FLUSHING — More than 100 friends and relatives of the man pushed to his death in a Midtown subway station gathered at his wake in Flushing Wednesday night.
The mourners wept and embraced as they filed past the open casket where Ki-Suck Han, 58, was laid out at Edward D. Jamie Funeral Chapel on Northern Boulevard.
They remembered Han as a devoted father who always wanted to lend a helping hand.
Ashley Han, 20, Han's daughter and a Hunter College student, said he had constantly encouraged her to pursue a good education.
"It would go in one ear and out the other," Ashley Han said before breaking into tears. "I would do anything to hear it one more time."
"I'm so sorry for all my years of teenage angst," she added, addressing her father. "I promise to fulfill my duty as your daughter. I thank you. I love you. And may you rest in peace."
Ashley Han and her mother, Serim Han, stood by the casket accepting condolences from the dozens of community members who attended the wake.
Earlier in the day, Rev. Won Tae Cho, pastor at the Woo Ri Presbyterian Church in Flushing, said Han, a Korean immigrant who had lived in the United States for about 25 years, struggled to find work during the economic downturn but never lost hope.
"He was a very good man," Cho said. "For one year, he came all the time to clean the church even though he was unemployed. All the time he said to me, 'I will overcome this barrier.'"
The church will set up a community fund to help the Han family with living expenses and tuition, Cho said.
"Our family is grieving right now, but we want to thank everyone who has reached out to us and offered their help," Serim Han, Han's wife, said through an interpreter earlier Wednesday. "We are suffering and in sorrow, but we have the support of family, friends and our church to help us through this time."
With reporting by Joe Parziale
