THEIR JOY LASTS ONLY FEW DAYS
Downtown bus horror claims life of new wife
A Long Island lawyer who should be celebrating his first Christmas with his beloved bride will instead be planning her funeral.
Kimberly Greer, 28, died Thursday after being run down by a charter bus in lower Manhattan — barely more than a month after she married the love of her life in a storybook wedding in Central Park.
The family of Michael Singer, 27, declined to speak Friday outside the Syosset, L.I., home where he grew up — not far from the Melville, L.I., childhood home of the woman he married Nov. 11.
Singer and Greer, both lawyers, met at Fordham Law, where Greer was a professor. They wed after three years together.
Greer, who worked for federal magistrate Judge Katharine Parker in a coveted clerk post, was in the crosswalk at Leonard and Centre streets around 7:30 p.m. on Thursday when the rear end of a turning bus struck her, police said.
She was rushed to New York-Presbyterian Lower Manhattan Hospital but could not be saved.
In a statement, Judge Parker praised Greer’s “excellent legal mind” and said she distinguished herself early on in her clerkship.
“She was one of the most kind and generous persons I know, quick to lend a hand to colleagues, bake cookies for interns and mentor students,” Parker wrote. “We are devastated by this tragedy.”
Greer also taught a class on advanced appellate advocacy as an adjunct professor at Fordham Law. She graduated from the school in 2016.
Residents of Greer’s closeknit Melville community said she’d lived in the area most of her life. The family may try to hold her funeral on Sunday, before Christmas Eve, they said.
“She was the mayor,” a neighbor explained. “Everybody knew her. There was nothing in this world that Kimi touched that she wasn’t the best at. She was a dream person.”
The bus driver Xi Chen, 50, of the Lower East Side, was charged with failure to yield to a pedestrian and failure to use due care.
Immediately after the crash, Chen dialed 911 — and handed his phone to passenger Demetrice Pringle, 51, of the Bronx. Pringle reported the crash to police because Chen didn’t speak English.
At arraignment Friday in Manhattan Criminal Court, a judge set bail at $1,000 and ordered Chen to surrender his passport. “I have never seen a prosecutor ask for a passport on a misdemeanor,” said Jin Wu, a Legal Aid Society lawyer who represented Chen.
Relatives posted Chen’s bail.
The Tennessee-bound bus was labeled “NYC Style Limo,” but passengers and a bus company employee said it was actually operated by Wanda Coach — which, passengers said, sold them their tickets.
The bus was late leaving its stop on Allen St., Pringle said.
“He was rushing,” she said. “We were supposed to leave at 7 and we left at 7:15.”
The crash is under investigation, police said.
Wanda has operated without a proper federal license, a September 2017 report by the state Senate’s now-defunct Independent Democratic Conference revealed.