Pandemic wedding bell blues
De Blasio spokeswoman Freddi Goldstein insisted parks aren’t under consideration for burials at the moment.
“We are NOT currently planning to use local parks as burial grounds,” she tweeted.
Levine stuck to his guns, saying the possibility of burials at parks was a “contingency” plan.
“I think we do a disservice to the public by leaving this topic shrouded in mystery,” he tweeted. “The public should know how we are dealing with this crisis, and that we are prepared for the worst — while we continue to hope and pray the worst won’t come to pass.”
Speaking at Brooklyn Navy Yard on Monday, de Blasio touted local businesses’ efforts to make urgently needed supplies.
Design company Crye Precision and women’s wear brand Lafayette 148 and other sewing shops are producing 300,000 surgical gowns at the Navy Yard, Hizzoner said.
“These gowns … are absolutely crucial to the protection of our health care workers,” de Blasio said, noting some private hospitals and nursing homes were running low on the supplies.
On Sunday, the mayor said the city had enough ventilators and other equipment to last through Tuesday or Wednesday. The feds sent 600,000 N95 masks to the city on Monday.
The city also needs 45,000 extra medical personnel, “an ever-increasing number to get us through this crisis,” de Blasio said. He added that he would request more staff from President Trump in a Monday phone call.
Postponing their planned nuptials due to a pandemic was a blow for one Queens couple, but the pair says their misfortune highlights a bigger problem as marriage clerk offices remain closed across the state.
Chelsea Connor, 31, and her 34-year-old fiance, Will Carey (inset), were slated to tie the knot next month. They did the responsible thing by putting the party, scheduled to take place at the Brooklyn Cider House in Bushwick, on hold for the safety of friends and family.
Despite the concerns prompting them to delay the celebration, the young couple had hoped to still get their marriage license for other reasons.
“For us, Will’s health insurance is not as good as mine; I own our apartment and we want to add him to the mortgage so that he has rights to it if anything happens to me,” Connor, the director of communications for the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, told the Daily News. “There’s a whole host of reasons why we’d want to legalize this, for lack of a better term.”
Connor and Carey, a stand up comic, producer and podcaster, believe the state should temporarily suspend the requirement that marriage licenses only be issued in person while clerks’ offices across the state are shuttered. Doing so could help lovebirds in similar situations or aid those who have lost jobs get on their significant others’ health insurance and ease tax burdens for New Yorkers facing financial strain.
The couple said their situation isn’t that dire, but they worry for others whose lives have been upended by the virus.
“The idea that you couldn’t get married in order to make sure that your partner had some of those benefits ... there’s no reason that they shouldn’t be able to process these licenses online,” Connor said.