Bronx Co-op Board Finally Allows Memorial for a Murder Victim

Sept. 2, 2014 — At a Labor Day party in 1998, New York University political science major A. James "Jamie" Warfel was murdered in Edgewater Park, a co-op comprised of 675 single-family homes in the Throgs Neck section of The Bronx. Friends and family created an impromptu memorial at the site of the tragedy, but the co-op board objected, and after years of contention the memorial was removed in 2007. But now, reports the Bronx Times, the board has relented and allowed the memorial, a rough-hewn stone with a plaque, at a recently installed athletic track a couple of hundred feet from the murder site. “It helps to heal some of the animosity that has built up over the years,” said the victim's father, Alwin Warfel, at the unveiling, adding, “You can’t erase history, but you can put it in the proper perspective.”