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I was born on February 6, 1945, to Josephine and Dominick Quarantello in Brooklyn, New York, into a second-generation Italian American. I went to PS 202, East New York, Brooklyn, in grade school and East New York Vocational and Thomas Jefferson in high school. Apr 20, 2018 In East New York, Brooklyn, a police observation tower still hovers over the intersection where a 16-year-old boy was gunned down on his way home from playing basketball last November.

A landscaped patio stands in sharp contrast to stacks of tires next door. A tire repair business once took up this whole site. But now an affordable housing complex, Linwood Park Apartments, stands at the corner of Linwood Street and Atlantic Avenue. Many of its residents had been homeless, including Evelyn Perez.

'Finally they called me and that was the best thing that ever happened to me. Best thing,' said Perez. “I'm relieved. You know, I feel much better.'

What You Need To Know

• Linwood Park Apartments opens as a permanent affordable housing complex in East New York


• The building which has 100 apartments houses many formerly homeless families and individuals


• On-site supportive services are also offered to residents


• East New York was rezoned in 2016 to spur development including housing

This is the first affordable housing development to open in East New York, Brooklyn since the de Blasio administration rezoned the area four years ago to spur development, including more housing. Rafael Espinal helped push the proposal through when he was a City Councilman.

'We made sure that at the end of the day at least 50 percent of the housing that is being built in East New York in the next 10 years is going to be truly affordable and permanently affordable for low income families and that what's we're seeing,” said Espinal.

Built by L+M Development Partners and B&B Urban, the 10-story building has 100 apartments, a rooftop garden, laundry facilities, a gym and a library. Developer Alan Bell, who's been building housing in the city for more than four decades, now focuses on building affordable units.

'We saw the most critical need as providing new quality housing for kids who are now in the shelter system, whose lives are really completely dysfunctional because of being moved from place to place, having to travel extreme long distances to school, everything changing all the time,” said Bell. “I mean a kid needs stability.'

Linwood Park also helps provide stability for residents with supportive services. The non-profit group,HousingPlus, employs seven case managers who work with the tenants.

'They have an opportunity to change their lives from living in shelters or living in substandard housing or housing that was too expensive,' said Rita Zimmer, executive director of HousingPlus. “I think the important thing is that it's affordable.'

Perez and her 17-year-old son have a two-bedroom apartment. They had been moving around around from shelter to shelter for the eight years while applying for subsidized housing, before getting this place.

Map Of East New York

For Perez and her son, it's not just new, it's a place they can now call home.

'He doesn't always have to be going to his friends house,' Perez said. “His friends come over to his house.'

A 22-year-old cyclist died a week after he suffered injuries in a crash in East New York, Brooklyn, according to the NYPD.

Juan Tiu-Caxaj was cycling northbound on Autumn Avenue near Fulton Street less than a block away from where he lived about 1 a.m. on Saturday, November 7th, the police department said in a news release.

A driver headed westbound on Fulton Street struck Tiu-Caxaj, who sustained head injuries and was taken to Jamaica Medical Center in stable condition, the police department said.

But a week later, on Saturday, he died of his injuries.

The driver stayed at the scene of the crash that night and has not been charged. The police department says Tiu-Caxaj biked through a stop sign just before he was hit, but the NYPD did not immediately respond to a request for more details about the fatal collision.

An investigation by the NYPD's Highway Collision Investigation Squad is ongoing.

Also over the weekend, Sonia Sotomayor, a 58-year-old Bronx woman, was struck and killed while trying to cross the street at East 180th Street and Southern Boulevard about 7 p.m. Saturday.

The driver stayed at the scene, and nobody has been arrested. The NYPD's collision squad is investigating that crash too.

Tiu-Caxaj and Sotomayor are among about 200 traffic fatalities so far in 2020, which advocates say put NYC on track for the second straight year of increased road fatalities.

As of November 12th, 83 pedestrians, 21 cyclists, 45 motorcyclists, and 59 vehicle occupants have died on city streets—the highest total traffic deaths since 2014 through that date, the Department of Transportation latest statistics show.

Last week, a 35-year-old delivery worker was struck and killed while on an e-scooter in Queens, at an intersection where safe street activists have called for true protective barriers for the bike lanes. Currently, the bike lanes are 'protected' with flexi-posts that do not keep vehicles out of NYC's green-painted bike lanes, intended to be protected.

East New York Google Maps

On Sunday, Families for Safe Streets and Transportation Alternatives are holding a virtual rally to call on Mayor Bill de Blasio to 'DO SOMETHING' about the hundreds of traffic deaths since he took office. The groups say nearly 1,000 pedestrians, cyclists, e-bike, and e-scooter riders have died in NYC since de Blasio took office in 2014.

In efforts to make streets safer, the city has lowered speed limits and made some city streets pedestrian-only, but the latter program has been criticized as falling short of what NYC needs. We've reached out to City Hall for comment.

UPDATE, November 16th, 11:08 a.m.: Transportation Alternatives's executive director Danny Harris said in a statement the two traffic deaths were preventable.

'Both deadly crashes occurred in parts of the city neglected during Mayor de Blasio's tenure and Vision Zero program,' Harris said in a statement. 'While the location in East New York is a Vision Zero Priority Area, the area lacks the type of protected bike lane infrastructure that has been proven to save lives elsewhere in the city.'

Harris added that the de Blasio administration has cut funds for Vision Zero and a massive bike lane rollout called the Green Wave Plan, as well as delayed the Dangerous Vehicle Abatement Program and the Streets Master Plan during the COVID-19 crisis.

'Instead of doing more to save lives, Mayor de Blasio is doing less,' Harris said.

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