Speed Limit Lowered on Brooklyn Street Where Samuel Cohen-Eckstein Killed
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
New York traffic authorities have reportedly lowered the speed limit along a busy Brooklyn street that runs alongside Prospect Park where bar mitzvah boy Samuel Cohen-Eckstein was struck and killed by a van.
City workers installed new signs lowering the maximum speed to 25 mph on Prospect Park West over the weekend, the New York Daily News reported.
The speed limit was 30 mph last October 8 when the eighth-grader was mowed down as he returned from playing soccer in the park across the street from his home.
Traffic lights on the stretch of road were also adjusted to slow down cars.
The boy’s parents, friends and synagogue have joined a citywide push for safer streets.
“Although it is too late to have prevented Sammy’s death, we hope this change is part of a larger initiative to save lives,” the boy’s mother, Amy Cohen, said in an e-mail to the News.
Separately, the paper reported that a neighbor had to call police to stop a woman from tearing down a makeshift memorial that still stands at the site of the boy’s death, near the popular entrance to the park at Third Street.
Why I became the Forward’s Editor-in-Chief
You are surely a friend of the Forward if you’re reading this. And so it’s with excitement and awe — of all that the Forward is, was, and will be — that I introduce myself to you as the Forward’s newest editor-in-chief.
And what a time to step into the leadership of this storied Jewish institution! For 129 years, the Forward has shaped and told the American Jewish story. I’m stepping in at an intense time for Jews the world over. We urgently need the Forward’s courageous, unflinching journalism — not only as a source of reliable information, but to provide inspiration, healing and hope.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
