May 03, 2007
Albertha Hunter, Bronx activist
Albertha Hunter, one of the community activists at the heart of the Save Our Parks group that battled the New York Yankees' plans to build a stadium in Macombs Dam Park, died on Tuesday morning as a result of injuries she suffered in an electrical fire at her home two days earlier.
During the Yankees stadium debates, Hunter was always one of the first people up to the microphone to ask questions, which were always as polite as they were incredulous that the city would consider taking away the park that she walked in daily and handing it over to a private enterprise. The last time I spoke with her, last November, she described the scene outside her Jerome Avenue apartment window overlooking the now-former park, with equipment rolling in starting at 7 am, and dust everywhere: "The trucks are flying by with the sand, and sometimes the dust looks like a whirlwind - when the cars speed by, it's unbearable. You have to keep your windows closed whether or not you want to."
Hunter was 85.
