[Image from Facebook via the Daily News]
The medical examiner has confirmed that the second body discovered in the rubble of 121 Second Ave. on Sunday is Moises Ismael Locón Yac.
Locón, an employee at Sushi Park, was 27. He and Nicholas Figueroa died when a gas explosion rocked the building housing Sushi Park last Thursday.
Various media accounts noted that Locón sent most of his paycheck back to his family in Guatemala, where he worked as a school teacher before moving to the United States seven years ago.
On his days off in New York, Locón liked to accompany his older brother, Alfredo, and Alfredo's two children, to city parks.
According to The New York Times:
Despite a growing fondness for his adopted city — the walls of his rented room in Queens bore a poster of the Empire State Building and a framed cover from The New Yorker — Mr. Locón had been planning to return to Guatemala this year to reunite with his girlfriend [his childhood sweetheart], according to a cousin, Pablo Yac.
"I saw that young man every day," Michael Schumacher, the co-owner of a food market near the sushi restaurant told the Daily News. "Every single day we had a chat — you know, ‘How’s business?’ The kid worked hard for his family. He’s gone. He’s gone."
An East Village couple, who did not know Locón, has established a crowdfunding campaign to raise money to help his family pay for the funeral and other expenses. You may find details here. As of this post, $810 has been raised.