4. Stephen Baltz Memorial at the New York Methodist Hospital

The plaque at the New York Methodist Hospital’s chapel featuring pocket change of victim Stephen Baltz. 

In New York Methodist Hospital’s Phillips Chapel, there is an unassuming plaque melded with coins honoring the victims of the 1960 plane crash in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Two commercial airliners collided on Staten Island on December 16, 1960; one crashed onto Staten Island, and the other in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Of all 128 passengers aboard the planes, there were no survivors except for 11-year-old Stephen Baltz, a sixth grader travelling to New York from a Chicago suburb.

He was supposed to fly several days prior with his sister and mother to visit his grandparents in Yonkers for the holidays, but a cold delayed him until his father sent him on the ill-fated plane ride on the 16th. He was the lone survivor of the crash, but succumbed to his injuries a day later at the New York Methodist Hospital. In the hospital’s Phillips Chapel, a plaque is dedicated to the victims of the tragedy, featuring 65 cents— Baltz’s pocket change at the time of the crash.