Streetsblog New York City

A 23-year-old woman has died from injuries sustained when she was struck by an MTA bus driver in Bushwick last month.

Ella Kottick Bandes was crossing Myrtle Avenue at Palmetto Street at around 11 p.m. on January 31 when she was hit as the driver of a B52 bus made a right turn, according to Gothamist. She was taken to Wyckoff Heights Medical Center in traumatic arrest.

Bandes was removed from life support at Kings County Hospital on February 4.

From the Record, in Bergen County:

Ms. Bandes grew up in Montclair and attended Edgemont Elementary School, Renaissance Middle School, and Montclair High School, graduating in 2007. She was a talented musician, dancer and artist.

After graduating from Macalester College in 2011 with degrees in psychology and studio art, Ms. Bandes was completing an internship at the Columbia Psychiatric Institute.

She was working at the Weight Watchers corporate office, and was planning to pursue a doctorate in psychology. Her dream was to provide mental health services to underserved populations.

Gothamist reports that no charges were filed against the bus driver.

This fatal crash occurred on the border of the 104th and 83rd Precincts. To voice your concerns about neighborhood traffic safety directly to the commanding officer of either precinct, go to the next community council meeting. Meeting times and contact information are available on each precinct’s web page.

The City Council district where Ella Bandes was killed is represented by Diana Reyna, where at least three other people — Terence Connor, Raoul De La Cruz, and Puran Thapa — were fatally struck by motorists in the last five months. To encourage Reyna to take action to improve street safety in her district and citywide, contact her at 212-788-7095 or 718-963-3141.

Looks like Queens Community Board 1 has some competition when it comes to irrational opposition to on-street bike parking. DNAinfo reports that a proposed bike corral at Wyckoff Avenue and Starr Street in Bushwick has some detractors at Brooklyn Community Board 4.

“The transportation will be disrupted…and anyone hit by a car or bike coming out of that parking lot for bikes has to fend for himself,” worried Eliseo Ruiz, the transportation committee’s chair. “It looks like this is just going to be storage for bikes.”

Excellent points here. Also: Anyone struck by a meteor coming out of that parking lot for bikes has to fend for himself. Anyone attacked by a bear coming out of that parking lot for bikes has to fend for himself. And anyone crushed by a falling piano coming out of that parking lot for bikes has to fend for himself.

It is, after all, just storage for bikes. Watch out!

Three pedestrians and one cyclist have been killed in the city since Friday night. Two drivers fled the scene, and two were reportedly exonerated by NYPD.

At approximately 11:30 p.m. Sunday, Mary Gater was on the sidewalk on Jamaica Avenue near Sutphin Boulevard when an 85-year-old motorist, eastbound on Jamaica, “lost control” of a Chrysler sedan, jumped the curb and struck her. Gater, 60, died at Jamaica Hospital. NYPD issued no charges or summonses, according to DNAinfo.

At around 3:45 a.m. Sunday, 26-year-old Ken Baker, a Massachusetts native who lived in Binghamton, was hit by the driver of a Peterbuilt semi truck as he walked with his girlfriend on Sixth Avenue near 47th Street in Midtown. The driver, who was not hauling a trailer, was turning left from Sixth onto 47th. Baker was “sitting on the sidewalk, conscious and alert, with cuts on his arms and torso” when police arrived, according to the Worcester Telegram and Gazette, but was pronounced dead on arrival at Bellevue.

The driver of the truck was unaware he had hit someone. He stopped after he was flagged down and remained on the scene.

Police said no alcohol was involved, and no criminal charges or citations were issued.

“It was just an unfortunate accident,” the police spokesman said.

A little over 24 hours before Baker was killed, at 11:45 p.m. Friday, a hit-and-run driver struck and killed 75-year-old Arnold Slater as he walked on 114th Street at Broadway. CBS 2 reported that the driver was northbound on Broadway, and Slater was crossing east to west. NYPD is reportedly looking for the killer, who was driving a black Honda Civic. From DNAinfo:

Robert von Gutfeld, 78, a research scientist at Columbia, said the intersection is dangerous.

“When you’re crossing that intersection, you have the right of way and the drivers don’t look to see you crossing,” he said.

“Very often they almost hit me. I curse at them, I scream at them but I see it getting worse.”

Read more…

This isn’t what transit-oriented development is supposed to look like.

Reader Christopher Taylor Edwards sent us these photos from two blocks of Knickerbocker Avenue in Bushwick. Immediately adjacent to the M train, suburban-style development  – complete with single-story buildings, drive-throughs and underutilized parking lots — marks the end of a vibrant commercial corridor.

One block down Knickerbocker from the subway is a single-story strip mall with a surface parking lot between the sidewalk and the door. The biggest tenant is a cell phone store, but for pedestrians headed to the subway, the most important might be the Armed Forces Career Center, which regularly hosts a fleet of government cars parked illegally on the sidewalk. Reported Edwards: “The cars parked on the sidewalk is a once a month or more occurrence. They are federally tagged cars generally or from Virginia and Maryland. No one is ever ticketed.”

Read more…

The driver of a private sanitation truck hit and killed a pedestrian at the intersection of Broadway and Myrtle Avenue this morning, according to the NYPD. The driver hit the pedestrian, a man in his 60s crossing Myrtle, at 7:12 a.m and the victim was pronounced dead at the scene.

The police, as usual, do not suspect any criminality on the driver’s part.

