Queens Memory Podcast preserves the history of COVID's impact
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Queens residents in protective masks wait on line for food donations June 23 in Corona. AP Photo/John Minchillo
By David Brand
In April, at the peak of the COVID pandemic, Queens nurse Patricia Tiu began submitting videos to the Queens Memory Project.
She was isolating from her family while treating “severely sick” and dying patients in a hospital intensive care unit, she said. The Queens Memory Project provided the outlet she needed to recount her experiences and preserve them, she said.
“None of us are sleeping. I don’t sleep anymore,” Tiu said in testimony that provided the foundation for an episode in the Queens Memory Project’s COVID-related podcast series.
That outlet has become a vital primary source document preserving the impact of the crisis in a borough regarded as the “epicenter” of the pandemic. The Queens Memory Podcast is the latest endeavor from the decade-old oral history project sponsored by the Queens Public Library.
A week after that first video, Tiu submitted another haunting testimonial. This time she wore a bandana because her hair was falling out from the stress, she explained.
“Welcome to hell,” Tiu said. “We are basically at the gates of hell.”
Podcast creator Jordan Gass-Poole, a journalist, quickly understood the key role the oral history project could play in documenting the impact of the crisis among Queens communities.
“Without real-time documentation, memories can fade and facts can be misremembered,” Gass-Poore says in the introduction to the first episode, which includes testimony from two people who live near borough hospitals.
Those stories, interspersed with the latest updates from Gov. Andrew Cuomo and other officials, detail the experiences of people throughout the borough who have persevered despite the unprecedented pandemic.
“This is a period of time that will go down in the history books and this podcast will help people in the future to understand the borough’s resilience in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Gass-Poore said.
The 10-episode season wraps up next month, but the Queens Memory Project is still seeking audio and video accounts from borough residents who want to share their pandemic experiences.
The Queens Memory Project will also celebrate its 10th anniversary with a special event Sept. 30.
