The Gowanus Canal is being considered by the EPA as a potential Superfund site. (Photo courtesy of wallyg/Flickr)

Three hundred concerned citizens gathered in the auditorium of P.S. 32 in Carroll Gardens on a recent weeknight to hear the fate of their beloved, polluted backyard waterway: the Gowanus Canal. Would the federal Environmental Protection Agency list it as a Superfund site, granting millions of dollars to its cleanup? And, just how bad is the water, anyway?

The two-mile stretch runs parallel to Third Avenue, between Douglas and Ninth streets, with footbridges affording views of a children’s bicycle lodged in the muck and, on occasion, a dead fish floating along, belly-up. More than a hundred years of manufacturing and gas production along the canal lead to such pollution, and even with a dredging in 1975 and pumping stations that flush it with fresh water, the thing still smells.

So on Thursday night, residents in the canal’s surrounding neighborhoods wanted to know what was going to be done. One hour and six minutes into the meeting, they had their answer. Their new city councilman, Brad Lander, had asked the EPA’s emergency and remedial response director, Walter Mugdan, about the different environmental issues involved with a cleanup. In the course of determining whether the Gowanus qualifies for Superfund status, scientists will be studying its sediment contamination — that is, how dirty the mud is.

Mugdan is a tall man dressed in white and olive: his longish white hair matched his white beard and white dress shirt, and his patterned olive green tie matched his olive green slacks. He rocks forward when he talks in a deep voice, projecting to the back of the auditorium in a rhythmic cadence.

“Normally, we measure contaminated sediments in parts per million, or parts per billion, or even in parts per trillion,” he started, noting with declining scale how minimally clean mud could be.

“Here, we are measuring the contaminants by parts per hundred.”

The audience collectively gasped, and then there was a silence in the room. Mugdan just nodded.

By Sarah Portlock

In the heart of Brooklyn, amid the cacophonous honking, speeding vehicles, and vast pavement sits an oasis of calm. Its 11 acres are home to the borough’s salute to its Civil War soldier and sailor veterans, an ornate bronze fountain, and, every weekend, the city’s second-largest Greenmarket. And yet, to get to Grand Army Plaza takes patience, a prayer, and a pair of quick feet.

At its conception in 1870, Frederick Law Olmstead and Calvert Vaux imagined “Prospect Plaza” as a ceremonial space and approach to what is widely considered their masterpiece, Prospect Park. In 1892, architect John H. Duncan designed and constructed the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Memorial Arch, modeled after the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. In 1926, the space was renamed Grand Army Plaza to commemorate the Union Army. And in 1932, architect Edgerton Swarthout completed the plaza’s third and final fountain — earlier versions were either inoperable or destroyed during subway construction — with looming figures of Neptune and Triton and named for Brooklyn financier and philanthropist Frank Bailey. In 2002, the fountain and its mechanical works underwent a $2-million restoration and today it stands as one of Brooklyn’s most popular wedding photograph destinations.

But such grandiosity sits beyond the roundabout intersections of the borough’s busiest streets: Flatbush Avenue, Vanderbilt Avenue, Eastern Parkway, Prospect Park West, and Union Street. Drivers can come from and get to virtually any point in Brooklyn from the traffic circle, and as a result come flying in and then spurting out from its spokes. Bicyclists shoot in and out and across the wide avenue lanes, sometimes obeying bike lanes and other times choosing a more direct route. Pedestrians are left to navigate short crosswalks across turning lanes and longer ones that span the avenues, often with what seems like little time on the red light.

Perhaps it is no wonder the area is one of the borough’s largest sites of pedestrian accidents —there were 76 pedestrians struck and two fatalities between 1995 and 2005, the most recent data available, according to the advocacy group Transportation Alternatives. To compare, there were 107 pedestrians struck and one fatality at the busy intersection of Flatbush, Atlantic, and Fourth avenues in the same time period.

“All of this design didn’t contemplate the automobile,” said Andrew Saunders, who lives nearby and chairs the Quality of Life committee at the Grand Army Plaza Coalition, a three-year-old community organization of area stakeholders dedicated to solving the Plaza’s riddle.

On a recent blustery day, Saunders and Rob Witherwax, a longtime Prospect Heights resident and GAPCo coordinator, wandered the plaza, reciting what most frequently goes wrong when, and where.

“Getting from Point A to Point B isn’t ever the case here, it’s always Point A to Point G and you have to go through B, C, D, E, and F to get there,” Witherwax said. “It’s always more complex than it needs to be or should be to navigate the space on foot or on car or on bike.”

Pedestrians navigating their way across the confusing crosswalks said much the same thing — there are no obvious solutions to get across the plaza.

“It is terrifying to cross here,” said Rebecca Pechefsky, who has lived along the plaza’s eastern border for 10 years, as she crossed in front of Brooklyn Public Library along a crosswalk. “It’s partly because of the way people drive, because people drive terribly anyway, but they’re also confused by this whole setup and it’s also because the lights are confusing.”

Gabriel Ewing, who lives in Carroll Gardens, was stretching after a run in Prospect Park and considering the best route back home.  “I’ve never gone through it, I usually just cross around it. The fastest path between two points is going around this, not straight through,” he said. “I think that’s the only way.”

He added, “There’s a lot of stuff going on — cars are going in all different directions so you have to be really aware when you cross, even if you have a walk signal. Somebody might be making a turn. I think it’s more daunting here because you have five intersections, and it looks like there’s eight lanes right off the bat.”

Grand Army Plaza is a problem. But there are lovers of open space and of Brooklyn who want to address that challenge — GAPCo included — and there are city agencies and elected officials willing to brainstorm and study solutions, too. What the ultimate answer will be is still unknown, but that’s not stopping anyone from trying. There are traffic flow puzzles to solve, pedestrian- and cyclist-interests to consider, and then there’s the new, popular urban planning topic: how to create more open green space and improve the quality of life around the plaza.

