NewRo Strong: Powerful Pandemic Photo Collection Now Live

New Rochelle, NY— A year to the day after the eyes of the nation turned to New Rochelle as the first cluster of COVID-19 infections took hold in the community, city officials unveiled a powerful collection of photographs taken by the citizens, neighbors and victims who endured the brunt of the early days of a growing pandemic.

The chronologically arranged images set to video begin on a somber note. Depictions of apprehensive business owners, grieving loved ones, stretching food lines and ominous newspaper headlines populate the early days of the crisis represented in the collection.

It is difficult not to become moved to emotion as the pain of this somber anniversary is graphically recounted.

Soon, however, the procession of curated photographs takes a decidedly more optimistic turn. Fred Rogers famously told children to "look for the helpers" when exposed to news accounts of disasters. There are plenty of helpers to be found as the citizen-generated memorial project leaves the onset of the pandemic behind. Gone are the photographs of anxious children and frightened parents, replaced by snapshots of volunteers feeding their neighbors and honoring first responders with "balcony ballads."

The collected photographs present an even more positive view on the ground as the new normal starts to become routine - a rainbow graces a socially distanced parade, students return to school for in-person instruction, fun runs and walk-a-thons resume with only facemasks to indicate the strangeness of the times and the best local sledding hills once again see neighborhood gatherings during this winter's first snowfall.

"This has been a year like no other, marked by grief and pain, but also strength and resilience," New Rochelle Mayor Noam Bramson told city residents in a call announcing the opening of the online photography exhibition. "Although the COVID crisis is global in scale, New Rochelle will always have the distinction of being the first place in America to face a community outbreak, and we can draw some grim satisfaction from meeting our test here with dignity and common purpose."

The virtual, community-created photography presentation wraps with dozens of individual images of yard signs reading, "NewRo Strong: In this together." City officials distributed thousands of the signs to residents following the darkest days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many hundreds of these signs still adorn the lawns of New Rochelle homes to this day.

The "Reflections" community photography video was released online as part of a one-year anniversary memorial to victims of the ongoing pandemic on Wednesday. The mayor also called for a noon moment of silence and a one-evening-only return to the "Clap Because We Care" tradition of honoring first responders by making as much noise as possible at 7pm.