Carefree times end in tragedy
One of the dead was a mother of young sons from Belgium. Five had traveled from Argentina to New York with a tight-knit group of classmates to celebrate the 30th anniversary of their graduation.
The other victims were Americans: One a new college graduate working as a software engineer, the other a doting son who had recently lost nearly 100 pounds and was getting a bike ride in between meetings at his World Trade Center job.
Those killed in the New York bike path attack reflect a city that is a melting pot, a magnet for international visitors, and a business and technology capital.
“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.”
The victims were mowed down by a rental truck Tuesday afternoon near the World Trade Center.
The largest group of victims came from Rosario, Argentina, the country’s third-largest city and the hometown of international soccer star Lionel Messi and guerrilla leader Che Guevara. They had made the trip courtesy of one of their wellheeled friends, who was also among those who perished.
The five dead were among a group of 10 friends marking their graduation with a tour of New York and Boston, where a survivor of the group lived.
They had gone on a bike ride through Central Park on Tuesday before turning south, to lower Manhattan.
“They were pedaling in lines of two, chatting, laughing, enjoying the ride. My husband was the last one in the line,” Cecilia Piedrabuena, the wife of survivor Ariel Benvenuto, told an Argentine radio station. “The truck took away his friends, and he saw them all scattered on the ground.”
The Argentine foreign ministry identified the victims as Hernan Diego Mendoza, Ariel Erlij, Diego Enrique Angelini, Alejandro Damian Pagnucco and Hernan Ferruchi.
Another classmate, Martin Ludovico Marro, of Newton, Massachusetts, near Boston, was being treated at a Manhattan hospital. The rest of the dead:
Ann-Laure Decadt, 31, a mother of a 3-yearold and a 3-month-old son, who had traveled with her relatives to New York from a rural town in Belgium. She was riding a bike.
Darren Drake, a 32-year-old project manager for Moody’s Investors Service at the World Trade Center. He had recently lost 93 pounds after undergoing lap band surgery. The New Milford, New Jersey, resident was out for a bike ride between meetings.
Nicholas Cleves, 23, died not far from his home in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village. He was a software engineer and web developer.