May 7 · A delivery on East 21st Street

On May 7, 2020, the Gramercy Park Block Association joined Gramercy Park neighbor Guan Yang, an organizer of NYC Makes PPE, to deliver meals and 300 face shields to personnel from the 13th Precinct, Emergency Service Truck 1 and Patrol Borough Manhattan South. The following day’s newsletter reported the completed delivery.

NYC Makes PPE was a volunteer response to shortages of personal protective equipment. The Block Association connected that citywide effort with the first responders it knew through years of neighborhood work.

May 13 · The larger delivery followed

The initial report set a further goal of 2,500 face shields for ten Manhattan South precincts. A May 14 newsletter confirmed that the Block Association and Guan Yang had distributed those additional shields the previous day.

On May 21, the Block Association shared thank-you messages and photographs from the ten precincts and Emergency Service Truck 1, reporting 2,800 shields across the effort. This sequence supplies the completion point between the first 300-shield delivery and the later year-end account.

The newsletter thanked neighborhood donors, local police and Kathleen Scupp for their part in organizing the effort. By July, the Block Association reported four sponsored luncheons for local police personnel and thanked Westside Market at Third Avenue and 17th Street for catering help.

Coffee and lunch also reached officers stationed outdoors on Second and Third Avenues. These efforts extended the earlier tradition of meals for first responders into the circumstances of 2020.

Two masked people hold a cardboard box beside an NYPD van on a tree-lined street.
A box handoff pictured in the Block Association’s account of the May 7, 2020 delivery.
Five masked people stand in a garage in front of an NYPD Emergency Service truck.
A gathering at the Emergency Service vehicle, pictured in the Block Association’s May 2020 delivery letter.
Officers wearing masks stand together indoors behind a GPBA banner expressing love, gratitude and support.
Officers with the Block Association’s support banner, pictured in the May 8, 2020 meal and face-shield delivery letter.
Officers wearing face shields supplied through the neighborhood partnership.
A thank-you photograph shared with the Block Association’s May 21, 2020 report on the delivered face shields.
Officers wearing face shields supplied through the neighborhood partnership.
A thank-you photograph shared with the Block Association’s May 21, 2020 report on the delivered face shields.
Sources

Adapted from the Block Association newsletters of May 5, May 8, May 14, May 21, July 3 and November 24, 2020.