Sickening name
Qns. nabe wishes it wasn’t Corona-virus
Just a mile away from Queens’ Elmhurst Hospital Center, an epicenter of the death and suffering caused by coronavirus, lies the neighborhood long called Corona.
On a recent sunny workday, residents milled about Corona Plaza, running errands or sitting near the 7 train subway stop to catch some rays.
Many residents say their neighborhood’s name will now be forever stained.
“Why couldn’t it be called the Canarsie virus?” lamented Saul Cuello, 39, as he stood in a line to get into Walgreens for some now hardto-come-by essentials, trying to stay 6 feet away from everyone else. “The word Corona means so much to me.”
“It’s crazy,” he said, standing in front of Corona Vision, an eyeglasses store that is one of the countless neighborhood businesses shuttered due to the virus. “I came out here and it’s like a ghost town.”
“People are doing their part,” he added. “You see like one out of every two people wearing masks.”
Not far away, on 103rd St., the Corona Candy Store was open, advertising Corona beer on one of its windows. A few shoppers in surgical masks picked through oranges outside the Corona Farm supermarket.
The dreaded virus got its name because its tiny virons look like crowns when examined under a microscope.
Although the origins of the Queens neighborhood’s name are debated, it may have gotten it in the 1870s when developers establishing the area were part of Crown Building Co., a firm with a crown emblem.
The neighborhood is famous for being home to Louis Armstrong, saxophonist Cannonball Adderley and a young Martin Scorsese. It still boasts the Lemon Ice King of Corona — a beloved old-school Italian ice joint that draws summertime throngs.
“Everything is changing daily now, so we’ll see what happens,” said Michael Zampino, who has owned the 75-year-old shaved ice hotspot for the past two decades.
This is usually the time of year when business starts to ramp up, and Zampino wasn’t sure yet if the virus would cause a deep freeze in customers.
“Hopefully, we can level out the curve and start going the other way,” he said of the city’s rising infections.
Zampino said that customers are still trickling in — taking their pick of 50 flavors for a little taste of what life was like not too long ago.
Rosario Justino, 57, owner of Corona Live Poultry Market, said customers had joked earlier on in the pandemic that the coincidence in nomenclature could act as an amulet of sorts — warding off the evil respiratory illness.
“Some people said Corona is the name of the virus, so nothing is going to happen in the town, to be funny,” Justino said. “But now it’s not funny anymore.”
Justino himself was certainly taking things seriously — closing up shop for at least the next two weeks. “I think the health is much more important than to be open,” he said. He will only be coming in to feed the chickens.