Last fall, GAPCo and the Design Trust for Public Space — a nonprofit organization that works with city agencies and neighborhoods on sustainable urban design projects — planned an international competition to create conceptual solutions about how to fix Grand Army Plaza. For a month, nearly 2,000 visitors descended to the middle of the plaza to scrutinize the 30 finalists’ ideas. The winning team proposed a scheme called “Canopy” that called for reconnecting the plaza to the park and freeing the plaza’s west side, burying Flatbush Avenue underneath a land bridge, and making pedestrians, not cars, the dominant users. The competition served to flush out quickly and effectively more than 200 ideas for how the plaza could be improved, said Design Trust Executive Director, Deborah Marton. It also proved that people do actually come to a public space — no matter how treacherous — if interesting materials await them there, judging by the high volume of visitors, Marton added. On Dec. 15, the Design Trust published a book that analyzes the finalists’ ideas and highlights next steps, and received funding from the public charity group Brooklyn Community Foundation, the city Department of Cultural Affairs, and Transportation Alternatives for Reinventing Grand Army Plaza: Visionary Designs for the Heart of Brooklyn.

“There’s lots of ways to improve Grand Army Plaza, so by doing the competition we basically framed the conversation,” she said. “It comes down to safer and better access for bicyclists and pedestrians, more efficient use of the plaza as an occupyable space and not just a passive space that people drive around because it’s not accessible.”

But before any high-concept ideas become reality, traffic engineers must first figure out what goes through drivers’ minds as they careen through.

Traffic reorganization

Part of the traffic problem is the confusion in the roads that lead into the traffic circle. This fall, a group of community organizations and city agencies — including GAPCo, Community Boards 6 and 8, the MTA, and the city’s traffic and parks departments — toured the area and watched the traffic move around and through. There are small, but potentially significant, solutions, such as eliminating traffic lanes in feeder roads and creating bike lanes. And then there is the sort of overarching traffic study that stakeholders have long hoped for — an opportunity that may knock in the next year. Recently, Congresswoman Yvette Clarke, who represents the district, requested $960,000 in funding from the current surface transportation authorization bill for a planning study for the reconfiguration of Grand Army Plaza. The study would investigate “everything that goes in and goes out of Grand Army Plaza and is on four wheels, or more,” Witherwax said. The information gleaned from it could provide the baseline data that’s needed to make bigger changes, he explained.

“Before everything else goes on, we need to understand that this is the major traffic distributor for Brooklyn and that it’s not going to go away and we don’t want it to go away,” Witherwax said. “We just want to manage it in a manner that’s beneficial for every user.”

Changes have been made so far, however minor. In 2007, for instance, the city replaced painted medians with elevated, planted areas that allow pedestrians a respite from the traffic, and also added crosswalks and relocated traffic with zebra-striped painted medians. But the thoroughfare pavement is still a wide swath of white lines and stoplights and crosswalks that often require the pedestrian to anticipate traffic roaring up the avenues from the other end of the plaza.

Other changes include a new bike lane last summer along Vanderbilt Avenue that eliminated a traffic lane, built a median, and slowed traffic. In January, construction will begin on a plan to eliminate a lane of traffic on Prospect Park West and add a separated two-way bike lane. And there is talk of eliminating a treacherous left turn loop and replacing it with a formalized traffic light with a left turn signal at the plaza’s north end.

The city transportation department presented its latest plan in November to Community Board 6: replacing two parking lanes along two-way Union Street with traffic lanes during rush hour, giving drivers more options to get to and from Park Slope and the rest of Brooklyn. The board’s transportation committee chair, Thomas Miskel, said his group was receptive to the idea but concerned about the loss of precious parking spots in a car-heavy neighborhood. But GAPCo has its own reservations, and Saunders called the solution a “fraught argument,” pointing to a parking garage on the south side of Union Street and the traffic congestion it could inevitably cause with more moving traffic lanes.

GAPCo instead envisions dedicated turning lanes and bus lanes, the elimination of “slip” turning lanes, and raised islands that can become miniature plazas for public use. Ultimately, the group wants to see the arch as a peninsula-like extension of the park, not an island.

“This stretch of road between the arch and Prospect Park — we’d love in a sense maybe not to get rid of that, but to make a connection a little more feasible between the arch and the park,” Witherwax said. “Closing the GAP, we call it.”

Saunders added, “So that the arch doesn’t become a standalone in and of itself, but is truly the entrance to the park — that’s the endgame.”

Quality of Life

But beyond the physical hurdles to get to the plaza is how can people live in and enjoy the space in the meantime. The Prospect Park Alliance, a public-private organization that cares for Prospect Park, recently raised money for dedicated plaza gardener, and this summer Marcia Wint began cleaning the area, freeing it of litter, pruning its bushes, and helping lost tourists find the area’s cultural hotspots three days a week.

“I take care of the whole kit and kaboodle, and I’m loving it,” Wint said.

The Alliance is also in the midst of a multimillion-dollar fundraising campaign to restore the arch. It once held performances — and was even home for puppet storage — at its apex indoors, but rickety staircases up its legs and a leaking roof prevent any current public activity there. In the last year, Borough President Marty Markowitz has allocated $1 million to the restoration from his capital budget, according to his spokesman Mark Zustovich, and Councilwoman Letitia James, whose district touches the eastern part of the plaza, has allocated $100,000 from the City Council capital budget, according to James’ budget director, Simone Hawkins. Engineers are studying the damage to come up with a final price tag, said Alliance spokesman Eugene Patron.

