“Sixty-Five Cents Worth Of Hope”

A Staten Island filmmaker wants to make a made-for-television feature about the two planes that collided in midair and crashed in both Park Slope and Staten Island in 1960:

It was the worst aviation disaster in history, but the December 1960 collision that sent airliners crashing into Park Slope and Staten Island has never been turned into a movie.

That will change if filmmaker D.J. Donnelly realizes his hope of filming “82-6/266 — The Cries in the Sky” in time to air on Dec. 16.

That will be the 46th anniversary of the midair collision and double crash that killed 134 people, including six on the ground. The death toll was the worst in aviation history at that time.

“This is mainly for the people hurt by this crash — the victims,” said Donnelly, 45, a Staten Island native whose family witnessed the tragedy. “They’ve been forgotten about totally.”

Negotiations are underway with two television networks, but Donnelly insisted filming will begin in June — and be followed by twin memorials near the crash sites.

To ensure accuracy, Donnelly has interviewed people like Raymond Garcia-Figueroa, who witnessed the tragedies unfold.

Garcia-Figueroa, then 15, was approaching Park Slope when he saw flames shooting from buildings on Sterling Place and Seventh Ave., where a DC-8 jet owned by United Airlines landed 8 miles from the collision.

Garcia-Figueroa watched the destruction unfold but was too stunned to help critically wounded passengers, including 11-year-old Stephen Baltz, who died 27 hours later.

“The Cries In The Sky”? That’s terrible. And what’s with the numbers: “82-6/266”? How do you even say that?

A suggestion: Why not have the title evoke the story of Stephen Baltz? It is actually really interesting:

All of the occupants of the DC-8 were killed instantly, except Stephen Baltz, an 11-year old redhead from Wilmette, Illinois, who planned to spend Christmas with relatives in Yonkers. His father delivered him to O’Hare that morning, and he was to meet his mother and sister at Idlewild; they had flown in the day before. As the plane hit the ground and exploded in flames, Stephen was thrown from the tail section and onto a snowbank, where residents rolled him in the snow to put out his burning clothing. Though conscious and repeatedly calling for his mother and father, Stephen had inhaled flames and smoke, and also sustained severe burns and broken bones.

. . .

Still conscious after his ordeal, Stephen Baltz later described the crash to doctors at the hospital. “I remember looking out the plane window at the snow below covering the city. It looked like a picture out of a fairy book. Then all of a sudden there was an explosion. The plane started to fall and people started to scream. I held on to my seat and then the plane crashed. That’s all I remember until I woke up.”

Newspaper reports said that people all over the country prayed for Stephen, whose courage and sweet disposition won the hearts of everyone who met him. In spite of heroic efforts by doctors and nurses at Methodist, Stephen Baltz died peacefully at 1 o’clock the following afternoon, his mother and father by his side. A small bronze memorial to the crash victims containing the boy’s blackened pocket change — 65 cents — was set up at the hospital . . .”

I’m thinking something along the lines of “Sixty-Five Cents Worth Of Hope”. Advantages: It’s punchier, more original and probably a little easier to say. Disadvantages: It’s actually really depressing to think about.

Southwest corner of Seventh Avenue and Sterling Place, ca. February 2004, where a United Airlines DC-8 plane crashed on December 16, 1960: