Vigil for 2 men killed by truck
Delivery cyclist, hardhat mourned at Upper E. Side corner
Mourners crowded onto a notoriously dangerous Upper East Side street corner Sunday at a vigil for a food-delivery bicyclist and a construction worker mowed down and killed by a box truck on Christmas Eve.
Nearly 100 friends, family and colleagues made their way to the corner of E. 61st St. and Third Ave., where Taurino Rosendo Morales, 37, and Delfino Eduardo Maceda, 47, died in the horrific crash.
“The only thing we’re looking for is justice,” said Maceda’s brother-in-law, Carlos Sanchez, 35. “I mean he (the driver) killed a person.”
The 66-year-old driver of a Baldor Specialty Foods truck and his 32-year-old partner had just made a delivery nearby about 9:20 a.m. Friday when they got back into the truck, cops and witnesses said.
The driver suddenly drove forward , hitting Morales as he cycled in the street — and then jumped the sidewalk and hit a fire hydrant, cops said. As the truck mounted the sidewalk, it collided into Maceda, a construction worker.
No charges have been filed against the driver; an investigation was continuing.
When police arrived, both victims were on the street with severe body trauma and were rushed to New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, where they died.
Both men both were natives of Mexico.
Maceda had just learned last week that he would become the father of twin boys. He died on his birthday, his devastated girlfriend told the Daily News.
“It’s crazy. It’s crazy. I don’t understand it,” said Lisbeth Parra, 41. “It’s no more Christmas for us.”
Parra said she had planned a surprise party for the future father of their twins.
Instead, she is planning his funeral.
“His girlfriend made a surprise party for him, but this happened. He gave us the surprise,” Sanchez said.
Morales was a husband and father of a 16-year-old son and a 4-year-old daughter who both
live in Mexico, his brother told The News.
“The first thing we’re doing is sending the body back to his town, and then we’re going to concentrate on justice,” said Pedro Rosendo. “We can’t let things stay as they are.”
“He was a very good person, a good man. Many of the people here knew him. He had quite a few close friends here,” Rosendo, 45, said at the vigil.
Dozens of Morales’ fellow food delivery workers showed up to the vigil in solidarity.
“I didn’t know him personally. At the end of the day, you don’t have to know them. He’s a delivery worker; it’s a community. Whatever happened to him it could’ve happen to all of us. It could’ve been any one of us. We don’t have to know each other to feel what we feel right now,” said Jose Nevares, 39.
Also in attendance was the city’s incoming Department of Transportation Commissioner, Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez. Last week, Rodriguez vowed to install safer bike lanes during his first 100 days in office.
In a tweet referencing Friday’s fatal incident, Rodriguez said half of all crashes occur at intersections: “This intersection has been the site of 22 crashes according to City data. 23 total people have been injured here.”