There is also the story of the open, but unplanned space, between the fountain and arch and at several medians and smaller plaza scattered along the edges. At the southern plaza, the city’s second-largest Greenmarket is “packed like some bustling medieval market,” Witherwax said, and GAPCo envisions it spreading northward to this unused roadway. A smaller plaza west could house tables and chairs for shoppers to enjoy lunch or the newspaper, Witherwax said. Already, musicians occasionally perform at the park’s northern end, and the Brooklyn Public Library this summer expanded its front plaza, overlooking Grand Army Plaza.

And then there is the question of what to do with the berms — the three overgrown ridges separating Flatbush Avenue’s north and southbound lanes from Plaza Streets east and west. Currently the areas are fenced in, but homeless people often sleep there and dog owners are known to let their pets run free there.

“It’s a silencing device, it’s a greening device, it’s visually pleasant,” Witherwax said.

On sunny, warm days, the benches are full, Saunders added, who also organizes a monthly Friends of the Berms cleaning event. “It really works, it achieves its purpose. What we want to do is incrementally enhance it further,” he said. He pointed to a darkened spot where a bench needs replacement. Another question: should the berms stay wild or should they be cut back to create recreation areas for people to congregate and relax?

Ultimately, whatever happens at the berms in some ways reflects whatever will happen with the plaza at large. Its many components concern the citizens living, working, and playing around it, and, as Witherwax said, at least the various stakeholders come together periodically to discuss what to do. “There’s a whole lot of agreement, which is nice,” he said.

“All of the stakeholders see the same major elements: that better pedestrian access serves everybody, that there’s too much resources given over to the automobile and to cars, and that greening the whole space and making more places that people can go to and use in the plaza benefits everybody.”

It is a possible goal, particularly for those who believe in the power of reclaiming urban space for pedestrians. As it is today, the axiom “the shortest distance between two points is a straight line” does not exist in Grand Army Plaza — there is no short, straight way, there are no two points, and often the quickest way is the safest way: stop, listen, and look both ways before crossing the street, and hustle across as if the traffic were careening around the bend any moment. (In fact, it probably already is.) To make any or all parts quicker, straighter, or safer is an accomplishment to that goal, but it doesn’t have to be winner-take-all. It will be a compromise of Brooklyn’s greatest constituents —drivers, cyclists, pedestrians — and any step forward is a safer step in the right direction.

Navy veteran Shawna Lee stuck an American flag into her blazer pocket, accentuating the ribbons she earned on two deployments in the U.S. Navy. Photo: Portlock/Brooklyn Ink

By Sarah Portlock

Navy veterans Milaina Jacques and Shawna Lee knew they wanted to come to the annual Veterans Day Parade along Fifth Avenue — the only question was, what would they wear?

Jacques, 25, and Lee, 24, met aboard the USS Harry S. Truman during their first deployment in 2005 in the Persian Gulf and became fast friends. They soon discovered that they both were from Brooklyn — Jacques lives in Crown Heights, Lee in Flatbush — and loved fashion.

“On the ship, we would be out to sea and plan our future,” Jacques said. “We were both into fashion and we both wanted to go to F.I.T,” the Fashion Institute of Technology. They bonded while admiring the local fashions they saw in Dubai, London, and Paris.

But military uniforms don’t allow for much personal style, and the girls tried their best. Lee said she would paint her nails bright colors or dye her hair, but her supervisors would make her take it off. The parade was their chance to make their uniforms more stylish.

Early Wednesday morning, Lee and Jacques rose and pinned their Good Conduct and National Defense medals and ribbons, among others, to their own navy blue blazers and paired it with tight pants, black boots, and bright handbags. At one point, Jacques considered wearing her “cruise jacket,” the bomber-style jacket with patches for the wearer’s ship, wars fought, ports entered, and years fighting, but there was a catch.

Navy veterans and Brooklynites Milaina Jacques, left, and Shawna Lee joined thousands of vets who marched up Fifth Avenue on Wednesday in the annual New York City Veterans Day Parade. Photo: Portlock/Brooklyn Ink

“Mine is red and I didn’t have anything to match it,” she said.

It was the first parade for both girls, who were always deployed on past Veterans Days. In September, they enrolled in Kingsborough Community College in Manhattan Beach — “to get all the general requirements out of the way,” Lee explained, before applying to F.I.T. ­— and were invited to ride in the City University of New York-wide float along the parade route up Fifth Avenue, from 25th to 56th streets.

Jacques and Lee arrived at the CUNY meeting point at West 29th Street at 10 am, and, by noon, nearly 100 students and staffers were milling about, catching up with fellow soldiers and taking pictures with the bright blue and white CUNY flatbed truck. Jacques was missing art class, sociology, English and history to attend the parade, but secured an official letter from CUNY excusing her for the day. There are at least 250 veterans who attend Kingsborough, according to the school’s veterans affairs coordinator, Peaches Diamond.

“I’m very excited to be here,” Jacques said, tightening her leopard-print scarf against the brisk November wind. “It’s to celebrate what we’ve done, and it’s reminiscing to see all the vets who know what we did. When you come home, friends don’t really know what you did.”

Lee said the day was her way of supporting friends who are still on active duty, but wasn’t sure if she would come until she watched on TV the funerals for 13 soldiers killed in the mass shooting at Fort Hood, Texas last week.

“I may not have known them personally, but it’s still sad when a life is lost,” she said, acknowledging that Jacques gave her a push, too.

At 12:45, the truck hauling the CUNY float revved its engine and turned the corner to Fifth Avenue. Jacques and Lee were on a top level and beamed as they saw the spectators lined up, clapping as they passed and holding signs that said simply, “Thank you.” The girls cheered and waved their flags fanatically.

When the float passed the New York Public Library, a parade emcee barked into a bullhorn, “And here’s CUNY!” Jacques and Lee threw their heads back and cheered even louder when he mentioned Kingsborough.

