Last week’s accident scene.
BY LINCOLN ANDERSON | A 63-year-old Battery Park City woman was struck by a van on Canal St. on Wed., Feb. 18, shortly after 11 a.m., and died from her injuries the next day, police said.
Following an investigation, police reported that Yu-O Pan, of 380 Rector Place, was attempting to cross Canal St. midblock from south to north near Mott St. when she was hit by a 1998 Ford van traveling eastbound on Canal St.
Responding officers found Pan lying on the ground with body trauma. An EMS ambulance transported her to Bellevue Hospital where she succumbed to her injuries on Feb. 19.
The vehicle’s driver remained on the scene and the investigation is ongoing, police said.
The woman’s son, Gary Pan, 35, said his mother had been shopping for items for the Chinese Lunar New Year.
“She was buying stuff like oranges, chicken, pork, stuff like that,” he said.
He said she owned a restaurant in Brooklyn Heights, though declined to name it.
Originally from Taiwan, she came to the U.S. with her husband in the early 1970s. She lived in various spots in Downtown Manhattan, including Bayard St., Broadway, Bayard St. again, then Brooklyn Heights, before settling in Battery Park City, where she lived with her son and husband. They were a very close-knit family, her son said. They have no other relatives in America.
No services have been held, he said, due to the “surprising cost of funerals.”
He said his family never really took photos of each other, which he regrets now.
“I haven’t had time to digest it,” her son said of the tragedy. “They said she was crossing on the green, but that she was hit pretty hard. They said she popped out between two cars — that was the account of the driver.”
Canal St. is the deadliest major street per mile, according to city statistics released last year when it was turned into an “arterial slow zone.” Speed limit signs of 25 MPH went up soon after but they are unusually high and some drivers have said they do not notice them.
—With reporting by Josh Rogers
