‘Forever New Yorkers’
BIKE PATH VICTIMS REFLECTED DIVERSE CITY
The victims of the New York bike path attack reflect a city that’s both a melting pot and a magnet for international visitors. One of the dead was a young mother from Belgium. Five had travelled from Argentina to New York with a tight-knit group of classmates to celebrate the 30th anniversary of their graduation — courtesy of one of their well-heeled friends, who was among those who perished. “They saw New York as a special place to be,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio, “and we now and forever will consider them New Yorkers.” UNBEARABLE LOSS
Ann-Laure Decadt, 31, the mother of two young sons, including a three-month-old, had travelled for a weeklong vacation with her mother and two sisters to New York from a rural town in Belgium.
Decadt belonged to a prominent family that owns a venerable animal feed business in Staden, a town 100 km west of Brussels.
She was riding a bike when she was struck from behind by the terrorist’s truck.
“This loss is unbearable and unthinkable,” her husband Alexander Naessens said in a statement. “Ann-Laure was a fantastic wife and she was the most beautiful mom to our two sons.”
Decadt grew up in the town and was active in its social scene, taking part in the scouts movement, the youth council and village fairs, said Staden’s mayor, Francesco Vanderjeugd.
Vanderjeugd said he had been delighted when he first heard that Decadt was going to New York.
He even sent the family a message saying: “Wow, you’ll have a great time there, with Halloween and the New York marathon and all.”
“And then this happens,” he said.
CLASS REUNION
Three decades had passed since their 1987 graduation from the Polytechnic School of Rosario, Argentina. But the Argentine victims of Tuesday’s truck attack, most of them architects, had remained close friends, getting together several times a year.
The five dead were among a group of 10 friends marking their graduation by touring New York and Boston, where at least one survivor of the group lived.
One victim, Hernan Diego Mendoza, was an architect and father of three who designed the home of his close friend, Estanislao Beas.
“The news destroyed my wife and I,” Beas said. “We had a tight bond. We cared for him so much. It’s incredible that this happened to him and that he was there at that time.”
The Argentine foreign ministry identified the other victims as Ariel Erlij, Diego Enrique Angelini, Alejandro Damian Pagnucco and Hernan Ferruchi.
The reunion trip was paid for by Erlij, the chief executive of Ivanar, an Argentine steel products manufacturing company, according to Argentina’s La Nacion newspaper.
President Mauricio Macri said Wednesday in Buenos Aires that the attack “hit all Argentines hard.”
A BREAK BETWEEN MEETINGS
Darren Drake, 32, was a project manager for Moody’s Investors Service at the World Trade Center. Jimmy Drake said his son his son had recently lost more than 90 lbs. and was out for a bike ride between meetings when the truck hit him.
He said that “while other people would take cigarette or coffee breaks, he would go out and ride the bike for 15 or 20 minutes.”
Drake used to serve on the school board in New Milford, in northern New Jersey, where he lived with his parents.
Jimmy Drake says he drove his son every day to the train terminal in Hoboken so he could catch a train to his job in the city.
ASPIRATIONS
The only New Yorker killed in the attack, Nicholas Cleves, 23, was a software engineer and web developer who lived in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village. Online profiles show he graduated last year from Skidmore College with a degree in computer science. He had been working as a software engineer for the Unified Digital Group.
Cleves described himself on his Facebook page as a “nerdy white boy.” The most recent photo posted there showed him posing with some friends next to a Darth Vader figure at Star Wars exhibit.
Outlining his aspirations on LinkedIn, Cleves wrote that he was “searching for ways in which technology can be used to make positive impacts on our everyday lives.”