By 1:50, the truck arrived at 56th Street, the official end of the parade. Jacques and Lee were beaming.

“I want to do it again!,” Jacques said twice. “It felt like when we man the rails,” she added, referring to the Navy tradition of sailors lining up along a ship’s railings when it enters a port.

“It makes you feel proud that you served your country,” she added. “I didn’t expect a lot of people to be clapping and cheering for us, and to see old veterans gathering and all the kids cheering us on.”

Lee looked expectantly at Jacques.

“I’m definitely glad I came,” she said. “Thanks for convincing me.”

***

Meanwhile, in Brooklyn Heights…

Photo: Roberts/Brooklyn Ink

At Cadman Plaza Park, a young man stood staring up at the 24-foot tall memorial wall that honors those from Brooklyn who served in World War II. The wall is flanked on each side by a giant stone sculpture—one is a male warrior bearing a sword, the other a woman holding a child. The figures are meant to represent victory and family.

The man stood with his two young daughters at his side. One gripped his hand as he read aloud part of the engraved inscription on the monument wall:

TO THE HEROIC MEN AND WOMEN OF THE BOROUGH OF BROOKLYN WHO FOUGHT FOR LIBERTY IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR

“That’s my grandpa,” he told his daughters proudly. “Do you understand? Daddy’s dad’s dad.”

-Daniel Roberts

By Sarah Portlock and Derrick Bryson Taylor

A friend holds Jayden Lenescar's grandmother, Diana Tate (far right, in white) as she watches Jayden's casket placed into the waiting hearse on Saturday. Photo: Portlock/Brooklyn Ink

The time had come for Diana Tate to speak at her grandson Jayden’s funeral. She rose from her seat on the aisle at St. Matthew’s Roman Catholic Church and walked past his small white coffin.

She climbed three steps and turned to face the congregation that had grown quiet in anticipation of what she would say.

A week had passed since her daughter and her companion had been arrested and charged with beating four-year-old Jayden Lenescar with their fists and a belt and leaving him in a bathtub to die of organ failure and cardiac arrest two days later, on Oct. 23.

Tate stood with her shoulders back, a stout woman in a flowing white skirt, a black jacket and white ribbon in her hair. She did not meet the eyes of those watching her. Instead she looked straight ahead and then to the coffin below her.

“I’m Jayden’s grandma,” she began. “This is a pain that has no medication for it.”

She closed her eyes and opened her arms wide in front of her and said, “I love Jayden and he loves me so much. I want to know why he’s not here with me. Why? Why?”

The ritual of mourning and burial had begun Friday night with a wake at the Robeson and Brown Funeral Home in Bedford-Stuyvesant. People had gathered outside the door and as they chatted they could hear the wailing coming from inside.

Jayden lay in an open casket. He wore jeans and Spiderman T-shirt. Nestled in the white satin in which he lay were his toys — a big teddy bear, a GI Joe. Photographs of Jayden rotated in the flat screen television above him — Jayden at a pool, at the beach, in a tuxedo with a bow tie, with his father, and, as an infant, being held by his mother.

The room was filling up. “One Sweet Day,” by Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men played in the background. Diana Tate sat in front of the casket, weeping. “I want Jayden back,” she said.

From time to time she rose and walked to the casket. She reached in to touch his folded hands. She shook her head and cried until people came to lead her back to her seat.

Her daughter, Myrna Chenphang, was being held at Rikers Island charged with second-degree murder. She had visited the funeral home earlier that day, escorted by a prison guard.

The guests took turns telling stories about Jayden; how he loved making believe he was Spiderman, leaping off the bed mimicking the sound of webs coming out of his finger tips.

Someone sang “Amazing Grace” and then the funeral director asked everyone who wished to view Jayden to line up. Some reached to touch him. Others paused to take a photograph.

The following morning perhaps 200 people gathered at St. Matthews on Eastern Parkway. It is a vast sanctuary filled with images and icons and illuminated by sunlight.

An aunt releases balloons into the air above St. Matthews Church in Crown Heights. Photo: Portlock/Brooklyn Ink

Father Andrew Struzzieri, accompanied by a deacon and two altar girls, walked down the center aisle to Jayden’s casket, which lay at the Baptismal fount. Father Andy, as he is known, sprinkled holy water on the casket before the pallbearers covered it with a white cloth and accompanied to the altar. The deacon handed the censer to Father Andy who made the sign of the cross over the altar and then over the casket.

“There is really no way I myself can console you,” he said. “Only God can.”

He continued. “Jayden is like Jesus. Jesus was innocent and died a terrible death. Jayden is innocent and died a terrible death.”

Readings followed, as did songs. A soprano sang “Ave Maria,” and as the music soared so too did the wailing from front of the room, where Jayden’s grandmothers sat. The sounds were so primordial, so filled with hurt and pain and suffering, that people looked at one another as if they did not know what to do.

The congregation joined in saying the Lord’s Prayer. And then the time had come for Diana Tate to speak.

“Jayden, I’m sorry,” she said. Her composure was ebbing. “I’m sorry I didn’t save you and I couldn’t protect you. Forgive me. Forgive me, Jayden. I wish I was here to save you. Oh, Jayden. You know how he was my love, my happiness. He made me so happy. He was almost my kid, and I miss him so much. I’m so sorry I couldn’t save you.”

An aunt of Jayden’s tried to lead her back to her seat. But Tate would not leave the casket. She rested an arm across it, as if in a hug. “I’m so sorry,” she said.

The pallbearers accompanied the casket of the church and to a waiting hearse that would carry Jayden to Pinelawn Cemetery on Long Island.

And on Monday morning, the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office presented its case against Diana Tate’s daughter to a grand jury.

