Since the December 13th accident that took the life of Brooklyn Law School professor Sara Robbins, we have heard from people who knew her, worked with her and loved her. This outpouring is reflected in comments made on the initial BHB post regarding the tragedy. Remarks from our readers ran the gamut from outrage regarding rampant reckless driving on our streets to more personal accounts of from Ms. Robbins' co-workers.
H.C. Singh, who worked for Ms. Robbins, commented that she was a "good hearted person, very good boss, hardworking, intelligent and respected in the educational, legal and professional librarian’s community."
Rochelle commented, "I have known Sara Robbins for nearly 30 years. She was a kind and gentle person who would never hurt anyone. I am still in a state of shock and I will miss her very much. My thoughts and prayers are with her family."
The overwhelming consensus from our readers and in the Heights, is that this accident has struck everyone as profoundly sad, regardless of whether or not they knew Ms. Robbins.
"Even people who did not know the victim found themselves unexpectedly shaken," writes Jake Mooney in this week's Sunday New York Times. His piece, A Death in the Family, reports on the accident's impact on the neighborhood.
New York Times: A Death in the Family: “It was very disturbing to everybody, because nobody knew who it was; there was no information given out, of course,” Lesley Waters, a manager at the Ann Taylor Loft store on the corner, recalled last week, standing near a big picture window that faced the scene. “Everybody was just wondering who it was, because they knew they would know them.”
In the absence of concrete information, rumors flew. The victim, one account had it, was a nanny who had been walking with a child. According to other versions, the victim was a woman in a wheelchair, or perhaps someone who worked at the Starbucks on Montague Street, a few steps away.
The reality filtered out as the day went on. Ms. Robbins ran the library at Brooklyn Law School, on Joralemon Street. She had family in Ohio and lived by herself at 2 Pierrepont Street, near the Brooklyn Heights Promenade. She died three blocks from where she lived, five blocks from where she worked.
Days later, her next-door neighbor on the building’s sixth floor, Amabilia Guzman, pointed to a copy of the weekly Brooklyn Heights Courier, which had a large portrait of Ms. Robbins on the cover. “It’s good to remember her the way she was, smiling all the time,” Ms. Guzman said.
