Lily Sage Weinrieb, Alisha Narvaez, Jenny Adames and Nicole Warring pose for a photo outside of International Funeral & Cremation Services, they funeral home they operate in Harlem, New York City.
A spreadsheet displays the roster at the International Funeral & Cremation Services.
Alisha Narvaez takes a phone call in in front of a bodies stacked in cremation boxes. The cremation boxes are a cost effective way to handle cremations, avoiding the expense of a casket.
Nicole Warring’s watch, a mother’s day gift, is seen as she transports a body outside of International Funeral & Cremation Services in Harlem.
Lily Sage Weinrieb drives through a cemetery in New Jersey to drop off two bodies for cremation. The waiting list for cremations stretched out to almost a month due to high demand.
Embalming tools are soon in the prep room.
Rosary beads are seen placed in the hand of a victim of coronavirus before their viewing service held at International Funeral Cremation Services in Harlem.
Lily Sage Weinrieb checks the identification of a body in the funeral home’s basement. With space in short supply, bodies shared stretchers top-to-tail.
Jenny Adames, left, applies make up to her aunt, a victim of COVID-19, before her viewing service as a screen plays a press conference held by U.S. President Donald Trump.
Jenny Adames sits in the chapel after a viewing service concludes. The funeral home is the only one in the city to offer viewing services in the time of coronavirus. Attendance is limited to 10 people at a time.
Bodies are laid in a corner as the basement, which typically holds around six bodies, held forty-eight during the peak of the pandemic.
Alisha Narvaez and Jenny Adames wheel their funeral home’s rental coffin up the sidewalk before a viewing service. The rental coffin is used as a cost saving method at viewing services for people who will then be cremated in cardboard cremation boxes.
Lily Sage attempts to position a body into a free space in the prep room, where embalmings take place.
Nicole Warring and Lily Sage Weinrieb pull a body from the funeral home’s van while parked on Amsterdam Avenue in Harlem.
Flower trimmings sit in the chapel after being cut from a casket spray, the floral arrangement that sits on top of a casket at a funeral.
A body bag is marked with COVID-19, ensuring extra precautions are taken when handling it. It was unknown if victims of coronavirus remained contagious after their death.
The filing cabinet seen in the office of the funeral home.
Lily Sage Weinreb retrieves a body from a hospital morgue.
Jenny Adames takes a phone call on her cell phone that features an image of her daughter. Miss Adames insisted that her mother take care of her daughter for a period out of fear that she would contract the disease herself and pass it on to her.
Lily Sage Weinrieb stretches ahead of collecting a body from an Upper East Side hospital. Lily worked into the night making collections, sometimes clocking up 18 hour work days.
People arrive to search for a place for a family members body. Funeral homes around the city were at capacity forcing people to make the rounds in hope of finding a place for their loved ones bodies.
A biohazard toe tag is seen on a body in the basement.
Lily Sage Weinrieb and Nicole Warring take calls in the office. The phones would ring non stop with people desperate to find a place for their loved ones as the death rate in the city peaked at around 800 per day.
Alisha Narvaez wears PPE ahead of an embalming session.
Lily Sage Weinreib wheels a body from the basement to the chapel to prepare for a viewing service the next day.