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.
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