June 18, 2004

Meet Ethan Ruby, Citsytreets' new Chief Pedestrian Advocate.

New York, NY - On April 21, 2004 at the Apple Store in Soho, Harris Silver spoke and presented Citystreets' various initiatives and the merits of and results driven from this brand of urban activism to a packed standing room only audience. The future of Citystreets was discussed by Ethan Ruby who was introduced and announced as someone who was hand selected by Harris Silver and Strategist, Sharoz Makarechi to take a leadership position in this growing and progressive non-profit. “There is an ideal fit between Ethan and Citystreets. He has unique perspective on the challenges that pedestrians face by a distorted public policy that has historcially fovored cars over humans. Ethan is going to be an integral part of Citystreets future,” said Silver.

Ethan Ruby grew up in Rhode Island, graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1997, moved to New York City and co-founded a successful Wall Street trading firm. An all around athlete, Ethan played Division 1 Baseball for the University, hockey behind his baseball coaches back, surfed and rock climbed as often as possible. Ethan's unique perspective and how it applies to Citystreets stems from the fact that while walking in a New York City cross walk toward an illuminated “walk” sign, on Nov. 29th, 2000, he was struck by a driver with a suspended license. The impact instantly shattered 3 vertabates leaving him paralyzed from the chest down. To the city he is a statistic, one of 15,000 people who are seriously injured every year by drivers in NYC. To people that know and love him he is still Ethan.

His injury presents new challenges that he is facing head on. Having spear-headed events to raise awareness and money for spinal cord injury research, Ethan is now focusing his attention on the unique challenges of pedestrian issues in the urban environment--the reason he is in his predicament in the first place. Articulate, intelligent, and compassionate Ethan quickly took an interest in Citystreets' past, present and future. He knows that he represents exactly that which Citystreets has been working so hard to prevent and wants to be part of this movement to make NYC streets safer for everyone who lives, works, and plays here.

Asked about Ethan's seemingly ironic title of Chief Pedestrian Advocate, Sharoz Makarechi replied: "The legal definition of a pedestrian is someone on foot or in a wheelchair, but more importantly, who would understand the importance of pedestrian safety in the urban environment more than someone who can't walkanymore because of the lack of it?"