The Sunday Read: 'The Lonely Death of George Bell'

The Daily

The New York Times

Daily News, News

4.4 • 102.8K Ratings

🗓️ 7 March 2021

⏱️ 65 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Thousands die in New York every year. Some of them alone. The city might weep when the celebrated die, or the innocent are slain, but for those who pass in an unwatched struggle, there is no one to mourn for them and their names, simply added to a death table. In 2014, George Bell, 72, was among those names. He died alone in his apartment in north central Queens. On today’s Sunday Read, what happens when someone dies, and no one is there to arrange their funeral? And who exactly was George Bell?

Transcript

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0:25.6	While I was working on this story, I watched a worker clean out the apartment of a man who
0:41.0	had recently died.
0:43.4	He opened a closet and found a pair of work boots.
0:46.1	They were totally clean, apparently they had never been worn.
0:49.8	He tried them on and they weren't the right size, but they were close enough.
0:54.0	So he laced them up and continued cleaning out the apartment wearing the dead man's boots.
1:02.0	I'm Sunday Climb Field.
1:03.0	I'm a freelance writer and a former reporter on the Metro staff of The New York Times.
1:07.8	I wrote a story about what happens when you die alone in New York City.
1:12.4	The thing about New York is this jam-packed, vibrant city.
1:17.6	You live sandwiched beside and beneath and above multitudes of others.
1:22.4	You fight your way down sidewalks.
1:24.2	You just mothered by all this humanity.
1:27.6	But back in your homes, many people, they live the loneliest of lives.
1:32.1	I wondered what happens in instances like that when someone dies and there's no one to
	...

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