Brooklyn Bridge is the site of a COVID-19 memorial one year after first virus death

By Amelia Anthony

March 14, 2020, feels like it could be 100 years ago; and it feels like yesterday.

It was, of course, the date that New York City recorded its first known death from the coronavirus. In the intervening year, the total death count in New York alone has shot past 30,000. More New Yorkers have been lost to the coronavirus than in World War II, Vietnam, Hurricane Sandy, and 9/11 combined.

That horrifying statistic was brought out last night, as the city marked the grim one-year milestone in Brooklyn. The faces of 470 New Yorkers who lost their lives to Covid-19 were projected onto the Brooklyn Bridge—a small fraction of the toll the disease has taken.

The virtual memorial, called, “A Covid-19 Day of Remembrance,” was organized by the mayor’s office. Watch the video of the event below, which features musical and poetic tributes to those lost.

“Every family touched in some way, and for so many families, [there is] a pain that is so raw,” DeBlasio said during his speech. “Yet New Yorkers are always there for each other. Tonight, so many people have gathered, to show their love, to show their support for the family members left behind.”

The first known Covid fatality in the city was that of an 82-year-old woman who died at Wyckoff Heights Medical Center in Brooklyn. Photos projected on the bridge were gathered from submissions to the mayor’s office and non-profit newsroom The City’s Covid memorial. The City encourages New Yorkers who have lost loved ones due to the disease to submit memories and photos to their ongoing remembrance project.

“As we look with optimism to the year ahead, let us remember those we’ve lost, give gratitude for all that we have and share a renewed commitment to emerge from this crisis with a recovery that lifts up every New Yorker,” said Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams in a statement.