Fabiola Bittar de Kroon, 34, had lived in Hoboken for less than six months when she was struck by an NJ Transit train.
Mike Kelly|NorthJersey
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She was a morning person, the sort who came early to the corner coffee shop near the apartment she shared with her husband and 18-month-old daughterin Hoboken. The workers behind the counter remember her shoulder-length brown hair, her smile, her easy-going grace.
They also regret they never asked her name.
This is Fabiola Bittar de Kroon’s faint legacy in the riverfront city she called home for less than six months last year, whenshe happened to be standing in the wrong place at the wrong time at Hoboken Terminal on Sept. 29, 2016, whena packed commuter train barreled over the end-of-the-line bumper-block and smashed through a series of walls and pillars.
More than 100 passengers on the train and insidethe 110-year-old Hoboken Terminal were injured. De Kroon, 34,was the only one to die.
She happened to be walking on the concrete platform around 8:45 a.m. when Train 1614 on the Pascack Valley Line failed to stop on Track 5.
Only 30 minutes earlier, de Kroon dropped her 18-month-olddaughter, Julia, at the Smart Start Academy, a preschool on NinthStreet, a block from her apartment on the sixth floor of a brick building that overlooks a ShopRite grocery store. She left behind a stroller to be picked up after she returned from a business meeting in New York City.
Witnesses say de Kroon kissed Juliaas she always did when she bid goodbye to her daughter. Then she left the Academy, walking by a row of cherry trees, a liquor store and a kickboxing studio as she made her way to the Hoboken train station, nearly a mile and a halfaway.
She hadsaid she would return for Julia around 1 p.m.
When Fabiola de Kroon did not show up, employeesat the Academy called her husband, Adrianus a native of the Netherlands who met his wife during a trip to her nativeBrazil.Known as "Daan" to his friends, he worked as a marketing representative for a Brazilian beer company, andwas traveling out of statethat day.
He returned later that afternoon for Julia, confiding to the Academy staff that he was struggling with how to tell Julia that her mother had died.
Days later, Daan de Kroon left Hoboken to accompany his wife’s body to Brazil, where she was buried. He later resettled there with Julia, city officials said.
Such is the outline of the hopes, dreamsand sudden death of a working mother.But a year later, theheartbreaking story of de Kroon’s death —and the fate of her husband and daughter —seems largely forgotten, reduced to a footnote amid the largerquestion ofwhy a crowded NJ Transit train line failed to stop atthe peak of themorning rush hour atone of the region’s busiest transit hubs.
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In the aftermath of the crash, state lawmakers opened a wide-ranging investigation to determine if NJ Transit's management, operations, funding and safety issues played a role in the crash. In particular, they have focused on the agency's failure to meet federal deadlines to install a safety system called positive train control that can automatically slow a locomotive.
Medical records made public last week showed that the train's engineer, Thomas Gallagher, was not evaluated for obstructive sleep apnea during a screening two months before the accidentas the agency's guidelines required. He was later found to have a severe case of the disorder.
Adding to the post-crash controversy are accusationsabout continued mismanagement of NJ Transit and its failure to make upgrades to long-neglected rail lines. In June, de Kroon's family filed a wrongful death lawsuit in state Superior Court in Hudson County.
Fleeting encounters
Today, on the streets of Hoboken, a fewresidents still talk about Fabiola de Kroon,saying they continue to feela personal and professional kinship withher.
More than half of Hoboken’s 53,000 residents are in their early 30s.Likede Kroon, almost 55 percent juggleprofessionalcareersand the challenges of starting and raisinga family, according to Census figures.
De Kroon’s death prompted many here to reflect on the fragility and unpredictability of life.
“One minute, you’re dropping off your child at school and the next minute your life is taken,” Hoboken's mayor, Dawn Zimmer, said earlier this week. “It made people step back and think.”
But such reflection amongHoboken's residents did not last long.
