NAMING THE LOST Memorials (NTLM), along with City Lore, Great Small Works, Mano A Mano, and The Green-Wood Cemetery, held their fifth COVID-19 public art memorial activation and dedication ceremony on Thursday, May 8, at Green-Wood Cemetery in Greenwood Heights.
NTLM — a small team of artists, activists and folklorists — has been curating memorial sites across New York City since May 2020 to name and remember victims of the pandemic. Their efforts have included online vigils and physical memorials in all five boroughs, including at Corona Plaza in Queens, Jacobi Hospital in the Bronx, Ridge and Broome streets on the Lower East Side, Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn and Verrazano Nursing Home in Staten Island.
This year’s memorial, titled “A Bridge, a Stitch, a Compass: COVID Memorial for the Past, Present, and Future,” is a collaboration between NTLM and 19 community groups.
The installation — which is illuminated at night and features paintings, drawings and collages — honors the lives lost and recognizes the ongoing effects of long COVID. Stretching 200 feet along Green-Wood’s iconic wrought-iron fence, the display runs from the corner of 24th Street and Fifth Avenue past the cemetery’s main entrance. It will remain on view through June 8.
The COVID-19 pandemic claimed more than 1 million lives in the United States, including more than 50,000 in New York City — once the epicenter of the outbreak. Visitors are encouraged to create and add nameplates in memory of loved ones lost to COVID-19 on a designated space for public participation.
Artist Zamya Bumpus, with Project Safe at Family Health Centers at NYU Langone, told Brooklyn Paper that their memorial was a “bridge routine crisis art” project — a concept that explores how art can serve as a connection, a transition or a way to navigate difficult periods.
The piece depicts healthcare workers who died from COVID-19. Watermelons represent Palestine, while black, red and green triangles symbolize Pan-Africanism and the ongoing struggles in Sudan and Congo.
“The line in the middle of the bridge represents the fact that we’ve pursued through all of this, that we’ve conquered through all of this,” Bumpus said. “The water represents the life that we have, and the life that we’ve lost, and the life that we will gain as moving forward.”
Thursday’s ceremony began with a purification ritual, followed by a solemn walk along the memorial display. A New Orleans-style procession, led by the Brass Queens, then made its way to Green-Wood Cemetery’s Historic Chapel for a dedication and ritual circle featuring speeches, a Mexican butterfly dance performed by Mazarte Mexican Dance Company, and the naming of the lost.
Folklorist and NTLM founding member Kay Turner said the sacred circle was a way to honor and remember the victims of COVID-19.
“COVID struck such an incredible blow into the lives of New Yorkers five years ago, and of course, it quickly spread and traveled around the world,” Turner said. “So it behooves us to remember, it behooves us to think on these losses, these people that we will never see again.”
Council Member Alexi Avilés, whose district includes Greenwood Heights, lost four family members in one week. She recalled how the memorial project provided solace during her time of grieving.
“One of the most amazing results of that was meeting these incredible humans here that I am so proud and honored to have been able to partner with and create and cry and love and continue to learn together,” Avilés said. “I hope that these rituals, this time together, while not permanent, will remain forever in your spirits.”
Brooklynite Riveline Alexandre attended the memorial to show her love, support and compassion. She told Brooklyn Paper that she loved the artwork.
“I love the lights because everyone that we lost is a light that we lost in this world,” Alexandre said. “To be able to represent [the COVID-19 victims] in an art form, because art is life, brings the remembrance to those that left us.”
Adriana Vergara told Brooklyn Paper that the memorial served as a reminder to continue community care, honor the victims, and show new city residents the impact COVID-19 had on New Yorkers.
“There are a lot of folks who were not here during the height of the pandemic and who didn’t feel how [the pandemic] affected everyone,” Vergara said.” It’s really important to bring that up and talk about all of those people who lost their lives at a time when they couldn’t really be seen and heard.”
2025 marks the final year of COVID memorialization. However, NTLM and City Lore will continue assisting communities in creating COVID-19 memorials through the fall of 2025, with a final memorial planned as part of Mano a Mano’s annual “Day of the Dead” celebration at St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery.
