Gun-vic kin may get to sue for grief
program, called “Black Placemaking: Reinterpreting Lower East Side History.”
“The words ‘Lower East Side’ call up different associations and memories for different people,” said Michelle Moon, the Tenement Museum’s chief program officer. “For some, it’s the Eastern European Jewish and Italian migrations of the early 20th century. For others, it’s the Spanish-speaking “Loisaida” or the home of Asian immigrants from the 1970s to today. But there’s one group that’s been present here from the city’s beginnings right through the present day that many people don’t associate with the neighborhood – black New Yorkers.”
Among the topics will be the Sutton House at 143 Allen St., the sole survivor of five brick Federal-style buildings constructed on the same lot by George Sutton, a commercial ship captain.
The land where this property now stands was owned in 1647 by Bastien Negro, one of a dozen enslaved Africans who successfully petitioned for their freedom from the Dutch, and were each granted a few acres north outside of the New Netherlands settlement.
The free Africans transformed their property to create Manhattan’s first free black settlement, referred to as the “Land of the Blacks,” a stretch that spanned 130 acres, today’s equivalent of 100 city blocks.
The area encompassed modern-day sections of Greenwich Village, Chinatown, Little Italy, and the Lower East Side, until the British took over and turned the area into a commercial district, according to historians.
Another noteworthy address is 66 Delancey St. It’s a mixed residential and retail space now, but in the 1960s, it was the downtown headquarters of the Congress of Racial Equality, on the front lines of fights for tenant rights and against racial discrimination.
Downtown CORE cofounder Michael Schwerner was one of three CORE field workers who were killed in 1964 in Philadelphia, Miss., by members of the Ku Klux Klan.
The museum also plans to host walking tours exploring the neighborhood’s black history.
“We’re really excited to hear this panel talk about how preservation, memories, monuments and pop culture shape the way a place is known, including some stories and excluding others,” Moon said. “Black communities on the Lower East Side have defined their own spaces and places through time. “
The Tenement Museum is located at 103 Orchard St. ALBANY — Relatives grieving the loss of a loved one to gun violence could soon be able to sue their kin’s killer for the anguish they caused.
Sen. James Gaughran (DSuffolk) is introducing legislation amending the state’s wrongful death statute to allow families to file civil lawsuits seeking compensation for suffering and emotional distress when a death involves the “intentional use of a deadly weapon.”
“Unfortunately, many times when families face these tragedies they’re just emotionally devastated,” Gaughran (photo) told the Daily News Wednesday. “It’s a major impact on their lives and their livelihood. It’s difficult for people to go back to work, to go back to their business.”
Similar legislation is already on the books in 41 other states, allowing family members to seek compensation for emotional loss when someone is killed.
Current laws in New York strictly limit damages in wrongful death actions to when a jury finds a “reasonable expectation” that a financial loss had occurred. While most other types of lawsuits, such as negligence suits, already allow for socalled “noneconomic claims,” wrongful death suits are limited.
Gaughran believes the expansion of the statute, allowing family members to sue the person responsible for the death, is a fundamental change lawmakers can make to help families suffering in the wake of the unthinkable.
“It just creates such a horrific, life-changing experience for everybody that I think it’s necessary that the state recognize they should have the ability to obtain some financial recourse from the individual that killed their loved one,” he added.
Previous efforts to update New York’s wrongful death statute have repeatedly stalled in the state Legislature.