KingOfJericho
Go Kart Champion
- Location
- Norwalk, CT
I did a search and couldn't find it posted. Was this anyone on here?
An out-of-control car flew off a 59th Street Bridge exit ramp yesterday, killing an elderly bystander on a Long Island City street now being renovated -- for pedestrian safety.
The eastbound red 2007 Volkswagen Rabbit failed to make the sharp-right exit to Queens Plaza and instead went soaring off the roadway, flipping upside-down in midair before crashing into a row of businesses and fatally striking Anthony Buscemi, 68, at about 4:30 a.m.
The unidentified 35-year-old driver's arm was severed in the crash. He was taken to Bellevue Hospital, where he was listed in stable condition. His female passenger, 31, was in stable condition at Weill-Cornell Hospital.
Buscemi worked as a cabdriver at the nearby Midtown Operating Corp., co-workers said. It wasn't immediately clear whether he had been leaving the job or arriving at the time.
The Queens Plaza off-ramp had recently been redone as part of the Queens Plaza Pedestrian and Bicycle Improvement Project.
The 1½-acre project -- bankrolled by $37.7 million in federal funds and $6.6 million in city money -- is set to be finished next year. It is designed to "increase pedestrian and bicycle safety" in the neighborhood, according to a city profile of the work.
Before it was revamped, the Queens Plaza exit was much straighter and easier to spot from the roadway, neighbors said.
"Now . . . there's no way to see [the new off-ramp] beforehand," said dentist Matthew Hyde, whose practice is around the corner from the accident scene.
A spokesman for the city's Department of Transportation did not return several messages.
"I notice a lot of near-misses," Hyde said. "I see a lot of al most-accidents."
The driver was not impaired or cited for the accident, cops said.
The crash did major damage to the Villa de Beaute beauty salon and Espinal's Caribbean Restaurant and smashed the front window of neighboring KAF Check Cashing Inc.
Kathy Anderson, the owner of KAF, said one of Espinal's waitresses told her she had been walking to work around the time of the crash -- and was nearly hit by the flying Volkswagen.
"It was her lucky day. It just wasn't her day yet," Anderson said.
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/queens/bridge_horror_QPqDo5cmSYvSeRq5kHb4xN#ixzz1Hzpr3M00
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