By Lincoln Anderson
Volume 77 / Number 41 – March 19 – 25, 2008
West and East Village, Chelsea, Soho, Noho, Little Italy, Chinatown and Lower East Side, Since 1933
Outpouring of support for auxiliaries, but still no sign
A memorial for two auxiliary police officers and an immigrant restaurant worker who were slain by a disturbed gunman last year brought together friends and family members, police, neighbors and waves of auxiliaries for a candlelit march along the route that ripped a hole through the heart of the Village.
Organized by the Bleecker Area Merchants’ and Residents’ Association, or BAMRA, the Friday event saw hundreds of auxiliaries from around the city line MacDougal St. between Houston and Bleecker Sts. at the memorial’s start. Dressed in their crisp dress blues, they stood in rows four deep, facing east, each holding a white candle.
The march started at 9:20 p.m., the exact time that David Garvin, a failed filmmaker and dishonorably discharged Marine, began his night of terror.
Led by the family and friends of the three slain men, the memorial kicked off at the corner of Houston and MacDougal Sts., where Garvin first shot restaurant worker Alfredo Romero Morales 15 times in the back at the former DeMarco’s restaurant.
The march then moved up MacDougal St. and turned the corner onto Bleecker St., along which the maniac fled before he was confronted by the two auxiliaries, Nicholas Pekearo, a native Villager and aspiring writer, and Eugene Marshalik, an N.Y.U. student, whose family immigrated from Russia when he was 5. The pair forced Garvin to drop a backpack containing 100 rounds of ammunition. He then fled up Sullivan St. Unarmed, they pursued him at a distance, only for Garvin to turn and kill them.
Wreaths of flowers with candles marked the spots by the curb on Sullivan St. where first Marshalik and then Pekearo were slain. Pekearo had worn a bullet-resistant vest but it didn’t have enough stopping power to save him. Shortly after the auxiliaries’ deaths, the city agreed to provide bullet-resistant vests to all auxiliaries.
Speaking at a podium set up at the end of the march route, Captain Ray Caroli, Sixth Precinct commanding officer, praised the two auxiliaries, saying, “They made the ultimate sacrifice for New York City. I know that this show of support and remembrance means so much to the families. Their acts of valor and bravery on that night undoubtedly saved lives.”
Dierdre Donovan, a Sullivan St. resident who had hit the floor in her apartment a year ago at the sound of the wild gunfire outside her window, sang “Amazing Grace.” Dozens of bullets had flown through the Village streets before police finally gunned down Garvin outside the Village Tannery on Bleecker St.
After the memorial, Commissioner Kelly spoke with Iola Latman, Pekearo’s mother, saying he looked forward to reading Pekearo’s first novel, “The Wolf Man,” when it comes out. Kelly said he’d enjoyed reading Pekearo’s story about his first day on the beat as an auxiliary, which ran in Frontline, the Sergeants’ Benevolent Association publication.
Above all, Latman said she’s praying the city approves an honorary co-naming street sign for the corner of Sullivan and Bleecker Sts. to commemorate her son and Marshalik. She thanked The Villager for including something in last week’s issue about the stalled effort to get the sign. There is currently a moratorium in the City Council on new honorary signs.
“I really need that to happen,” Latman said. “It’s important to us. I don’t want it sitting on someone’s desk for five years — I want it to happen.” The sign will remind people of her son’s sacrifice, she said. “The Greenwich Village community, they’re going to remember for a long time,” she said.
Pointing up the block, Latman noted that as a boy Nicholas enjoyed going to a comic book shop that used to be nearby on Sullivan St.
“He loved the Village,” she said.
Marshalik’s mother was too choked up to say much.
“I can’t talk now — emotion,” she told a reporter.
Published by Tor, Pekearo’s first book, at 288 pages, will come out in May. His editor and friend, Eric Raab, described “The Wolf Man” as “a little noirish, a little horror, a little literary.”
Maureen Remacle, chairperson of the Sixth Precinct Community Council, has been pushing for the honorary street sign, but keeps being told of the moratorium.
“She’s an incredibly nice person, but she’s not pushy,” Remacle said of Latman. “But she really wants this sign. If any sign was deserved, it’s this one.”
Andrew Doba, a spokesperson for Council Speaker Christine Quinn, said,
“We’re in the midst of developing an updated street-renaming process
with the [Council] leadership and other councilmembers. In the near future, we’ll move expeditiously with renamings that were held in abeyance. Speaker Quinn wants very much to honor the auxiliary officers. She was proud to stand with Mayor Bloomberg [last year] to announce that all auxiliary officers would receive new protective vests.”
