Slain NYC parks worker honored with street renaming 50 years after death: It means so much

A Staten Island street was renamed Sunday in honor of a parks worker who was killed 50 years ago during a botched golf-course burglary – and never got to see his two sons grow up to be hero NYPD cops.Arthur Leahy was the first city parks worker to die on the job when he was killed April 6, 1975, as three assailants tried to break into the LaTourette Park golf course clubhouse overnight, according to City Councilman David Carr (R-Staten Island).“Arthur C.Leahy Way” now faces the entrance to the park at the corner of Richmond Hill and Forest Hill roads — after what the tragic worker’s family says was a long-fought struggle to get him recognition.“It is so appropriate that we honor our local hometown heroes in this way, who, for the most part, are everyday, ordinary folks, common people, rendering uncommon service, and that’s no exception in this case,” Carr told the crowd of dozens gathered for Sunday’s commemoration.Leahy, a Mariners Harbor resident and Marine veteran, was married with five children when he was beaten, shot in the neck and back and left to die in the green space while working security at the park.His kids ranged from a 3-year-old daughter at the time to a 12-year-old son, James, who later joined the NYPD and was killed on 9/11 when he ran into the North Tower to try to save people before it collapsed.Another son, Arthur Leahy III, is an NYPD detective who helped take out a maniac who killed two unarmed auxiliary cops in Greenwich Village in 2007.Denise Henick, another child of the slain parks worker, said that the night their dad was killed in 1975, “The Leahy family and the Staten Island community lost a hero.“We never wanted my dad to be forgotten, and that was a fear that we carried within us,” she said.

“The significance of having this street co-named on the 50th anniversary of his murder is momentous to us.We can confidently say that Arthur C.

Leahy’s name will be seen daily by hundreds of people and his name will l...