2:37

Hotel in New York City. Sako

2:41

Hasagawa lived here for

2:44

at least 40, 50 years, and she

2:47

lived alone. She was

2:49

a very sweet lady. She would stop

2:52

by and always say hello to me. My

2:54

name is Jerry. I've been a bellhop

2:56

at the Belvedere Hotel for 22 years.

3:00

I would have a morning shift on Fridays and

3:02

Saturdays. We always open the door for

3:04

her. She would look up for a smile, a huge

3:06

smile. She was always bowing,

3:09

saying hello, hello,

3:10

hello.

3:11

When she spoke, she spoke

3:13

with an accent, but she was able to convey herself

3:16

very clearly.

3:18

Every time I ran into her in

3:20

a hallway or in the lobby, she

3:22

said, nice to see you, she actually meant

3:24

it.

3:28

If you wrote her a rent receipt, for

3:30

example, you would magically

3:33

find a hand-drawn card

3:35

next day on your desk. Someone

3:38

took 45 minutes to make that card.

3:40

Her handwriting was beautiful, like

3:44

poetry, like, well, I don't know. I've

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never seen something like that. One

3:49

time I said hello, and she

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just waved and rushed into the

3:54

elevator with her little shopping cart. She

3:57

came and gave me a letter.

4:00

Hello Jerry, I do want to apologize

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that I didn't get to say hello

4:05

to you correctly You

4:07

know and it's how bad she felt

4:10

and they touched me There's

4:13

some tenants here that don't got nobody

4:15

to talk to Nobody say

4:17

have a good day or nobody say happy holidays

4:21

Nobody say I love you. Nobody say

4:23

I hate you, you know

4:28

I always saw her alone alone

4:31

yet happy

4:32

perhaps to each their own

4:34

You see such a person and you can't

4:36

help but wonder what her life has been

4:39

My

4:45

name is Renee and I

4:48

live here in Belvedere Hotel when

4:51

Miss Issego was still alive

4:55

This is where she lives room 208 and

4:58

I live in 207 across the hall

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As

5:02

far as the nearest neighbor, I am the

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only one she talks to and she knows

5:07

my name

5:08

Doesn't say so much

5:10

you know Except

5:13

you know the usual greeting.

5:16

How are you?

5:18

Whether it's nice I'm

5:21

gonna get my mail

5:25

I always play this

5:29

This is my piano and

5:32

I play it in the evening most

5:34

often she knows when

5:36

I play the piano Because

5:38

she hears it

5:42

She tells me you know, it's

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a good thing you play the piano last night.

5:47

How nice is it?

5:49

Those things very

5:52

gracious you

6:01

My name is Nancy Boyce and

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I have lived in this building

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at the Belvedere for the past 41 years.

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So, this

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is the living room and the bedroom. It's

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just one big room. He's a cos room, just

6:18

like mine.

6:21

This is the hallway

6:23

and then this is a depressing

6:25

kitchen. It's very small,

6:27

the size of closet.

6:31

I have my hot plate

6:33

and refrigerator.

6:36

At least we had our own little kitchen,

6:38

tiny, our own private bathroom.

6:41

That's what was

6:43

important to me.

6:45

People who don't know, like tourists

6:48

or friends, they are amazed. Wow,

6:51

you live in a hotel in the

6:53

heart of the city especially. You know,

6:55

it's a big deal for them. But to

6:58

me, having lived

6:59

here for such a long

7:01

time, for decades, you know, I can't

7:04

stand this apartment.

7:08

At the end of the day, I feel lucky that I

7:10

have my family and

7:12

white circle of friends.

7:14

But I see a lot of

7:15

older people like

7:18

his circle. They're all alone.

7:26

One Friday, I realized that she

7:28

didn't come down

7:30

and it bothered me.

7:32

So I like to ask proper

7:34

management to please check up on her because

7:38

we've had tenants that fast away in the hotel.

7:41

When I came in from work,

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everybody was on the hallway,

7:47

the police, and then the investigators

7:50

were all there. And then they started

7:52

asking questions,

7:53

questions.

7:55

I said, what happened?

7:58

She died.

8:00

She fell from the bed.

8:03

I cannot believe that she died

8:05

that way.

8:08

And investigator was telling

8:10

me, oh, you're the next neighbor. Okay, do you know

8:12

her? Anybody who knows her? My

8:15

gosh, after all this years, I

8:18

never, I

8:20

never saw her with anybody. I

8:24

wish, if she only knocked

8:26

at my door, you know. I

8:30

should have asked

8:31

her. They think

8:33

that you are intruding

8:36

or something, but no, I, that

8:38

is, that's a misconception.

8:42

I think you should ask.

8:48

New York is a place for the dreamers. And

8:51

we all come from somewhere to

8:53

leave and leave your families behind and

8:56

come here and make a new life and one

9:00

would hope that you'd find love and meet people

9:02

and have a family and maybe

9:05

not end up alone in a hotel room

9:07

somewhere.

9:25

Thank you to the staff and tenants of the Belvedere

9:28

Hotel. Piano performed by

9:30

Renee Kedihero in room 207. In

9:33

our research, we discovered very little about Hisoko

9:35

Hisagawa. We know she was born

9:37

in Japan in 1934 and probably

9:39

came to the US in the 1970s. One

9:42

thing we do know is that after she died

9:44

at the Belvedere in 2016, she

9:46

was buried in plot 379 on Heart Island. This

9:51

story was produced by Nellie Gillis. It was edited

9:54

by Deborah George, Ben Shapiro and me, sound

9:56

mixing by Ben Shapiro. The Radio

9:58

Diaries team also includes Elisa Escarce,

10:01

Micah Hazel, and Lena Engelstein. Our

10:03

theme music is by Matthias Bossi and Stelwagen

10:06

Symphonette. Thanks also to our broadcast

10:08

partner NPR's All Things Considered. We're

10:11

proud members of Radiotopia from PRX, a

10:14

network of independent, creator-owned, listener-supported

10:16

podcasts. You can hear them all at radiotopia.fm.

10:20

Radio Diaries has support from the National Endowment for the Humanities,

10:23

the Lilly Auchincloss Foundation, New

10:25

York City's Department of Cultural Affairs, and

10:28

from listeners like you. Coming

10:44

up next week, our final episode of the

10:46

Unmarked Graveyard, a missing person's

10:48

case that fell through the cracks.

10:51

The missing person's squad at that

10:53

time was in a state

10:55

of disrepair. I remember

10:58

looking at this spreadsheet of open cases.

11:01

It just went on for like 100 pages.

11:03

I'm

11:04

Joe Richmond of Radio Diaries. See you

11:06

next week.