Remembering Jodie Lane, who died on this date in 2004

[Photo by Todd McCraw via Facebook]

Reposted from Jan. 16, 2014

Jodie Lane was a 30-year-old doctoral candidate at the Teacher’s College at Columbia University. During the late afternoon of Jan. 16, 2004, Lane, who lived on East 12th Street with her boyfriend, was walking her dogs. She was electrocuted on a snow-covered Con Edison junction box on the southwest corner of 11th Street at First Avenue.

The street was named in her honor in the spring of 2005. Former Councilmember Margarita Lopez joined Lane's family and friends for the street co-naming ceremony.

"The name of Jodie Lane is going to be there forever," Lopez said, "for Con Ed to remember what they did — that they didn’t care about the residents of New York City — and for it not to happen again."

As The Villager reported:

The young therapist’s death horrified the city, and brought heightened awareness to the problem of stray voltage leaking from street fixtures. With pressure from Lopez, Con Ed agreed to do annual stray-voltage inspections for all street lampposts and other electrified street fixtures.

In November 2004, ConEd agreed to pay Lane's family more than $6.2 million and to set up a $1 million scholarship fund in her name at Columbia.

Read more about the Jodie S. Lane Public Safety Foundation here.

Previously on EV Grieve:
In Memoriam: Roger M. Lane

Remembering Jodie Lane, who died 10 years ago today

Jodie Lane was a 30-year-old doctoral candidate at the Teacher’s College at Columbia University. During the late afternoon of Jan. 16, 2004, Lane, who lived on East 12th Street with her boyfriend, was walking her dogs. She was electrocuted on a snow-covered Con Edison junction box on the southwest corner of 11th Street at First Avenue.

The street was named in her honor in the spring of 2005. Former Councilmember Margarita Lopez joined Lane's family and friends for the street co-naming ceremony.

"The name of Jodie Lane is going to be there forever," Lopez said, "for Con Ed to remember what they did — that they didn’t care about the residents of New York City — and for it not to happen again."

As The Villager reported:

The young therapist’s death horrified the city, and brought heightened awareness to the problem of stray voltage leaking from street fixtures. With pressure from Lopez, Con Ed agreed to do annual stray-voltage inspections for all street lampposts and other electrified street fixtures.

In November 2004, ConEd agreed to pay Lane's family more than $6.2 million and to set up a $1 million scholarship fund in her name at Columbia.

Read more about the Jodie S. Lane Public Safety Foundation here.

Previously on EV Grieve:
In Memoriam: Roger M. Lane

Report: 'Jodie Lane Place' sign is gone; City says it will be replaced

[EVG file photo]

The street sign noting "Jodie Lane Place" on the northwest corner of East 11th Street and First Avenue is missing, The Villager reports today.

Per the report:

Scott Gastel, a spokesperson for the Department of Transportation, told The Villager he didn’t believe there was any connection between the installation of the new-style cantilever signs and the disappearance of the Jodie Lane Place co-naming sign and the other traditional-style street signs that had been attached to that pole. It looks like the signs were removed with a hacksaw — a thin, jagged strip of green from the removed signs can still be seen.

On Monday, in an e-mail, Gastel assured The Villager that a sign honoring Lane, plus the other removed signs, will be put back up on the pole.

Lane was a 30-year-old doctoral candidate at the Teacher’s College at Columbia University. During the late afternoon of Jan. 16, 2004, Lane, who lived on East 12th Street with her boyfriend, was walking her dogs. She was electrocuted on a snow-covered Con Edison junction box on the southwest corner of 11th Street at First Avenue.

The street was named in her honor in the spring of 2005.

Read more about the Jodie S. Lane Public Safety Foundation here.

Previously on EV Grieve:
In Memoriam: Roger M. Lane

In Memoriam: Roger M. Lane

Yesterday marked the seventh anniversary of Jodie Lane's death... She was a 30-year-old doctoral candidate at the Teacher’s College at Columbia University. During the late afternoon of Jan. 16, 2004, Lane, who lived on East 12th Street with her boyfriend, was walking her dogs. She was electrocuted on a snow-covered Con Edison junction box on the southwest corner of 11th Street at First Avenue.

The street was named in her honor in the spring of 2005.

I'm bringing all this up because I just heard that her father, Roger M. Lane, passed away in Texas on Dec. 31. He was 63. Many people were moved by his crusade for justice in his daughter's death. In November 2004, ConEd agreed to pay Lane's family more than $6.2 million and to set up a $1 million scholarship fund in her name at Columbia.

Wrote Gothamist at the time: "We're also very impressed with the efforts of the Lane family, especially Roger Lane, Jodie's father, to push Con Ed to improve its procedures, and we thank the family for caring enough to make sure other New Yorkers are safe."

Gunnar Hellekson, who spearheaded the reform of safety regulations for New York State’s electrical utilities following Lane's death, remembered Roger Lane in a recent post at OnePeople.

"As part of his settlement with ConEd, he’d negotiated access to ConEdison’s safety data, and he spent much of his time in retirement pouring over it. He was using that methodical, exacting, analytical mind to find trends, holes, and anomalies. He wanted to hold ConEd to account, even years after his daughter’s death. He didn’t want another father to suffer the way he did."

I remember the night of Jan. 16, 2004, fairly clearly. It was a Friday, and I was out at Sophie's. This was the story that everyone seemed to be talking about. Did you hear about the woman who was electrocuted walking her dogs? It was such a harmless, everyday activity that you might not think twice about. The tragedy was a reminder of how much life hangs in balance on a daily basis.

Hellekson ended his post this way:

"Jodie Lane’s death brought a great deal of attention to the safety of New York’s electrical system. Until her death, a horse being electrocuted or a woman being burned alive were treated as freak accidents, an unusual but expected risk of living in New York City. After a year of hearings and public attention, it is now understood in both city government and in Albany that these are not acceptable risks, and that something can be done about them. That is Jodie Lane’s legacy. That legacy was secured in 2005, when East 11th Street was named 'Jodie Lane Place.'"

Read more about the Jodie S. Lane Public Safety Foundation here.