Friends and relatives set up a makeshift memorial this week for Jayden Lenescar, 4, outside his home in Crown Heights. Photo: Portlock/Brooklyn Ink

Father Andrew Struzzieri received a phone call this week from Mackenzy Lenescar, whose four-year-old son had been murdered on Oct. 23, allegedly at the hands of his mother and her companion.

Would Father Andy, as he is known, conduct his son’s funeral?

Struzzieri said yes. He has been struggling with what to say ever since. Father Andy is 62 and has been a priest for 34 years, and he has never faced this responsibility. His hair is white, and his demeanor gentle. He has been the pastor at St. Matthew Roman Catholic Church in Crown Heights for 10 years.

“I feel very sad for them – my heart goes out to the family,” he said, his hands folded calmly in front of him. “When I saw the headlines in the paper, it just disgusted me. I couldn’t read it.”

Jayden Lenescar died from extensive bruising and internal bleeding, and police arrested his mother, Myrna Chenphang, 25, and her companion, Steven Dadaille, 26, on Oct. 24 and charged them with second-degree murder for beating Jayden with their hands and a belt, police said. The New York City chief medical examiner’s office ruled the death a homicide after an autopsy revealed Jayden died from blunt impact injuries to his torso, back, legs, arms, and buttocks, according to the criminal complaint filed by the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office. Chenphang and Dadaille are currently held at the Rikers Island jail and will be arraigned in Brooklyn criminal court on Friday. Messages left with their attorneys were not immediately returned. Chenphang may be attending Jayden’s wake on Friday evening because inmates are allowed to attend significant events with an escort, said a Department of Correction spokesman. The spokesman would not comment on the particular case for security reasons.

Father Andy, meanwhile, has spent his week preparing a funeral mass. He has considered several themes. “The first thing that comes to my mind is that this shouldn’t be,” he said in an interview with The Brooklyn Ink this week, from the brownstone offices of his church. “A parent shouldn’t have to bury a child.”

He has thought about the innocence of the child, he said, and about the suffering and pain the child endured, but how he would not have been able to articulate the pain.

And the softspoken and contemplative Father Andy has thought about Jayden’s parents and his family, and if they are angry at God. “God is big enough to take it – they shouldn’t be afraid of any of their feelings at all,” he said.

He also believes it is his duty to discuss the mother and her boyfriend in the service, but will wait to get the approval to do so from Jayden’s father, Mackenzy Lenescar. “We have to pray for them,” he said calmly. “She must be experiencing so much guilt.”

On Thursday morning, Father Andy met with Jayden’s maternal grandmother, Diane Tate, to choose readings for the traditional Catholic funeral mass. “We had a beautiful conversation,” he said.

The first reading will be from the Book of Lamentations, 3:17-26. Father Andy noted the sadness in the passage, and said, “I think that touched her.”

The second reading is from a letter from St. Paul to the Romans, 8:31-35 and 37-39, which “gives so much hope,” Father Andy said.

What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us?

He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all-how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?

Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies.

Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died-more than that, who was raised to life-is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,

Neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

And, the gospel portion will be from the Gospel of Mark, 10:13-16 in which Jesus tells children to come to him and he embraces them.

But Father Andy is still working out what he will say during his sermon.

“I keep on reflecting on that. I’m not sure yet,” he said. “I’ll keep reflecting.”

The funeral will be at 10:30 am on Saturday, Oct. 31 at St. Matthew’s Roman Catholic Church at 1123 Eastern Parkway at Utica Avenue, in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. There will be a viewing from 9 to 10:30 am. Following a burial at Pinelawn Cemetery in Farmingdale, Long Island, there will be a repass at St. Matthew’s Church.

On Friday evening, the family will hold a wake from 4 to 7 pm at the Robeson and Brown Funeral Home at 396 Gates Ave., at Nostrand Avenue.

A scene from the Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council town hall on Oct. 22, 2009 at PS 9 in Prospect Heights. Photo courtesy of Tracy Collins/Flickr Creative Commons

Deloris Gillespie wants one minute to talk, just one minute. But it’s 9 pm on the dot and it’s time to end the two-hour community meeting, and she has already had her turn to speak.

Earlier, Gillespie, an older black woman, railed about the gentrifying masses to her Prospect Heights neighborhood who, with their strollers en masse, won’t move to the side and let her pass on the sidewalk.  The 30-person audience was comprised mostly of the accused gentrifiers and listened with rapt attention, even while shifting in their seats and exchanging glances with each other.

The question now presented to the meeting moderator was if she could speak again. The moderator had asked if anyone had any last-minute questions. Gillespie raised her hand. But was she overstepping her bounds? The tension was tight.

“Just one minute. I’m just getting warm,” she pleaded.

The moderator kept a straight face. “P.S. 9 has graciously stayed open late for us,” she started. Our two hours are up, she said. The meeting must end.

“One minute,” Gillespie, who rose to stand, responded.

The 300-seat auditorium was silent. The two women stared at each other. Thirty seconds passed.

“Ok-.” The moderator glanced again at the clock in the back of the vast room, her smart boxy blazer twisting around her petite frame as she turned. “You have one minute.”

Gillespie launched into a rallying cry about her upstairs neighbor who robs her and people on the street in the mornings. “He preys on the elderly,” she starts. “He wears clothes like he’s going to work,” and she pointed to her khakis. “But he doesn’t, he robs you and then he goes home.” She pauses and moves her gaze to the moderator again. The moderator is studying Gillespie’s every word.

Gillespie stops talking

The News

The minute Oslen Hill saw the uniforms at his door, he knew.  He had served in the military.  No words were necessary.  His son, Kevin O. Hill, was dead.  He was a 23-year-old soldier from Brooklyn deployed in Afghanistan.

