Transfer, NYC’s blogger of architecture bad, good, and otherwise had a post Monday about the new buildings going up at the corner of Sterling Place and 7th Avenue, where, in 1960, a United DC-8 crashed killing 135 people and destroying a church and a funeral home.
Construction on the new buildings is nearing completion and for the first time in 45 years, there will be buildings in that spot, instead of a vacant lot.
I can’t walk by there without thinking of that crash or the fact that an 11-year old boy by the name of Stephen Baltz survived for one day. He died at Methodist Hospital. There’s a bronze wall plaque near the hospital chapel made from the change that was in his pocket.
The name of the church was, no joke, the Pillar of Fire ..
Thanks for this. I wrote a story — admittedly, not a great one — called The Boy Who Fell to Brooklyn (published at http://www.as.miami.edu/english/mangrove/issue_01/grayson-theboywho.html) based on my memories of that day.