“Yesterday morning feels like a long time ago,”

NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio, March 12 2020

Opening reception Wednesday September 3, 6:00–9:00pm.

Exhibition on view through February 2026.

Saturday, February 29, 2020

At Mount Sinai Hospital on Central Park East, Doctor Angela Chen treated a 39-year-old woman for respiratory symptoms. Hours later, Dr. Chen diagnosed the first case of COVID-19 in the state of New York.

Eleven days later, on a Thursday morning, Governor Andrew Cuomo closed Broadway productions. By evening, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio declared a state of emergency.

That Sunday, de Blasio closed America’s largest public school district. New York University and Columbia students left for their 2020 spring breaks, and would not return until fall 2021.

“Pandemic” evolved from science fiction plot to household term.

Five years later

COVID’s invisible effects are debated but obvious: altered economies, a new relationship to the office, a microgeneration with a virtual education, and about 7,000,000 early human deaths by the World Health Organization’s count—47,101 in New York City.

But almost as quickly as they spread, the pandemic’s physical artifacts have nearly vanished. Look closely and you’ll find their traces: the residue of a social distancing sticker on a sidewalk, an address once used as a mass vaccination site, tire depressions where mobile testing units stood in parking lots.

The COVID Material Culture Museum seeks to collect and preserve these disappeared objects: the material legacy of a strange and universal time, when everyone knew who was wrong, and government signage told us how far from each other to stand.

Curated by Jacob Ford. Research by Isabel O’Leary.