It's only been three months since 12-year-old Sammy Cohen Eckstein was killed by a driver on Prospect Park West, and while his family continues to grieve, one woman has decided that mourning time is officially over, taking it upon herself to dismantle the memorial that friends and family have maintained at the 3rd Street entrance to Prospect Park.
A tipster wrote to F*cked in Park Slope yesterday:
Biked into 3rd St. entrance to Prospect Park just as a woman was cutting all of the mementos off of Sammy’s memorial. The woman came prepared with a scissor and large shopping bag to put the mementos in. It so happened that another neighborhood parent - whose child was also a friend of Sammy’s - happened to run by and as he yelled at her she said she felt that there had been “enough mourning.” She told me she lived in Park Slope, which she felt gave her the right to do this.
The tipster apparently called the police, but left when they arrived. The woman, however, was later seen leaving the park at Grand Army Plaza.
Sammy's mother, Amy Cohen, told us that friends have since replaced the things that were left next to the memorial. Most of the items were still there, she said, but not all of them.
Cohen added that she heard of the dismantling from a friend who herself had read of it on Facebook. "I cried inconsolably when I heard but I have no more information," she wrote in an email.
Cohen, along with her husband, Gary Eckstein, and their daughter, Tamar, have been urging the city to lower the speed limit on Prospect Park West to 20 mph, arguing that doing so is in keeping with Mayor de Blasio's goal of eliminating traffic fatalities by 2024. In a strangely timed twist, Cohen said she heard that 25 mph signs were being posted along the road this morning. The DOT has yet to respond to a request for comment.
