Tell the Stories of the New Yorkers Lost to COVID-19 – THE CITY

A mobile morgue at the Brooklyn Hospital Center, April 20, 2020. Photo: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY

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The disparities in the COVID-19 deaths ravaging New York City extend to who is publicly memorialized.

Fewer than 5% of the nearly 20,000 New Yorkers killed by coronavirus so far have been remembered with a paid or staff-written news outlet obituary or other death notice, an analysis by THE CITY and Columbia Journalism Investigations found.

The team examined English-language media, as well as news sources in a number of other languages, among them Spanish and Korean.

The publicized deaths defined as accompanied by a victims name and other identifying information, such as age, home borough and next of kin skew male and younger. They also disproportionately come from wealthier enclaves of the city than the general population felled by the virus.

The result: The deaths of some groups hardest hit by coronavirus including black and Hispanic residents and recent immigrants living in poorer and more densely populated neighborhoods in The Bronx and Queens often go unnoticed by anyone other than their families, coworkers and friends.

Were hoping to change that but we need your help.

If someone you know a relative, a friend, a coworker, a neighbor, a client, etc. lived and died in New York City, and was a victim of coronavirus, tell us about them by filling out this short form.

Were looking for some basic information the persons age, where they lived, when they died and more.

Bronx Community Board 9 member Sharan Fernandez, 63, died April 10 from coronavirus complications. She didnt receive a formal public obituary, but her death was announced on Twitter by the community board. Photo: Courtesy of the Fernandez Family

But we also want you to tell us whats the one thing you most remember about the person what, in your eyes, made them a unique New Yorker.

Were encouraging people to share pictures, prayer cards, old news clippings anything that helps us show their life in the city. Well also need to know a little about you so we can follow-up as needed, to verify details.

This, to say the least, is a huge undertaking. We cant promise full-scale obituaries of thousands of people.

Were still figuring out how we will present the information we receive and are able to verify. We cant say how long it will take, though we suspect this project will build in stages.

Our goal, though, is clear: to put as many names, faces and details to the numbers as possible.

Were striving to give a sense of the unimaginable loss our city is experiencing while sharing both the burden of grief and the comfort of memories as we forge ahead together, as New Yorkers.

Keith Cousins is a reporting fellow for Columbia Journalism Investigations, an investigative reporting unit at the Columbia Journalism School. Funding for CJI is provided by the schools Investigative Reporting Resource.

The work of Derek Kravitz and Anjali Tsui is funded as part of Columbia Journalism Schools Brown Institute for Media Innovation.

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Tell the Stories of the New Yorkers Lost to COVID-19 - THE CITY