As Charles Komanoff wrote last summer, this is one in a series of traffic deaths caused by garbage trucks, which seem to be disproportionately dangerous to pedestrians and cyclists.

A garbage truck driver hit and killed a cyclist in Bushwick at around 8:50 p.m. last night. According to NYPD, the driver and the cyclist were both traveling on Varick Avenue, when the truck turned onto Meserole Street and struck the cyclist.

Police are still trying to identify the driver, who did not remain at the scene. According to NYPD, the driver was operating an unusually large private garbage truck, and the officer who fielded our call speculated that the driver may not have even noticed he struck the cyclist. NYPD has not decided whether to file charges.

NYPD said the cyclist has not been identified either. The Post reported that he was 51 years old, but family and friends in this post's comments section say he was 24.

From a tipster on Bogart Street in Bushwick, Brooklyn:

I thought you might appreciate this picture. It was taken today out of my bedroom window. A car drove up onto the sidewalk, and the man in the car promptly got on his cell phone while sitting in the driver's seat. Two police cars drove by (this picture shows the second cruiser), and neither even slowed down. I have heard rumors from TA that my neighborhood is home to one of the highest concentrations of tickets for cyclists for equivalent offenses (my roommate was given a ticket a few blocks away for biking on the sidewalk around street construction). While biking on the sidewalk perhaps justly deserves a ticket, a ticket for driving on the sidewalk is even more justified.

Maybe it's a matter of sharing the windshield perspective.

Read more...

The city's public schools are back in session today, and students, parents and staff at P.S. 24 in Sunset Park should have a safer intersection to contend with at 38th St. and Fourth Ave., near a BQE off-ramp, following a simple signal timing adjustment.

The Daily News reports:

After months of community pressure, city Department of Transportation officials promised Brooklyn News the traffic-light timing would be adjusted over the weekend ... with an increased interval allowing pedestrians more time to cross the street.

"A little call from a reporter never hurt anything," said Principal Christina Fuentes who was notified by Brooklyn News late last week - not the DOT - that the light would be adjusted.

A third-grader was hit by a car and injured near the school last spring, prompting parents and others in the neighborhood to seek safety improvements -- along with Transportation Alternatives, which has consistently cited signal timing as an easy and effective means of reducing pedestrian injuries and deaths.

Transportation Alternatives has requested safety measures for other schools along dangerous Third and Fourth Aves., said TA official Brooke DuBose.

More than 30 pedestrians have been killed along the avenues since 1995 - including six children since 2004, according to TA figures.

Meanwhile, in Bushwick, a 7-year-old who was looking forward to starting first grade today was run down by two vehicles on Sunday as he crossed Bleecker Street with his mother and 8-year-old brother. Christian Acteopan died after being hit by a Mitsubishi Eclipse, which fled the scene, and a second vehicle traveling behind. The driver of the Eclipse was found and charged with leaving the scene of an accident; the second driver stayed at the scene and was not charged.

Acteopan's death comes less than a week after the unveiling of the heart-rending monument to three children killed by motorists on Third Avenue. The event included an announcement that DOT will be making long-awaited pedestrian safety improvements to intersections throughout Downtown Brooklyn.

Photo: New York Post

Friday August 4, 2006
The roof of 210 Cook Street, Bushwick, Brooklyn
8:30 pm - Live Music by Vaz (click for info)
9:00 pm - Showtime
Running time: 1:29:00

B.I.K.E.
A feature-length documentary by Jacob Septimus & Anthony Howard

If you've been to underground noise rock shows, dangerous loft parties in derelict areas, or unlawful bicycle events in the streets, you might've noticed some of the members of the Black Label Bicycle Club. They tend to be tattooed and pierced and wear black-painted jeans-jackets. They seem to like to party and fight. And they build their own bicycles. Tall-bikes, in particular: frames welded on top of other frames so the seat rides six feet off the ground. They're easy to spot cruising down a crowded avenue, or jousting under a bridge, carrying a long plumbing pipe and trying to knock an opponent to the tar.

But if you've only ever gawked from afar at these pedal-powered Hell's Angels, you don't know the whole story.

Granted, they're hard to get to know. As visible as they are, the Black Label Bike Club remains a tight knit, self-protective, secretive sort of group. Anthony Howard wanted to know more, so he tried to join the club. And he made a film about it.

Howard throws himself headlong (and headfirst off more than a few tall-bikes) into the Black Label lifestyle, and, along with co-director Jacob Septimus, discovers that Black Label is about a lot more than booze, brawls and bikes. Comprised mainly of artists driven by anti-materialism and a belief that the impending apocalypse will render cars useless and bicycles in power, BLBC battles mainstream consumer culture and rival gangs for its vision of a better tomorrow. Howard's vision, however, becomes increasingly blurred by drugs and self-destruction. In his desperate attempts to appease the group, Howard loses perspective on what the group values, and loses control of his own life.

This fascinating and gorgeously gritty film provides insight into a passionate political subculture, and exposes the darker aspects of living on the wild side.

THE VENUE:
We at Rooftop Films are thrilled to return to our outlaw days on the warehouse roofs in the East Williamsburg Industrial Park, our home from 1998-2003. If you remember those gritty old days—showing movies on top of nearly abandoned buildings with car fires and gun shots crackling in the near-distance—you won't want to miss the opportunity to watch this renegade film on a gorgeous industrial roof on the border of Bushwick.