Day: July 17, 2026

Police in Brooklyn are looking for the truck driver who struck and killed a pedestrian in an apparent hit-and-run crash on Friday morning.

Law enforcement sources said the deadly incident occurred in front of 946 Pennsylvania Ave., between Cozine and Wortman Avenues, in New Lots at about 7:45 a.m. on July 17.

Officers from the 75th Precinct rushed to the location and found the victim, a 34-year-old man, lying on the ground. 

During a preliminary investigation, police learned that the victim had been walking across Pennsylvania Avenue when the driver of a truck traveling southbound on the roadway collided with him. Seconds later, the man — who had apparently survived the first strike and got back up off the pavement — was hit by a second truck traveling in the same direction.

Police sources said the driver of the first truck that struck the man did not stop and fled the scene. The other truck driver remained at the scene. 

EMS rushed the victim to Brookdale University Hospital, where he was pronounced dead a short time later. 

So far, no arrests have been made in the ongoing investigation, which is now in the hands of the NYPD Highway Patrol Collision Investigation Squad.

The New Lots hit-and-run occurred hours after another incident in Brooklyn in which a 6-year-old boy was seriously injured after being hit by an automobile driver.

Police said that the incident occurred at about 12:30 a.m. on July 17 at the corner of Euclid and Sutter Avenues in Cypress Hills. The boy was rushed to Maimonides Children’s Hospital in stable condition.

The driver involved in that crash remained on the scene, police reported. No criminality is suspected.

A single Instagram post from Brooklyn’s Bushwick Community Darkroom sparked weeks of drama and debate among local residents and those who love photography.

Film photographers who rely on the darkroom to develop their images were alarmed on July 7, when the space posted on Instagram an image of a set of pink lockers and flat files used to store photography supplies and prints. The post showed the lockers out on the curb with the caption, “come and get em. If you wanna throw us a few bucks cool if not just take em.”

https://www.instagram.com/p/Daf0MsVOBaL/

Soon, the post was full of outraged comments aimed at Bushwick Community Darkroom founder ,Lucia Rollow, ranging from mild concern to outright accusations of criminality. Artists were asking about the supplies and images they had stored in the lockers, community members were lamenting the closure of the darkroom and internet trolls were … well, trolling.

From there, things devolved into a heated back-and-forth between the internet and Rollow. People came for the darkroom owner-operator in the comments and Rollow responded with either warm reassurance or open hostility—depending on the comment. She called one user with whom she appeared to have a history, a “f***ing c**t.”

 ”I think that a lot of people have a very, very small slice of the picture and are jumping to a lot of conclusions and don’t know me,” Rollow said of the online discourse. 

The entire saga had passive scrollers, darkroom members and a ton of people on the r/Bushwick subreddit, asking: What the hell is going on at the Bushwick Community Darkroom?

The day in question

Online, Rollow categorically denied that the lockers were sent to the curb with people’s belongings inside. But speculators pointed to a story on the darkroom’s Instagram account, which appeared to acknowledge that some items had been taken out of the lockers, asking anyone who took someone else’s belongings to return them, promising to refund any money paid for those items.

The internet was not forgiving.

“Sounds like she admits to selling other people stuff…I mean…you know if you took money for something,” one user commented on a Reddit thread with close to 90 comments.

During a conversation about the darkroom’s closure and subsequent storm of online hostility, Rollow described to amNewYork something more akin to an accident. She said that many of the lockers were already empty before making the public post.

But because the landlord was forcing the darkroom to leave the building immediately or risk being pursued for damages of up to $50,000, per a letter from the landlord’s attorney, Rollow needed to move everything, including the lockers, that day.

Rollow said she knew some people wouldn’t be able to come and get their things in time. So, a friend brought some bolt cutters over and cut the remaining locks—before anything was put out on the curb.

“ My intention was to empty the lockers and take all of the stuff and put it in my desk so they wouldn’t be taken,” Rollow said. 