Soon after the officers left, the phone started ringing in Oslen Hill’s home in Raleigh, North Carolina.  He picked it up to hear his wife, Mahalia Hill, screaming on the other end.  Two officers had also come to her door, in East New York, Brooklyn.  Two synchronized knocks five hundred miles apart; the same news.

Hill tried to call his daughters, Chinyere and Shantel, but he couldn’t reach them.  They had gone out shopping that Sunday and hadn’t heard the news yet.  On the bus ride back, his oldest daughter, Chinyere, called.  “The way I answered the phone, my voice, she knew that something was wrong,” he said.  “Having to tell her on the phone, and not being able to hold her.  And to hear them scream, without being able to hold them.  That just made it even worse.”

Hill has worked for the Postal Service for the past 18 years and recently relocated from New York to North Carolina, where he wanted to move his family.  After speaking to them on the phone on Sunday, Hill got in his car and drove straight to New York. “Nine hours, driving and crying, driving and crying,” he said. He arrived in Brooklyn early Monday morning, October 5.

Piecing Together the Facts

Kevin died on Sunday, October 4.

Kevin's family keeps this portrait on a table of framed photographs in their East New York home. Photo: Baynes/Brooklyn Ink

He was very close to his mother, Mahalia, and would call her every week to check in on her.  The last time they spoke was on the Tuesday before Kevin died.  He asked how she was doing, if she was going to the movies anytime soon, and if she was going to start working again.  He always asked how his sisters were doing.  Just before saying goodbye, he mentioned, “There are people in this unit who got killed,” his mother recounted.  It was the only time he told her anything related to the war.

“He never wanted his mom to worry because, of course she was worried.  He tried his best not to tell her anything really.  Anything concerning war,” his father said. “He never talked about what he was doing, and we never really pushed it because, in our eyes, people who go to combat don’t like talking about combat.”

The Hill family is still trying to piece together what happened to Kevin.  According to the Department of Defense, he died at Contingency Outpost Dehanna in Afghanistan when enemy forces attacked his unit.  Officials from the Army informed the family that Kevin died while he was out on patrol on a road near the Pakistan border.

Conflicting stories of what happened have shaken their prior assumptions.  The family understood Kevin to be working as a prison guard in Afghanistan.  They assumed this meant he would be stationary and shielded from most of the action and danger.  “Being a guard and being out there searching for IED’s in the middle of nowhere, I can’t understand,” his father said.  “But these are the stories they gave.”

Army officials told the family that Kevin was shot in the head, his father said.  He added, “I don’t know if that’s to make us feel better.  Because that sounds real neat and tidy.  No suffering.  But then, at the same time, we’re having a closed casket.”

One of Kevin’s friends from his platoon had called the family and said that there were some explosions.  “‘So Kevin, he’s not all here.’  That’s what he said,” recounted Chinyere, Kevin’s older sister.

“I don’t know whether he suffered or not, and that’s what kills me.  In terms of details, him being shot before or after.  I just try not to think about it because it’s too much, too much,” his father said, his voice breaking.  On the table in front of him stood a large bouquet of flowers with a card reading: “I’m sorry that I could not bring Kevin home.  A piece of me died that day along with him.  Know that you and your family are in our thoughts.  Love and prayers.  Sincerely, 1Lt. Patrick C. Benitez.”

Next to the flowers sits a letter on army letterhead detailing the funeral expenses covered under Kevin’s contract.

About Kevin

Kevin Hill was born on June 14, 1986 in Fayetteville, North Carolina, while his father, Oslen, was stationed at Fort Bragg.  The family followed Oslen to Germany for a short time and later moved to Bushwick, where Kevin spent most of his childhood.  The Hills didn’t want their children hanging out on the streets.  So they spent time at home, playing Nintendo games like Donkey Kong.  The children also played with a neighbor, Darryl Hamilton, who became Kevin’s best friend.  Darryl later recalled how they would all go to the movies together, like an extended family.

When Kevin was 14, his family was facing financial difficulties, and he and his sister, Shantel, moved in with their aunt, Sophia McCarthy.  McCarthy was twenty years older than Kevin’s mother, Mahalia, and the first in her family to move to New York from Jamaica.

“His aunt is so protective of him, she loves him to death,” said Kevin’s father.  “She never had any kids.  So her sister’s kids are pretty much her kids.”  Once, she asked Kevin to go out and buy some milk.  He ran into a friend and lost track of time.  He returned with the milk half-an-hour later to find police cars outside his aunt’s house.  In a panic, she had called 911.

“If you want to have a son, you should have Kevin.  He was such a good boy,” McCarthy said.  “He never wore his pants hanging low.  He went to school every single day.  He never drank any bit of alcohol.”

Kevin, far right, and two friends — Darryl Hamilton, center, and Huewayne Watson — on a recent trip to Washington D.C. before Kevin was deployed to Afghanistan. Photo: Baynes/Brooklyn Ink

Kevin seldom spoke about himself.  “He was always a very quiet kid,” his father said.  He was not the sort to push himself in class at John Dewey High School.  “He was the kid that would do the minimum,” his father said.  If 70 was a passing grade, “he would do 71 or 72.”  His older sister, Chinyere was the opposite.  So, for Oslen Hill, it was a surprise when Kevin started to work hard to go to college.  “Of course we expected her to go to college,” he said of Chinyere.  “And we were hoping he would go.  But then it turned out he did.  That was a pleasant surprise.”

Kevin held jobs at Nathan’s hot dog stand and the Cyclone’s baseball stadium on Coney Island.  The summer after high school, he worked at a law firm.  He rented his own apartment in Bushwick, but he spent little time there.  “He just worked and came home and hung out with us,” his father said.  He would take his mother and sisters to the movies or out to eat.

