The Washington PostDemocracy Dies in Darkness

Hundreds of bodies of covid-19 victims are still in New York’s refrigerated trucks more than a year into the pandemic

May 9, 2021 at 5:54 p.m. EDT
Refrigerated trucks await corpses in Brooklyn last May. (Ted Shaffrey/AP)

As New York emerged as the center of the coronavirus pandemic last spring, the overwhelmed city began storing the bodies of victims in refrigerated trucks along the Brooklyn waterfront.

More than a year later, hundreds remain in the makeshift morgues on the 39th Street Pier in Sunset Park.