“A Bridge, a Stitch, a Compass: A COVID Memorial for the Past, Present, and Future”

City Lore and NAMING THE LOST Memorials (NTLM) invites the general public to come together on Thursday, May 8 from 6:30-8:30 PM for a dedication and ritual closing of the public art project commemorating victims of the Covid pandemic at the Historic Chapel at Green-Wood Cemetery located at 5th Avenue and 25th Street in Brooklyn. Marking the fifth anniversary of Covid 19 and its impact on New York City, the ceremony will bring together the NTLM team and community partners.

The memorial contains 46,955 lights, one for each person in New York City who died of COVID-19. This total comes from the NYC Department of Health and was last updated on April 17, 2025. Deaths include test-confirmed cases as well as others with “COVID-19” or equivalent listed on the person's death certificate. 

The evening will include a procession, second line, and ritual performances coordinated by folklorist and Artist Kay Turner and will feature Drummer Zafer Tawil, Second Line with the Brass Queens, remarks by City Councilmember Alexa Aviles, vocalist and composer Adriana Vergara, artist, activist, healer, and poet, Sarah Chandler, multidisciplinary artist, astrologer and intuitive guide Nate Speare, education and youth advocate, Esther Lelievre, aka Queen Mixxy, Mexican curandera, Lucia Ce-Malinalli and Mazarte Mexican Dance Company. Also featured will be City Lore’s iconic POEMobile. 

May 8th through June 8th, 2025

Green-Wood Cemetery 5th Avenue and 25th Street, Brooklyn

Activation and ritual closing ceremony

on Thursday, May 8th from 6:30-8:30 PM 5th Avenue and 25th Street, Brooklyn

Tickets for the Activation and Ritual:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/naming-the-lost-memorials-activation-ceremony-tickets-1329086376129

About NAMING THE LOST Memorials: Since May 2020, soon after the pandemic struck, NAMING THE LOST Memorials comprised of a small team of volunteer artists, activists, and folklorists, curated memorial sites in New York City to name and remember victims of the COVID-19 pandemic. From 2023-2025, with sponsorship of City Lore, they have worked with 45 community groups and a large team of artists and activists to install memorials at Green-Wood Cemetery and St. Mark’s Church in conjunction with Mano a Mano’s Día de Muertos celebration. The memorials consisted of tens of thousands of nameplates with personalized drawings and photos, created by the families and friends of those who have lost loved ones to the virus. NAMING THE LOST Memorials will create their final memorial in the fall of 2025, part of Mano a Mano’s annual Day of the Dead celebration at St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery. 

NAMING THE LOST Memorials is funded by the Monuments Project, a special grant-making initiative of the Mellon Foundation. The planning team includes: Juan Aguirre, director of Mano a Mano; Sandra A. M. Bell, artist and producer; Elena Martínez, City Lore folklorist and Producer; Megan Paradis Hanley, theater artist and educator; Jenny Romaine, artist, organizer, and educator; Seth Schonberg, City Lore archivist; Kay Turner, folklorist and performer; and Steve Zeitlin, City Lore, founder and co-director. www.ntlm.org

2025 Community partners are: Alice Austen House, Allure Art Studio, Bangladesh Institute of Performing Arts, Bronx Documentary Center, Casa Yurumein, Guyana Cultural Association, Health & Hip Hop, Inc., Long Covid Justice, the Lunacorns, Marked by Covid, Mixteca, the Naming the Lost Lights Team, New Moon Sisters, Parent Child Relationship Association, Project Reach Youth SAFE, Purelements Evolution in Dance, West Indian American Day Carnival Association, Women’s Empowerment Coalition of New York, and Yaffa Cultural Arts. 

The Green-Wood Cemetery is a living cemetery that brings people closer to the world as it is and was, by memorializing the dead and bringing to life the art, history, and natural beauty of New York City. Founded in 1838 and now a National Historic Landmark, Green-Wood was one of the first rural cemeteries in America. By the early 1860s, it had earned an international reputation for its magnificent beauty and became the prestigious place to be buried, attracting 500,000 visitors a year, second only to Niagara Falls as the nation’s greatest tourist attraction. Crowds flocked there to enjoy family outings, carriage rides, and sculpture viewing in the finest of first-generation American landscapes. Green-Wood’s popularity helped inspire the creation of public parks, including New York City’s Central and Prospect Parks.

About City Lore & Memorializing - In the earliest days of the pandemic, City Lore launched Touching Hearts Not Hands a call for creative responses to the developing situation. From the moment the call went out, this project took as its goal to document and preserve the folk culture that has developed in response to the COVID-19 epidemic, collecting hundreds of songs, poems, videos, images of signs from shop windows and other material. Both projects echo the major cultural initiative that City Lore organized around the September 11th memorials that cropped up around the city. That work culminated in an exhibit curated for the New-York Historical Society in 2002 for which the physical memorials in the exhibit were acquired by the New-York Historical, and have become a major archival resource for researchers, writers and others studying that period. citylore.org/archives

About City Lore - Founded in 1985, and now an Affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, City Lore’s mission is to foster New York City – and America’s – living cultural heritage through education and public programs. We document, present, and advocate for New York City’s grassroots cultures to ensure their living legacy in stories and histories, places and traditions. We work in four cultural domains: urban folklore and history; preservation; arts education; and grassroots poetry traditions. For more info: citylore.org