People who were already inside the darkroom to pick up other things immediately descended once the lockers were open, Rollow said. 

“ As soon as the locks were cut, someone yelled, ‘storage wars,’ and like 50 bros just swarmed the lockers,” Rollow said. “I was like, ‘no, no, no stop,’ and grabbed as much stuff as I could. Apparently I missed some boxes of paper, everyone has their film.”

‘Photography’s not cheap’

So far, amNewYork has identified one member who can confirm that items were removed from their locker, a claim Rollow also admits, though they both said the items were unused photo paper, not developed images. 

We spoke with another member of the darkroom, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation, about her experience collecting her belongings that day. The member, a professional photographer, paid around $30 a month to use the darkroom and store supplies, prints and negatives in lockers and flat files.

She said she understood people’s reactions online because of the immense personal value of artwork and the large investment required for film photography.

“ It’s a lot of money to buy paper, to make negatives, to do the things,” she said. “Photography’s not cheap, especially analog.”

The member was relieved and thankful that she was able to find her prints and tools, but told amNewYork that until they were in her hands, she was “freaking out,” commenting on the IG post “I have work and supplies in those lockers/flat files and I really don’t want them thrown away.”

“ I think I came by like two or three hours later, and people were rummaging through, and I was pretty frantic like, ‘Where’s my stuff?’” she said.

She described a chaotic scene: people surrounding the lockers outside, while prints and supplies were in disarray on the inside. She saw people opening the lockers on the street, but couldn’t tell if there was anything inside. 

Inside the space, the darkroom member said that she was looking for her belongings in a panic when a man she didn’t know approached her carrying some items. He said he got them from a locker and asked if they belonged to her.

After a bit of searching, she found her prints, negatives, supplies and tools which Rollow had intentionally set aside. But in the chaos, she told amNewYork she couldn’t be sure about everything. At one point, the member said she had to put some photo paper back after realizing that she had been using paper with a different finish.

While she said she doesn’t believe Rollow is some malicious villain, intentionally selling other people’s things, the darkroom member told amNewYork that the entire thing should have been handled differently.

“ This didn’t have to happen this way,” she said. “This is really not the way it’s supposed to happen.”

Still, she acknowledged everything that Rollow was going through, from the stress of having to abruptly vacate, to the rash of online haters all while mourning the loss of a community Rollow herself willed into existence. She felt bad for Rollow, recalling hugging her while the darkroom owner cried.

“ She was upset,” the photographer said. “People were upset. I just wanted to get that vibe out.”

The drama, fair or not, has served as a public referendum for the Bushwick Community Darkroom, how the closing was handled, and Rollow’s leadership overall.

The end of an era

The final bow of the Bushwick Community Darkroom marked the end of Rollow’s most beloved project to date.

The concept was open in one location or another for around 15 years, with at least one hiatus in 2022 following Rollow’s departure from a space with no AC, heat or proper ventilation to support her mother through cancer treatment and grieve the loss of her brother, who died by suicide. 

But Rollow always returned, reopening in five different spaces throughout 15 years. She said that she gave everything she had to the darkroom, which represented her vision for a space to welcome all photographers, not just cis white men. In November, Rollow moved out of her apartment and into her van to save money just so she could fund the darkroom. 

“ I have been putting every single f***ing penny that comes in back into the dark room,” Rollow said.

The darkroom openly discussed its financial troubles in the months leading up to the closure, but members said that they were reassured that Bushwick Community Darkroom was going to live on, thanks to a partnership agreement between Rollow and Sasha Brunetti, founder of Ceaseless Media.

Brunetti and Rollow told amNewYork that they hoped to raise enough money to secure a new lease and operate the Bushwick Community Darkroom as a shared space, with Rollow operating the darkroom and Brunetti running a studio in the same place, like “roommates,” according to Brunetti.