After graduating from John Dewey High School in 2004, Kevin went straight to a four-year degree program at Monroe College in the Bronx.  He got a job with the Transportation Security Administration as a security agent at J.F.K. Airport.  He would wake before dawn and leave the house by 4 a.m. to get to work.  After work, he would travel up to the Bronx for classes.  “He always put school first, all year round, to graduate a little early.  Summer time, winter time, he had a class no matter what,” said his sister, Chinyere.

Kevin graduated in June of 2008 with a B.A. in criminal justice.  The whole extended family, from Canada and Florida, converged on Brooklyn to celebrate.  They went to Red Lobster for dinner.

Graduating from college was a proud tradition in the Hill family.  “Except for me.  I broke it,” said Kevin’s father.  When his high school sweetheart, Kevin’s mother, Mahalia, became pregnant with their oldest child, Oslen Hill decided to join the military.  He had been working odd jobs at the time and decided that he needed more stability for his kids.

The Decision to Enlist

Kevin did not tell his family when he enlisted in the Army.  Before joining, he mentioned the idea.  When everyone, including his sisters, discouraged him, he stopped talking about it.

“None of us wanted him to go into the military.  Well not in the Army anyway because I was in the Army in the first Gulf War, and I knew what war was like.  And so I didn’t want my son experiencing combat like I did,” said Oslen Hill.  He told his son about the constant fear, of not knowing where the next bullet, mine, or sniper was hidden.

When Kevin stopped talking about the idea, they assumed that was the end of it.  “But, of course, it wasn’t because he still joined.  And when everyone found out, it was too late.  He was already in,” his father said.

The decision was a mark of Kevin’s independence.  “He liked to do things on his own,” said his mother, all the way back to when he was a baby playing with his toys.  “He liked support, for us to be there for him, but he liked to do things for himself.”

Sometimes, when Kevin was young, they would go to army exhibitions to watch his father jump out of planes.  He was a paratrooper in the 82^nd Airborne Division. “Maybe that’s why Kevin insisted on the Army,” Hill said.  “Because he had choices, I mean, any branch.  He could have gone to the Navy or the Air Force, the National Guard, but he chose the Army.  I can only say that that’s what he wanted to do.”

Oslen Hill holds a college graduation photograph of his son, Kevin, who joined the Army after school and was killed in Afghanistan this month. Photo: Baynes/Brooklyn Ink

Sitting on the couch a week after Kevin’s death, Oslen Hill clutched onto his favorite picture of Kevin.  It was one of him in college cap and gown.  “Kevin was more than a soldier. He actually did something with his life prior to being a soldier.  That’s not all he was.  I’m proud of him being a soldier, but I’m more proud of him for being a graduate,” he said.  “It means more to me.”

Kevin told his mother his ideas of becoming a detective.  He also mentioned to his father the idea of opening up a law firm with his best friend Darryl Hamilton: Hill and Hamilton, Partners at Law.  Both friends were majoring in criminal justice in college, and Darryl had his sights set on law school.  “Kevin was supposed to be a lawyer,” said his Aunt Sophia.

In 2008, Kevin sat down with Lisa Whiteside, Professor of Criminal Justice at Monroe College, to discuss his career options.  But his mind was made up: he was going to join the military.  “Are you sure this is something you really want to do?” Whiteside recalls asking.  He was sure.  His father and grandfather had served in the military, and he wanted to do as they had done.

“I wanted to be certain that he knew what the consequences were,” Whiteside said.  “I explained to him that there were other things that he could do with a degree in criminal justice.  He could have gotten in with any law enforcement agency.  There were opportunities short of him going into the military.”  Whiteside listed Hill’s options: the FBI, the Secret Service, the DEA, the NYPD, corrections.

After graduating in the summer of 2008, Kevin told Darryl that he wanted to work for the Secret Service, but he didn’t feel that he had enough work experience.  He thought that military service would help his career, Darryl said.  Kevin joined the Army on September 16, 2008.

Kevin’s father suspects he encountered military recruiters at Monroe College.  The military recruiting process is “ruthless,” he said.  Recruiters have to fill certain quotas and particular jobs.  “If Kevin had spoken to me, I could have steered him.  I could have told him what jobs to take and what jobs not to take… He could have taken just about any job that was offered,” Hill said.  “He could have worked in the legal department.”

Although everyone in the family was worried when they learned that Kevin had enlisted, they decided it was best not to frighten him but rather to support him.  They held on to the hope that someone with his level of education would be steered towards an office job and away from combat.

Kevin, said his father, was “not a violent person or anything of the sort.  I just feared for him because he was not a fighter kind of person.  He was a gentle person, and so I didn’t foresee combat for him.”

As Kevin was deciding whether to enlist during the summer of 2008, the debate over U.S. presence in Iraq and Afghanistan was fading from the public discourse.  By June, conventional wisdom had solidified around the idea that President George W. Bush’s “surge” in Iraq had succeeded.  The war effort was “on a firmer foundation” because of America’s increased troop presence there, one military analyst wrote in an August Washington Post column.

When Kevin finally made his decision in September, news from the region was mixed.  Early in the month, President Bush announced that the United States would pull 8,000 troops out of Iraq in early 2009.  At the same time, the president said he would be increasing troop levels in Afghanistan by around 4,500 troops.  The announcement drew little attention initially.  But over the next few weeks, the increasingly grim news from Afghanistan began to overwhelm the encouraging news from Iraq.

By mid-September, however, the nation was focused on an entirely different worry: the quickly deteriorating economy.  On September 15, Lehman Brothers collapsed and Wall Street went into a panic not seen since 1929.  Kevin enlisted the next day.

