CORONA — Luis Bravo the 19-year-old mechanical engineering student who was mowed down late Saturday night by a hit and run driver in Woodside was described as an optimistic and “good” kid at a service Wednesday night.
Many in the crowd of mourners outside the Rivera Funeral Home in Corona were too distraught to speak.
But those who did said Bravo — who lived in Jackson Heights and was working studying to be a mechanical engineer at New York City College of Technology — was always upbeat and cheerful.
Randy Morales said he became friends with Bravo as sophomores at the High School for Arts and Technology School in Manhattan.
Their friendship started in the middle of an argument, but Bravo turned it around.
“He came forward and apologized first,” Morales, 20, said —and they’d been friends ever since.
“He was always happy and optimistic.”
Bravo was killed on Sept. 28 when a hit-and-run driver struck him at the intersection of 58th Street and Broadway in Woodside at around 11 p.m.
He was rushed to Elmhurst Hospital, where he was declared dead. Police are still looking for the driver of a dark colored sedan that they say struck him.
The Department of Transportation said it plans to review conditions at that intersection — as well as others along Broadway — and look at “the feasibility of other traffic calming measures” in the area.
Tracy Flynn taught Bravo in the seventh grade at IS 230 in Jackson Heights and came to the service with some of his other former teachers..
“Many teachers came because he touched all of us,” she said. Bravo's fifth grade teacher, Michele Gilbride, said he always came back to visit.
"It always seems like it's the good kids," she said, holding back tears.
Flynn said she'd like to see more safety measures to prevent another accident like Bravo's, which she called a "senseless death."
“He’ll look down now and help everybody,” she said. “Hopefully he’ll be the protector.”