At Jefferson's Coffee shop at 10th and Madison Streets, where Fabiola de Kroon stopped each morning around 7 a.m., customers talked about her death for a week or so.
But then the discussions faded.
"It was weird,” remembered Lani Lin, 24, who commutes from her home inNew Milfordto work at Jefferson'sCoffee.“A lot of people were really upset at the time.People were affected by it.But it seems like a lot of people forgot about it a week later.”
A year later, Lin, who studies art at Montclair State University, still remembers de Kroon.
“When we opened the doors each morning, Fabiola would usually be there,” Lin said, adding sadly:“We never knew her name until she died.”
In the weeks after de Kroon was killed, Hoboken residents held two vigils inColumbus Park.The events were organized by Hoboken Moms,a loose collection of working mothers of preschool children.
The group was instrumental in setting up a page on theGoFundMesite thatraised about $20,000 from more than 300 contributors.Hoboken officials say that Daan de Kroon asked that the money be donatedin his wife’s memory to aBrazilian orphanage.
Inthe days after de Kroon’s death, mourners left bouquets of flowers near a bicycle rack outsideHoboken Terminal and across from a cigar shop.
But that was the extent of the memorials.
City officials say they are not aware of any plans for a memorial plaque for de Kroon inside the terminal.NJ Transit did not respond to requests for comment.
'A blip on the screen' of tragedy
Six blocks from the apartment building where de Kroon’s lived with her husband and daughter and another six blocks from the train terminal where she died, parishioners at Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church prayed for her and her family after her deatheven though few knew her.
But those prayers eventually came to an end —a distressing fact of life in fast-paced Hoboken, said Our Lady of Grace’s pastor, the Rev. Alex Santora.
Santora said he felt deeply saddened that the sudden loss of a young mother was so quickly forgotten.But it’s something he said he has regrettably come to expect in his city.
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“We live in a very young town,” Santora said. “It’s like people are on a zip line.You go to the ShopRite.You go to the gym.You go to the PATH train station. I think people dismiss her death because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time.They see it as a horrific accident.But to many, she became just a blip on the screen of tragic deaths that we hear about every day.”
Hoboken’s police chief, Kenneth Ferrante, noticed a similar reaction.
Ferrante still recalls how he made a point of visiting with Daan de Kroon to comfort the grieving husband on the evening after his wife was killed.A few days later, Ferrante’s officers escorted the hearse carrying Fabiola de Kroon’s body to NewarkLiberty International Airport, where it was placed on a jetliner for Brazil.
But on the streets in Hoboken, Ferrante soon noticed that residents quickly disconnected from the tragedy.
“I think people are starting to get numb to tragedies across the world at transportation hubs,” Ferrante said. “After a short period, they do everything they can do to get back on track with their way of life.”
Today, the only reminders at the Hoboken Terminal of last year’s accident are the forest-green plywood walls thatcover the pillars and walls that weretorn down after Train 1614 plowed into them just after 8:45 a.m. on Sept. 29, 2016.Track 5 is still not being used.Workers say they are awaiting a new safety bumper and other upgrades.
But the other tracks are operating.
On a recent evening, bells clanged as a trains rolled in.Commuters rushed across the concrete platforms, sometimes glancing at the flat-screen TVs that listed other trains running to Ridgewood, Suffern, Long Branch and Gladstone, or at the cardboard signs with arrows pointing to the PATH station, the Manhattan-bound ferry andcommuter buses.
David Richards, 41, a computer consultant from Lodi, stood near one of the plywood walls by the idleTrack 5 to read a message on his cellphone then looked up and pointed to the paint peeling from overhead steel girders and the broken concrete near a skylight.
“This place is falling apart,” he said, adding that he tries not to think too much about the train accident and whether the lack of upgrades toa train station built before World War I may have contributed to the death of a young mother.
“You can’t think about it,” Richards said.“If you worry about everything, you’ll never do anything. It’s the same as a car accident. Accidents are going to happen.”
Email: kellym@northjersey.com
