Photo by Tequila Minsky
Jessica Dworkin.
BY TEQUILA MINSKY | Jessica Dworkin, known as Jessica Blue, also as Jessie, was one of those colorful characters that the Village is so well known to nurture. According to friends, she lived off and on in Soho and the Downtown area for more than 30 years, at least 20 years at 128 Thompson St.
When Dworkin, 58, wasn’t off to early lap swimming this summer at Dapolito Pool, on Clarkson St., her daily routine might have included a morning trip to the Greenwich House Senior Center on Barrow St., where she was a volunteer and guest, and where, after breakfast, she would play poker with the guys. She also participated in senior programs at Our Lady of Pompei Church, on Carmine St.
Crossing Sixth Ave. at Houston St. before 9 a.m. on Monday, riding her cherished kick scooter while likely heading to the senior center on Barrow St., she was hit by the rear wheels of a flatbed truck as it was making a wide turn from Houston onto Sixth Ave. Caught in the wheel, she was dragged for two blocks, and reportedly died almost instantly.
Bystanders heard her scream and chased down the truck, with the driver finally halting at Carmine St. The driver, unaware he had struck Dworkin, was distraught. A locked-wheel skid mark running two blocks up Sixth Ave. is a grim reminder of the tragedy of the day.
That morning, Dworkin had been really happy, said Spring St. resident Fernanda Paradiz, who had chatted with her for about 15 minutes in Vesuvio Park on Thompson St., just an hour before the tragedy. As they parted, Dworkin told her, “I love you, Fernanda.” And Paradiz, responded, “I love you, Jessie.”
The two met in the park, years ago, while Dworkin was feeding the sparrows, “her babies,” Paradiz says she called them.
Overhearing Dworkin once saying to the sparrows, “Do you want me to sing a song of sparrows?” neighborhood poet Yuko Otomo included this phrase, with attribution, in her own poem about sparrows.
“She was a very innocent and delicate human being,” Otomo said. “That’s why I liked her.”
Dworkin was known to talk to trees and plants. “She made them grow better,” said one neighbor. And, she had a great affinity for dogs, having trained and cared for them.
Dworkin was the first person Mindy Klein, a newcomer to Thompson St., met in the neighborhood.
Introducing herself to Klein in front of Porto Rico coffee shop, she told her, “I love your dogs,” referring to her two Wheaten Terriers. “Welcome to the neighborhood.”
Dworkin sat frequently on that bench outside the now-gone neighborhood fixture and bantered with neighbors.
Other dogs she loved included the landlord’s Portuguese Water Dog and Simon Nuchtern’s husky, Montana.
Just two days before she died, a shy, visiting, Great Dane only had eyes for Dworkin among a small crowd of sidewalk admirers.
Dworkin was from Massachusetts near Worcester. Her mother was a Holocaust survivor. Dworkin studied art therapy and creative development at Pratt.
Photographer Marcia Resnick was a good friend of hers, especially in the 1970s and ’80s.
“She was always making and doing things,” Resnick said. “She was a wild woman, an art girl and a gallery girl. She was an artist in her spirit and an inspired eccentric.”
The two traveled together to Europe and Greece.
“The men loved her, all types of men adored her,” Resnick recalled. “Everyone loved her.”
Dworkin worked as a promoter for concert promoter Ron Delsener as well as for major New York clubs, including Studio 54 and The World. She’d comment to friends that the drugs and nightlife ruined her.
As Thompson St. neighbors tried to piece together her history, one recounted that Dworkin told her that she had been married three times and also that she had studied acting in England. She told another that she worked for the Mayflower Madam and managed an after-hours club.
She had worked as a dog walker and dog trainer and most recently had an errand-running business. She received Supplemental Security Income.
Dworkin had a base at Greenwich House where the seniors and staff are still coming to grips.
At the front desk, receptionist/security guard Juanita White told how Dworkin gave her a red rose last Thursday and the next day asked how it was doing.
“She always gave me a rose,” White said. “I think she had a lot of goodness.” With a bittersweet smile she added, “She would tell me she loved me.”
Heartfelt terms of endearment flowed from Dworkin constantly. She often bid someone, “Goodbye, honey.”
People who knew her from the street and the senior center affirmed she always had a smile and was upbeat no matter what was going on with her personally, and that she had not a mean bone in her body.
Another description heard more than once was that she was “a free spirit.” But, universally repeated from the eclectic circle of those she touched was that she was “sweet, so sweet.”
She leaves siblings and half-siblings. Her brother from Massachusetts has arrived and is attending to arrangements.
The intersection at Sixth Ave. and Houston St. where this accident occurred is notoriously difficult to cross.
Jeannie Sharkey often crosses at this intersection when she walks back to her home in Chelsea from work in Soho.
“I literally had to jump out of the way of a cab making that right-hand turn, a couple months ago,” she recalled. “There are multiple lanes turning at once and you’re threatened the length of the crosswalk.”
Jonathan Gebelle, president of the Village Independent Democrats club, lives in a building on the intersection that’s kitty-corner to where the accident occurred. He witnesses the treacherous traffic patterns there on a daily basis.
“This is a very dangerous corner,” Geballe stated. “People drive very fast on Houston St. and it’s hard for pedestrians to see those making the turn. Pedestrians have to act very aggressively to safely cross the street.”
Geballe offered a few possibilities, such as adding “Yield to Pedestrians” signage, pedestrian-only traffic lights, or bollards and a neckdown at the corner to make that crossing safer.
“The city must make some effort to engineer the right-turning lanes,” he said.
Responding to the accident, state Senator Daniel Squadron urged quick city and state action to improve pedestrian and cyclist safety on this section of Houston St., similar to what has recently been done on Delancey St., another deadly boulevard. These measures included neckdowns and shortening crosswalks and traffic-light improvements.
A memorial of flowers has started growing at Sixth Ave. and Houston St., woven into the fence of Seravalli Playground. One neighborhood dog walker placed a rose.
“I didn’t know her,” she said, “but I feel terrible.”