By October 1, General David Petraeus, days away from taking over the United States Central Command, admitted to reporters that insurgents were gaining ground in Afghanistan.  A week later, news leaked that intelligence agencies believed the country was heading into a “downward spiral.”

By February 2009, Kevin had finished basic training at Fort Carson, Colorado, and was deployed to Iraq.  The family threw him a send-off with barbecue chicken and his favorite, lasagna.  They all went to play video arcade games on 42^nd Street and saw a movie through 3D glasses.

By April 2009, Kevin was relocated from Iraq to Afghanistan.

The Last Visit

Kevin came home on leave this past August.  His Aunt Sophia thought he looked worn down when he arrived.  But after three days at home, she said, “He looked so different, rested and peaceful.”  He took his mother and sisters out for lunch and to the movies.

Kevin's younger sister, Shantel Hill, displays her brother's Army unit photograph. Photo: Baynes/Brooklyn Ink

He also traveled down to Washington, D.C. with Darryl Hamilton and one of Darryl’s friends.  He had never been to the Nation’s Capitol and wanted to see the Lincoln Memorial, the White House, the Frederick Douglass Museum, and other sites.  He was always interested in history and museums; his favorites were the Brooklyn Museum and the American Museum of Natural History.

“He seemed like he was ready to be home,” Darryl said.  “He was happy to be home.”

While others thought of him only as a quiet young man, Darryl saw him as a playful person who told a lot of jokes.  Yet, in Washington, D.C., he seemed “kind of distant” to Darryl.  “Like he had a lot of stuff on his mind, like his mind was racing,” Darryl said.  “He told me he had seen a dead body in front of him.”

Darryl and Kevin talked about planning something for the next time he came back.  Kevin told Darryl he wanted to buy a car, a Chrysler 300.  He said that his tour would be ending soon and that Darryl should come and visit him when he was stationed back in Colorado.

The most recent pictures of Kevin are from his trip to D.C.  They are still on his digital camera in the family’s apartment.  One picture shows Kevin at the World War II Memorial, standing in front of the New York column.  Another shows the three men smiling in front of the White House.

The Army

Kevin Hill died as the president and his advisers are once again debating U.S. strategy in Afghanistan.  The debate turns on two crucial points: whether or not to increase troops by as many as 40,000, and where in Afghanistan the brunt of U.S. forces should be based.

Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, America’s top commander in the country, believes the United States should not hunt down the Taliban in rural parts of the country.  Our forces “cannot be strong everywhere,” he wrote in a highly publicized assessment last August.  Instead, McChrystal argues, American troops should leave remote parts of the county to focus more on protecting civilians in high-population areas.  The “key terrain,” he believes, “is generally where the population lives and works” – far from the small town in rural Dehanna where Kevin Hill was on patrol when he was killed.

Kevin’s father knows that this war is different from the one he fought.  “We knew the enemy in the first Gulf War.  In this war, there’s no one in uniforms to distinguish who’s who.  Everyone’s in robes,” he said.  “It’s a totally different war.”

He does not believe that President Obama should send any more troops to Afghanistan.  And not because of Kevin.  “Until Pakistan steps up their responsibility and stops making the border of Pakistan safe havens,” he said.  “It will be absolutely useless.”

Kevin’s body is currently at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.  His memorial service will be held at John J. McManus & Sons Funeral Home at 4601 Avenue N in Flatlands, Brooklyn at 7 p.m. on Friday, October 16, 2009.  He will be buried on Saturday morning at Cypress Hills Cemetery in Queens.

Kevin Hill marks Brooklyn’s 25th casualty in the Middle East

by Sarah Portlock

Kevin Hill is one of 25 Americans from Brooklyn who have died in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan since May 2003, according to the Department of Defense. They served in the Army, Navy and Marine Corps and ranged in age from 20 to 51. They were killed when improvised explosive devices or rocket-propelled grenades detonated near their vehicles; or when the vehicle hit a landmine’ or from firefights. One soldier, Julian Melo, was one of at least 13 soldiers killed on Dec. 21, 2004, in one of the war’s deadliest attacks when a dining facility was attacked in Mosul, Iraq.

Their obituaries recall men who volunteered to serve for a variety of reasons: to honor their fathers or grandfathers who fought in their generations’ wars; as a way to serve their adopted country after emigrating here from Nigeria, Jamaica, or Triniad and Tobago; to find a new family to replace the one they had lost. Two men – 1st Lt. Daniel Farkas, 42, and Sgt. Manny Hornedo, 27 – volunteered in the Army National Guard. Farkas, of East Midwood, was a New York Police Department lieutenant, and Hornedo, who lived in Sunset Park, was a security manager at a midtown Manhattan retail store.

Brooklyn’s war dead are from neighborhoods as diverse as the roster of the fallen: Bushwick, Canarsie, Crown Heights, East New York, Flatbush, Marine Park, Midwood, Park Slope, Sunset Park and Williamsburg. They left behind wives, young children, new brides and fiancées.

Spec. Segun Akintade, 34, came to New York from Lagos, Nigeria in 1997 and was studying for his bachelors degree in computer science at the New York City College of Technology in Downtown Brooklyn. Pfc. Rayshawn Johnson came of age in the city’s foster care system and found a new family in the Army and a Flatbush street at the corner of Maple Street and Albany Avenue has been named for him. Lance Cpl. Julian Brennan, 25, was an actor who graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and joined the Marines to honor his grandfather, who earned the Navy Cross at Iwo Jima during World War II.

Starting this fall, every weekday we will bring you a Brooklyn moment, captured in words from the worlds and neighborhoods around you. Be sure to check back each day for a new slice of life from the neighborhoods you know so well.

The Brooklyn Bridge seen from Fulton Ferry Landing, DUMBO. Photo: Portlock/Brooklyn Ink

Welcome.

Here is Brooklyn.