HAMILTON HEIGHTS — The woman who was struck and killed by an MTA bus in Midtown Wednesday night was charismatic, compassionate and planned to travel to Europe in January before her life was suddenly cut short, relatives and friends said a day after the tragic incident.
Aileen Martinez, 33, was heading home from her job as a makeup artist at Bergdorf Goodman when she was hit by a bus turning off of 59th Street southbound onto Seventh Avenue around 8:25 p.m., police and family said.
She was pronounced dead at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital.
“She was going to go to Italy next month on vacation,” her devastated uncle, Jose Perez, 55, said from her former Hamilton Heights home, noting she recently moved to The Bronx. “She bought the ticket already.”
Co-worker Lina Davila said the two spoke yesterday about the planned trip.
“She loved to travel. She’s been wanting to go to Europe so bad,” Davila, 30, said.
“She was funny. She was so smart. She was a chess player,” Davila added.
No criminality is suspected in the incident, police said, but the MTA suspended the driver from behind-the-wheel work, an agency spokesman noted.
“We’re not pointing fingers at anyone,” Davila said. “We don’t know if it was the weather or if he was driving fast. We’re just mourning her loss.”
