Sudden deaths, lasting tributes

At the corner of Schenectady and Strong Street in the city’s Hamilton Hill neighborhood, a weathered sweatshirt marks a life lost.

Farther up Schenectady, a stand of candles and bottles mark another. Beyond Van Voast Street, a large red “C” affixed to a pole marks yet another.

The “C” marks the life of Charles Bowman and it remains up nearly four years after his October 2012 shooting death at the hands of a man angry at something in which Bowman had no involvement.

An airbrushed shirt with Bowman’s name, Charles “Chuck” Bowman, also remains tied to the pole. On the ground is a plastic bin-sheltered memorial of candles and bottles. It appears to have been tended to in the years since.

“The first feeling I get when I see that my father’s memorial is still up is ‘love,’ ” Bowman’s daughter Chamia Bowman, who now lives in Florida, told The Daily Gazette recently via Facebook when asked about the remembrance. “My father had a captivating soul, unforgettable smile and he touched anyone he encountered in some shape or form.

“What happened to him was a horrible tragedy and he was stolen from all of those who loved him,” she continued. “The memorial is a way to make sure the memory of him never fades.”

The three Schenectady Street memorials are among the many in the city that mark the sites of sudden deaths, be them from shootings, fires or car crashes.

Some are elaborate and long-lasting, either kept up by family members or friends or protected by quieter locations. Other memorials are more fleeting, symbols of spontaneous outpourings of grief at a sudden loss of a life before making way for life around the location of tragedy to go on.

What all the memorials have in common is that they serve as a gathering spot to express sorrow.

“It’s all about remembering, about legacy, about acknowledging this person lived and this person died,” Lisa B. Wolfe, a bereavement counselor based in Marcy, near Utica, said recently. “It’s important to have the rest of the community see that and to remember that and know that this person mattered.”

Wolfe, who provides bereavement counseling through her site TranslatingGrief.com and gives presentations, said the memorials mark the shattering of family and friends’ realities.

“We all wake up every day and think we have unlimited tomorrows,” Wolfe said. “When something tragic happens, something completely senseless like a house fire, car accident or these shootings … we feel like we have to do something about it.”

Around the city

Such memorials can be seen in different parts of Schenectady, from Vale to Hamilton Hill to Mont Pleasant and elsewhere.

This past week, after fire swept through a Sixth Avenue home in Mont Pleasant, taking the lives of 5-year-old Neytria Manasse and her uncle, 26-year-old McClintock Tyrerese Douglas, mourners gathered to remember them across from the scene with a memorial that grew to include many candles, stuffed animals and balloons.

One of the messages left at the site began, “Gone But Never Forgotten.”

On a State Street pole at Waldorf Place, almost within site of Vale Cemetery, is a plaque and flowers remembering 29-year-old Jerry Faine of Schenectady.

Faine was struck and killed near there last August by a man police say had just struck another pedestrian. The driver is to stand trial beginning this week in Schenectady County Court.

Faine’s mother, Lisa Mazza, recalled going to the scene days later and feeling helpless.

Within days, she and family had the plaque made up with Faine’s name, Jerry Joseph Faine, “RIP” and the date of his death, Aug. 14, 2015. Mazza soon placed the marker, along with wreaths of flowers, up and off the sidewalk on a nearby utility pole.

She’s maintained it since.

“I never got to say goodbye to him at the hospital,” Mazza said, “so I feel like that’s the earth that cradled him when he was dying. That’s sacred in my heart.

“That’s why I keep it up, because it means something to me,” she said.

Grieving differently

For some families, a memorial near the site of their loved one’s death is not an option.

Martha Lasher-Warner lost her daughter Liza Warner in October 2004 to an abusive husband. The husband killed Liza, then killed himself at the home they shared on Gifford Church Road in Princetown.

Lasher-Warner, who now works with domestic violence victims as a case manager and is active with the group Parents of Murdered Children, said she can’t even turn onto that road and she hasn’t in the years since.

But she knows how memorials can be important to others.

“Everybody grieves differently,” Lasher-Warner said. “Every family grieves differently.”

The other two lasting Schenectady Street memorials mark another October 2012 death and one from last summer.

At the corner with Strong, the sweatshirt along with stuffed animals and messages mark the loss of George Lloyd III, killed, prosecutors said, in an ambush outside a club that once stood there.

Though parts of the memorial have become weathered with the passage of time, earlier this month several new balloons added to the remembrance swayed in the breeze.

Midway on Schenectady Street between Strong and Van Voast streets, a gathering of candles and bottles, along with some balloons continues to mark the site of the shooting death a year ago of 18-year-old Kusaan Tolliver. His killer is also now in prison.

On the next street over, Paige, a framed, drawn portrait of a man in a New York Yankees hat posted to a Paige Street pole makes clear who’s life is remembered there. Carlos Figueroa was shot and killed in the street in February 2015 by a man who is now in prison.

On the ground is a cross and a sheltered memorial of candles. Among several messages written on the sheltering blue plastic bin is one signed “your wife” and a heart that reads in part: “I will forever love you.”

“It’s to remember him,” Figueroa’s father, Herman Figueroa, said recently of the memorial, noting the memorial is the closest it can be to where he died. ”He will never be forgotten.”

On the other side of Schenectady Street is Hulett. Those lost in the still-unsolved 2013 Hulett Street arson fire are memorialized with weathered toys and candles on the lot where they died.

Father David Terry and children, Layah, 3, Michael, 2, and Donavan Duell, 11 months. All died in an arson fire there at 438 Hulett St. on May 2, 2013. Then 5-year-old Safyre Terry survived. Family and authorities continue to ask for information that will lead to an arson conviction.

More sites

Some other Schenectady memorials:

– One on Swan Street marks the life and June 2015 shooting death of Marquise Solomon. “RIP B Diamonds,” it reads, concluding “Gone but never forgotten” and signed by his family. Solomon’s killing also remains unsolved.

– On Bridge Street in Mont Pleasant, bricks just off the street spell out “Eddie” and candles remain five years after the killing nearby of 15-year-old Eddie Stanley. His killing has long been solved, his killer in prison.

– On Broadway, the site of the 2004 crash that killed city police officer Eric Verteramo near the train overpass into Bellevue has been marked in the years since with blue and black stripes and Verteramo’s badge number affixed to a utility pole.

Two weeks ago, the memorial was renewed after as an accident forced National Grid to replace the pole. New, crisp stripes and a new number were already in place as workers set it.

Still other memorials are elsewhere.

Back on State Street, at Faine’s memorial, Faine’s mother keeps the memorial fresh by changing out the flowers for the seasons. The flowers are now blue — Faine’s favorite color — in anticipation of the upcoming trial of the man accused of causing his death.

For Mazza, keeping up her son’s memorial at the site where he died is a matter of keeping his memory alive.

“I feel like if I let that shrine get rundown, that somehow he’s thinking I’m forgetting, that he’s not a priority,” Mazza said. “No matter what, whether on this earth or not, he’s a priority to me.”

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