A. James Warfel
Memorial
James Warfel - Murdered
R.I.P.
They say in 20 years ain't none of this gonna matter. Well, they also say a picture is worth a thousand words. Some pictures have the ability to generate intense feelings within us. Especially if the people in the photos are no longer with us. Now the photo above is a memorial to James Warfel, a teenager and resident who was stabbed by some loser who should spend the rest of his miserable life wasting away in a place where his fellow cronies will most certainly show him how big and bad he actually is, day after day after day.
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| Bronx Times Reporter |
| Date |
11/2/2006 |
| ArticleTitle |
EDGEWATER PARK CO-OP WILL REACH OUT TO WARFELS TO DISCUSS MEMORIAL |
| Journalist |
Bret Nolan Collazzi |
| Article |
When Alwin Warfel received a letter in mid-October from the Edgewater Park co-op board ordering him to remove a makeshift memorial to his son, the first board member to come to his mind was Kenneth Banker.
 It was Banker, owner of Side Street Sporting Goods on Morris Park Avenue, who donated the plaque in honor of Jamie Warfel, who was stabbed to death in 1998 just feet from the memorial by the E Section parking lot.
“At the time,” Warfel said, “I felt he was very generous in donating that plaque.”
Now, Banker, who joined the co-op board in 2002 and considers himself the member closest to the Warfel family, will visit Alwin Warfel on behalf of his peers to mediate the latest dispute.
“I’m one of the only guys who talks to him [on the board],” Banker said earlier this week. “I volunteered to talk to him.”
Under discussion, he said, will be how the co-op can go about removing the memorial — a collection of candles and planters surrounding a photo-lined telephone pole — while preserving Jamie’s memory.
The assignment is not just political. Banker served alongside the younger Warfel at the Edgewater Park Volunteer Hose Co. shortly before his murder. In fact, he was on duty the night Jamie was stabbed in the heart by 15-year-old Louis Marino, arriving at the scene to find his partners attempting to revive the young man.
“My kids were in the same Boy Scout troop with his kid,” Banker added. “I knew the kid.”
The delegate said he wishes to discuss with Warfel possible alternatives to the eight-year-old memorial in E Section, including a park bench or stone tablet bearing the same plaque he donated in 1998. He even suggested the telephone pole display could be flipped to face the adjacent ball field, and therefore cut back its impact on the parking lot. |
| ArticleCont. |
Alwin Warfel, reached for comment late on Tuesday, October 31, said he would have no problem discussing the memorial in person.
“We’re open to talking about it,” he said. “I would have been receptive to this in the very beginning without ever receiving that very hurtful and vindictive and vicious letter.”
The letter, dated October 4 and signed by board president Barbara Lindsay, threatened to “remove all traces” of the memorial by October 20 if the Warfels did not do so themselves.
Banker insisted that no one on the 13-member board was attempting to hurt the Warfel family, saying: “People sympathize, no one’s holding a grudge.” Instead, he said the board only took a stern tone because two previous letters went unanswered. Warfel said he received no prior letters.
Despite the board’s decision to approach Warfel in person rather than disassemble the memorial, Banker said the board continues to believe that the current setup cannot remain because it hampers parking and complicates snowplowing.
In fact, when Banker donated the plaque to two of Jamie’s friends eight years ago — the same friends who erected the memorial in the days after the stabbing — he remembers suggesting they contact the board before picking a spot.
“They asked me where they should put it, what they should do. I told them to go to the board,” he said. “When I got on the board four years ago, it always was a topic of conversation.”
Relations between the co-op board and the Warfels have been strained since the latter filed a lawsuit holding Edgewater liable for Jamie’s death because of lax security. A court denied the co-op’s request to dismiss that suit in June. |
While I symphathize with the family enough to put this page up, the family should NEVER have sued Edgewater. It's not the resident's fault that this happened. This lawsuit is only going to make the family more enemies and cost the residents way more money. In the end, it'll probably be thrown out, but only after a lot of money has been spent defending Edgewater.
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