Stop Sign Campaign For Dangerous Tribeca Intersection Revived After Crash

NEW YORK (CBS 2) -- A busy intersection in Tribeca has become a battleground, pitting parents of a 3-year-old hit by a car against the city.

The crash is reviving a stop sign campaign in the neighborhood and some parents want to put the brakes on traffic at the dangerous intersection.

It's a parent's worst nightmare. Rich Carty's son, Ozzie, was nearly killed by a car one week ago.

Ozzie was with his brother and mother as he was hit by a cab driver at the intersection of Greenwich and Duane streets -- a notoriously dangerous crossing full of families and small children.

"Three public schools, six preschools, one high school, one intermediate school," Rich Carty said. "You've got 2,000 students."

In the last 10 years, there have been five confirmed car-pedestrian accidents in that area and at least five others that neighbors said they've witnessed. CBS 2's Derricke Dennis also spoke with one couple that said they were also hit by a cab.

"And he just made the turn, and we were even in the cross walk, he didn't see us.  He just hit us," said Jackie Young.

So there is no stop sign or traffic light at the intersection, but plenty of caution signs.

Borough President Scott Stringer said he has been fighting the Department of Transportation since 2008 for a stop sign or traffic light, but has been repeatedly told the intersection doesn't fit the federal criteria.

"This is a dangerous intersection," Stringer said. "If you can't do a stop sign, then do a speed bump.  Come up with a clock, come up with different kind of signage.  Do what we ask you to do because lives are at stake."

And caught in the middle are children like Ozzie, whose dad wonders what might have been.

"The helmets definitely helped," Rich Carty said. "Without the helmet, this would be a very different conversation.  This would be a terrible tragedy."

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