NYC Honors COVID Anniversary, Looks Ahead to Joy, to Coming Back Strong

By Yehudit Garmaise

   Yesterday, which was the first COVID-19 Day of Remembrance, Mayor Bill de Blasio sought to focus New Yorkers’ spirits on a sunny future.

      March 14 marked the day last year when New York City’s COVID death count was one: a number that yesterday was more than 39,000, however, the mayor said that while we should “acknowledge a lot of pain, [we also but also feel] a lot of joy because we knew [those we lost], and what they gave us matters so much.

    “We think about those we lost, and we carry on, and we are inspired by them.”

  One way we can stay inspired by the loved ones we have lost, the mayor said is “to keep telling stories of those they loved” because as he has listened to New Yorkers talk about those they have lost, “a little joy starts to come back into their voice. A little smile comes across their faces.

     The mayor then quoted Colombian poet Gabriel García Márquez, who wrote about grief, “No matter what, no one can take away the dances we've already had.” 

      To pay tribute to the New Yorkers we have lost, the city hosted two events at Lincoln Center in Manhattan, and later last night, Mayor Bill de Blasio hosted a memorial service that involved speeches, musical performances, and poetry, and black and white photos of those we lost projected against the Brooklyn Bridge, which the mayor called “one our city’s great iconic places.”

      Among those who spoke were faith leaders and New York City’s Youth Poet Laureate Serena Yang, a college student from Queens.

   This morning at his press conference, the mayor called the Remembrance Day “a beautiful tribute to the city, to the goodness of the people of the city, the compassion, the way people were there for each other throughout the COVID crisis last year.”

    “Now is about everyone being there for each other,” Mayor de Blasio said. “New Yorkers have hearts of gold and are the most compassionate people in the world. That is how we come back.”

 Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office