Since the start of the pandemic, the New York City Fire Museum has been collecting messages of thanks to first responders in the FDNY. Objects, messages, images and videos can be submitted at the museum or online.

Towards the middle of the year 2020, as we became aware that the story of the Covid-19 pandemic would be a long one, and as protests over the killing of George Floyd washed over the city nightly, the Planning Committee of the Bloomingdale Neighborhood History Group convened online and decided to invite neighbors to contribute to an online cache of photographs and short writings about the entire year. Our efforts focused on the Bloomingdale neighborhood of Manhattan’s Upper West Side (96th Street to 110th Street between Central Park and Riverside Park), but neighbors submitted pictures from all over the city and even of places they moved to outside of the city to “escape” the pandemic.

Dancers at West End Avenue and 90th Street. Photo by Paul Margolis.

The Manuscripts and Special Collections unit of the New York State Library wants to preserve the experiences of people throughout New York State during the COVID-19 global pandemic. We have encouraged New Yorkers to keep diaries that we would like to collect at a later date. We are in the final stages of preparing a website where users will be able to upload photos and other media.

Photo: New York State Cultural Education Center, Albany, NY.

The Municipal Archives preserves and makes available the historical records of New York City municipal government, its holdings include paper records, digital collections, web archives, still and moving images, ledgers and docket books, vital records, cartographic materials, blueprints, and sound recordings. Mayoral and city agency records from the time of the pandemic will be processed into the Municipal Archives and Library and made available to the public according to standard procedures and timetables.

New York City Hall. Photo by Momos.

We are interviewing two hundred New Yorkers, including doctors, nurses, home health aides, funerary workers, doulas, parents, homeless people, organizers, artists, immigrants, teachers, other essential workers, public officials, and all kinds of everyday New Yorkers. Our interviews chronicle the narrators’ lives continuing into the present, and are conducted on Zoom

CoVIDA is a living memorial and artistic tribute to the victims of the COVID-19 pandemic that honors the dead, acknowledges community resilience, and recognizes the courage of essential workers.

The City, a non profit, nonpartisan digital news platform is tracking down all publicly reported deaths and logging them in a public digital memorial.

The experiences of LaGuardia Community College members during the COVID-19 Pandemic.