Then, in the eleventh hour, they said the landlord wouldn’t agree to the partnership and issue a new lease, kicking them out of the space instead. 

That’s when things got twisted up. Some people online, as well as members speaking to amNewYork said they were not informed ahead of time that the deal to save the darkroom had fallen through and they needed to gather their things prior to the public IG post.

Rollow said that all members were well informed, noting that she sent multiple notices out to her 7,000-person email list, warning of the darkroom’s closure back in May. She showed amNewYork slack messages with two individual people, notifying them that they needed to collect their things before posting publicly to IG. Rollow has not yet provided any communication with the larger list of members notifying them that the darkroom could no longer be saved and asking them to come get their belongings ahead of the public notice.

Brunetti said the IG post took her by surprise too, but by then the two had already had a “falling out”.

“After everything went down, Lucia, rightfully so, was very upset about everything,” Brunetti said. “I think she reacted to us [Ceaseless Media] in a way that wasn’t super positive or productive to anything.” 

A complex history

Brunetti isn’t the first person to have a falling out with Rollow. This month’s drama reignited old conversations about Rollow’s past leadership, with former members and volunteers sharing about their experiences with the owner-operator.

One former volunteer, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation, told amNewYork that his time with  Bushwick Community Darkroom and Rollow was “traumatizing.” He said that he felt like he was manipulated into long hours of volunteer work which should have been performed by paid professionals. He told amNewYork the practice felt like “wage theft.”

Technically, he wasn’t wrong. Rollow said that around 2019 she started working with  Start Small Think Big, an organization that helps small businesses in NYC with resources. Their legal team raised a red flag over the darkroom’s volunteer program, which offered darkroom access in exchange for work. They told her it was illegal. 

Rollow said she wasn’t intentionally breaking the law and stopped the practice immediately. 

But for one volunteer, Rollow crossed a line. In 2021, Caleb Savage, who she said was serving as her “right arm,” sued the Bushwick Community Darkroom and Rollow personally over unpaid wages. They negotiated a settlement of $45,000 plus a $5,000 piece of equipment.

To hear Savage describe it, the lawsuit actually stemmed from Rollow’s behavior handling interpersonal conflict. The two had a falling out over Savage traveling for six weeks during the pandemic, feuding over the volunteer’s availability and the way it impacted the business.

Rollow told amNewYork that on return, Savage, without her permission, rearranged the entire space, stripping away the community darkroom to leave only a film developing lab.

“I flipped out and sent a bunch of nasty Slack messages,” Rollow said. 

“Ultimately, she was upset that I moved her office chair,” Savage said of the accusation.

During the dispute, Savage said that Rollow said some things to him which were “unforgivable,” but that the lawsuit was a last resort.

“ I would have accepted an apology and dropped the whole thing and not sued her,” he said. 

Although some of the posts about closing the darkroom garnered dozens of negative comments, speculation and suspicion, one of the latest posts on the page was filled with commenters praising the darkroom and Rollow, personally for being a trailblazer in the analog photography world and thanking her for her commitment to the community.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Dao4HQPjgn8/

“Never forget the first community darkroom,” one person commented with clapping and heart emojis. “And seriously, my favorite internship to volunteer job I’ve ever had.”

One member told amNewYork that she valued her relationship with Rollow and that she didn’t like seeing her go through all of this. 

“ I think that Lucia really means well,” she said. “She really wants to help photographers and help the community.” 

Even through the chaos and drama of the closure and online war, its still clear Rollow genuinely cares about film photography. She gave out pieces of equipment like photo enlargers, scanners and sinks to places like a summer camp in Maine, Out of Focus Darkroom and the Color Resource Center, accepting cash donations when they were offered to cover the cost of moving out. 

Savage, despite their rocky past, still has good things to say about her.

“ I think Lucia had good intentions throughout, right up until the very last minute,” Savage said. “Even with the current drama. I would never say she had bad intentions, and I wish her well.”

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