In Graffiti Teen Death, A Search For Answers
by Colin Gustafson, Assistant Editor
01/11/2007

In the days since 13 year old Ari Kraft’s death on a Long Island Rail Road track in Rego Park, relatives and local leaders have all desperately tried to make sense of a tragedy that may defy simple explanation.
Ari was killed Friday when an eastbound train carrying about 1,000 passengers slammed into him as he hurried across the train tracks to head home for Sabbath dinner at his mother’s Rego Park apartment.


According to accounts from friends and witnesses, the teen and three pals had snuck onto the tracks that afternoon, possibly crawling through a 6 foot gap in a nearby chain link fence on 63rd Drive.
The teen reportedly spent his final moments spray painting his graffiti tag, “Kos,” on the side of a signal box, then reportedly snapping a photograph of his work before dashing onto the tracks. Ari narrowly dodged an oncoming train on the third of four tracks before being blindsided by another train on the fourth. Police said the teen was killed instantly by “blunt injury to the head, torso and extremities.”
At the funeral Sunday at the Sinai Chapel in Fresh Meadows, Ari’s mother, Yaffa Simantov, a divorced Israeli immigrant, wept uncontrollably as she sat next to the father, Roger Kraft. The mourners, who numbered nearly 500, recalled the eighth grader as a good student with an infectious sense of humor and a bright future. Conspicuously absent from their remembrances were any mentions of graffiti or the circumstances surrounding Ari’s death.
But since then, elected officials and family members alike have broken that silence, citing both vandalism and the railroad’s inadequate safety measures as direct causes for the tragedy.
City Councilman John Liu (D Flushing), who chairs the Transportation Committee, blasted the LIRR Sunday for failing to maintain the tracks, patch holes in the track fencing or close platform gaps. Ari’s family has also blamed the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and vowed to sue the city for failing to repair the fencing.
Over the weekend, railroad workers could be seen mending the dilapidated fence that Ari and his buddies may have used as an entry point to the tracks. LIRR officials have launched an investigation into the incident, but said Sunday it would be impossible to prevent people from reaching the 700 miles of tracks, even with improved barriers. Supervising the railroad is further complicated by the fact that much of the fencing is privately owned, officials said.
But Liu countered Tuesday that even small safety improvements would go a long way toward preventing future accidents. “The LIRR can’t stop everybody (from entering), but we’re not trying to get that kind of standard,” he said. “All we’re saying is that all fences accessible from street level should be patched up—in other words, that it shouldn’t be easy.”
Other Queens officials, meanwhile, took aim at a more elusive culprit in assigning blame for the teen’s death. City Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. (D Astoria), who heads the Public Safety Committee, pointed the finger at companies that glamorize graffiti art and tagging as a lifestyle. “This incident was a tragedy,” he said in a statement Monday. “But it goes to show how all types of kids are being drawn in to this often dangerous crime by irresponsible companies who continue to commercialize graffiti.”
He added that Ari was a victim of circumstance and that the teen could just as easily have fallen off a bridge or been mugged.
But the teen’s rabbi, Albert Thayler, had a much more sobering explanation for the tragedy Sunday. “Ari was a good kid,” he told mourners at the funeral. “Sometimes good kids do bad things.”