This week marks the 50th anniversary of the tragic plane crash that sent two aircrafts hurling into the city's outer boroughs—one landing in Staten Island, the other in Park Slope. A memorial will finally be unveiled at Green-Wood cemetery tomorrow morning, the actual date the crash took place, and now City Room is memorializing the event with a little series. Today they report that while no plaque marks the crash spot at 7th Avenue and Sterling Place (which may be why many locals have no idea it even happened), there are physical markers in the area.
You could even, if you had X-ray vision, see the shattered pieces of the jet itself, hiding behind a backyard bush just feet from where they fell a half-century ago... the unofficial memorials tell their own story.
One local they talk to says a landlord warned him that he may find fingers while digging in the garden in the back of his apartment! Another, Steve Keltner, has "two big pieces of what was clearly once a plane" in his backyard. The pieces were found by teens who were digging through a condo development site five years ago, they sold them to Keltner for 5 bucks. Here's a look back at the crash site just after it occurred—it was well documented by LIFE magazine at the time.
