By Anna Gustafson
An unidentified woman in her 20s died in a hit−and−run at the intersection of 70th Street and Queens Boulevard in Elmhurst last week, prompting neighbors to once again fear for their safety as pedestrians.
“In the last six months, there have been two people hit in front of my house,” said Lucy Hensley, who lives in a Queens Boulevard apartment in front of the intersection where the fatality occurred on April 8. “I am very scared.”
Police would not release the woman’s name until her family was notified.
The pedestrian was struck by a vehicle traveling eastbound on Queens Boulevard at about 9:15 p.m., police said. The driver sped off after leaving the woman lying in the middle of the street, Hensley said a witness told her.
A man traveling behind the driver who hit the woman pulled over and stepped out into the street to deter traffic away from the woman’s body, Hensley said.
The woman was rushed to Elmhurst Hospital, where she was pronounced dead on arrival.
A witness at the scene told Hensley the vehicle that hit the woman was black.
Hensley did not see the hit−and−run, but she heard the “brakes and the crash.”
“When we opened the door, my daughter said, “There’s somebody on the street lying down,” Hensley said. “I saw the girl, and she was very young.”
The woman may have lived nearby because she was only carrying keys with her when she was hit, Hensley said.
Hensley said she is especially worried about her family’s safety, particularly that of her 17− and 18−year−old daughters.
“I want to move because I’m so scared,” said Hensley, a real−estate agent in Corona who has lived in her Elmhurst home for three years. “They need to do something about this intersection. They should put cameras outside and they should have something different for people who are walking, like an elevated crosswalk.”
Residents have long expressed concern about Queens Boulevard, informally known as the “Boulevard of Death” to community members. Michael Chang, who works at Custom Car, an auto shop on Queens Boulevard, called the wide roadway “really dangerous.”
“We saw a woman get hit a couple months ago,” Chang said. “It seems like there’s an accident every couple months.”
Chang said he, too, believes cameras monitoring the area could help to deter hit−and−runs.
Reach reporter Anna Gustafson by e−mail at agustafson@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718−229−0300, Ext. 174.
