On Fifth Avenue in Brooklyn, an arrangement of handmade signs, letters, and flowers near the gates of the Green-Wood Cemetery. Another in front of a Cobble Hill nursing home. A mural in Flushing Meadows Corona Park’s parking lot.Temporary memorials for those who died from the coronavirus were set up throughout New York early in the pandemic.Still, as the city resumes its pre-epidemic routine and staff return to work to confront harrowing reminders of coworkers who have died, city departments are debating how to memorialize the lives lost over the past year in a more lasting way.
Specific details
Officials from the city’s Department of Sanitation unveiled the city’s first permanent, free-standing memorial to the pandemic’s victims yesterday. The 600-pound monument, dedicated to the nine sanitation workers killed by Covid-19 last year, was exhibited outside one of the department’s storage structures in downtown Manhattan.This summer, it will be seen at a number of department garages. It will be permanently located outside a garage on Spring Street in Manhattan after Labor Day.
Background story
The virus has claimed the lives of over 300 city workers. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, a state agency, has also lost 159 subway, rail, and bus employees.Officials from the city have yet to discuss any proposals for a memorial to city staff or the more than 30,000 New Yorkers who have died as a result of Covid-19. Smaller attempts, on the other hand, have been made for months. The M.T.A., for example, installed interactive screens inside subway stations in January that displayed photographs of employees who had died in the line of duty.
Possible future events
Other organizations are now debating how to honor their fallen employees. On Rikers Island, the city’s Department of Correction, which has lost at least 11 employees, wants to build a memorial garden.City Councilman Mark Levine has proposed legislation to establish a monument to the hundreds of virus victims that are believed to be buried on Hart Island in the Bronx. A drawn triptych of a tree with leaves showing handwritten notes from living coworkers has been dedicated to seven fallen employees at Elmhurst Hospital in Queens.
The memorial service will take place at 7:45 p.m. on March 14 as part of New York City’s day of remembrance. Families are asked to send in the names and photos of loved ones that should be remembered. Online submissions are being accepted.
Why is it important?
The five boroughs were hit especially hard by the massive human and financial losses. According to CDC numbers, the city could see 30,000 virus-related deaths in a matter of days.
We have to remember that 25,000 of our fellow New Yorkers have died — that’s something we have to do in the future. In their memory, we got to celebrate them by 1) being there for their families, 2) remembering those who sacrificed so much to save them, and 3) trying to make this city better all the time.
