While Eisenberg was in the crosswalk at about 9:35 p.m. last Thursday, a Q10 Green…
By Jennifer Warren
Another life was lost on Queens Boulevard last week when Eugene Eisenberg of Kew Gardens, an 83-year-old Holocaust survivor, was struck at the 80th Road intersection.
While Eisenberg was in the crosswalk at about 9:35 p.m. last Thursday, a Q10 Green Line Bus traveling north on 80th Road made a right turn onto the boulevard, hitting him, police said. The driver was not charged in the accident, said Detective Theresa Farello.
“It’s an unfortunate accident. They both had the light,” said Capt. Thomas Cea of the 102nd Precinct as he surveyed the scene the next day.
Eisenberg’s death is the first pedestrian fatality this year along Queens Boulevard, but the seventh during the past 10 months. In late November a 14-year old was struck and killed as she crossed at 67th Avenue. A few days later, a firefighter was stuck and severely injured as he crossed 55th Avenue.
The latest incident occurred just hours before the city Department of Transportation was to launch a pedestrian signage campaign.
“It’s ironic,” said DOT spokesman Tom Cocola, who said his agency had 400 strongly worded signs created to warn pedestrians about crossing the boulevard. The most dramatic of the signs reads, “A pedestrian was killed crossing here/ Be Alert/ Cross with care.”
Eisenberg, who lived just blocks away in Hampton Court, an apartment complex on the edge of Forest Park, was taken to Jamaica Hospital’s trauma center where he was admitted in “extremely critical condition for severe head trauma,” said hospital spokesman Michael Hink. Eisenberg was rushed to the operating room but died during surgery at 2:57 a.m., Hink said.
Eisenberg, a wine merchant during his years in Europe, was a member of Queens’ Vaad Harabonim Chevra Kadisha, a religious society which, as part of Jewish tradition, sits with the dead before funerals. The director of the Chevra Kadisha, Rabbi Eichonon Zohn, who had known Eisenberg for 18 years, said he was a quiet and reserved man but a highly knowledgeable one.
“When he did speak, he had a lot to say. He was insightful,” Zohn said. “He had been through quite a lot. He was a Holocaust survivor. He had a real understanding of people, of human nature.”
Eisenberg was also a highly self-sufficient man, Zohn said. And though the Kadisha society would often try to find rides home for Eisenberg, he also often walked by himself, not wanting to burden others.
At the time of the accident, Eisenberg, who had survived the Mathausen concentration camp in Austria and later two open-heart surgeries, was on his way to the Schwartz Brothers-Jeffer Memorial Chapel in Forest Hills, Newsday reported.
A clerk named Fidel from Nathan’s restaurant, which is on the corner where the accident occurred, witnessed the incident. Eisenberg’s motionless body lay in front of the bus, bleeding from the head, he said.
A crowd of people had gathered around the accident scene. One person came into the restaurant to dial 911, said Fidel, who declined to give his last name. Fire officials received the call at 9:35 p.m., and arrived on the scene at 9:41 p.m., officials said.
The driver of the Green Line Bus, David McFadden, was also taken to Jamaica Hospital, where he was treated for trauma and released. McFadden, who has been with the bus company since February 1996, has no record of any traffic or motor vehicle violations while operating a Green Line bus, said company spokesman Jamie Van Bramer.
The bus involved in the accident was inspected the following morning and no operational defects were found, Van Bramer said.
Preliminary police reports suggested that livery cabs and limousines may have been parked illegally in the bus stop, forcing the Green Line bus from its usual route, said DOT’s Cocola.
The DOT has placed Pedestrian Killed signs at eight intersections along Queens Boulevard where three or more fatalities occurred — 70th Road, Broadway-Grand Avenue, Yellowstone Boulevard, 66th Avenue, 75th Avenue, 71st Avenue, 51st Avenue and 46th Street.
The intersection where Eisenberg was killed was not among them.
“This intersection was beyond the study area,” Cocola said.
Reach reporter Jennifer Warren by e-mail at Timesledgr@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 155.
