Hundreds of names of deceased loved ones now hang outside Green-Wood cemetery.
Photos by Paul Frangipane
Green-Wood community
mural honors COVID victims
COURIER LIFE, MAY 29 -JUNE 4, 2020 3
BY ROSE ADAMS
A memorial wall outside Green-
Wood cemetery invites families to
post tributes to loved ones who have
died from COVID-19 — and has already
collected more than 100 names
in one week, said the memorial’s creator.
“We wanted this to be as accessible
as possible,” said Alexa Aviles,
a local City Council candidate who
set up the wall with a group of Sunset
Parkers on May 20. “We left paper
and markers, and every day there’s
more names being added.”
The dedication, located on the
gates of Green-Wood cemetery on
Fifth Avenue near 25th Street, is one
of several memorials citywide that
are part of the Naming the Lost project
— an initiative founded by artists
and activists that aims to humanize
COVID-19 victims who often appear
as statistics, Aviles said.
“A couple of organizers and artists
all over the city have been coming together
and sharing the unfortunate
reality that there’s no space to collectively
grieve and no acknowledgement
of the people that we’ve lost over
these last two months,” Aviles said. “I
think there’s a lot of anger that there
hasn’t been any acknowledgment
that people are referred to as numbers
and graphs.”
Aviles and several other Sunset
Park residents set up the memorial
wall in conjunction with a 24-hour
online vigil Naming the Lost hosted
on May 20 where mourners read the
names of COVID-19 victims around
the world. Since the reading, the wall
has continued to gain traction as a
memorial site for COVID-19 victims
in Brooklyn — which has seen more
coronavirus deaths than any other
county in the country.
The wall features banners that say
“Naming the Lost” in six languages
— English, Spanish, Mandarin, Arabic,
Hebrew, and Bengali — as well as
stickers that say “essential” on many
of the names posted to the wall. The
stickers underscore the essential nature
of every COVID-19 victim, Aviles
explained.
“We wanted to convey with the memorial
that … they were all essential,
no one was dispensable,” she said.
Like other Naming the Lost memorials,
the wall displays colorful
paper butterfl ies, which symbolize
the soul, and cutouts of paper hands,
which represent how many families
could not be with COVID-19 victims
when they died.
Aviles also plans to add netting to
the gate so that locals can continue
posting more names.
“We were able to cover it up for
the fi rst rain on Friday and Saturday,”
she said, adding that she will
continue covering it as long as people
keep using it. “There’s a real need to
collective grieve, acknowledge, and
grieve.”
APART
in this Memorial Day
ultimate sacrifi ce’
port means a great deal to
the veteran community.
“Because we only have
so much that we can do for
our veteran community,
one of the ways we can
show support is to have
days like this that we can
truly come together as a
country and community
to show our honor and appreciation
for our country’s
service members,”
Fitzgerald said.
Hendon agreed that,
despite the lack of pomp
and circumstance normally
displayed on Memorial
Day, some showing
of support is always
needed to honor veterans
and those whose lives
have been lost.
“We keep one foot
in front of the other for
whatever is going on and
do what we can to be of
value to our service members
and to those we lost.
Even in spite of this, we
want them to know we
have not forgotten about
them,” Hendon said. “The
biggest thing anyone
can want is to be remembered.
The veterans give
so much of themselves for
this country so we take
time right now to make
sure that we remember
and for their families that
we remember.”
Many Memorial Day
traditions were canceled,
including parades across
the city, as well as the annual
placing of fl ags at soldiers’
graves, to adhere to
social distancing guidelines.
Many groups also
cancelled their annual
placing of fl ags at soldiers’
graves because of the pandemic.
American Legions and
Veterans of Foreign Wars
also held scaled back versions
of their Memorial
Day observances, like
VFW Post 107’s, which
took place in Gerritsen
Beach on Burnett Street
and Whitney Avenue,
where there is a stone memorial
dedicated to fallen
soldiers.
Photo by Todd Maisel