By Daniel Katzive
A dead man found floating in the 79th Street Boat Basin Marina last summer has been identified as missing Cuban artist Rewell Altunaga. CNN reported the news this weekend, and the New York City Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) confirmed the identification to West Side Rag.
Altunaga, age 47, came to the United States about ten years ago with his partner, according to the CNN report. He was a talented artist and considered a pioneer in video game art, but somewhere along the way his life unraveled amid homelessness, mental health issues, and drug use.
It is not known how he came to be in the river, and the cause and manner of his death are undetermined. He was identified when his former partner found a description posted by the OCME in the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, and medical examiners confirmed the match, according to CNN.
West Side Rag will periodically report on the discovery of deceased people along the Hudson River shoreline, as we did in the case of Altunaga last summer, but rarely do we learn the identity of those who are found. A large percentage of bodies are never successfully identified, as we wrote in our deep dive on this phenomenon published earlier this year. And even when the OCME is able to make an ID, the office does not proactively share this information with the public. The CNN report indicates the OCME identified Altunaga back in November 2024, five months after he was discovered.
For more on Altunaga’s life and work, see the story on CNN.com linked to above.
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“He was arrested nearly 20 times since 2017, mostly on criminal mischief charges involving the breaking of store windows and other property damage, according to a law enforcement source. Most of the cases remain sealed.”
Par for the course, but HOW can this be? Aren’t there social service agencies and “non-profit” organizations who can provide mentally ill, substance-addicted, undomiciled individuals with food, shelter, medical attention, pharmaceuticals, and mental health counseling?
Where is the accountability?
I just read an article on another website about the difficulty of retaining social workers in shelters for homeless families. It seems almost intractable: people come to large “blue” cities from all over, many of them have severe needs or develop them, and the resources to help are never enough and never funded well enough. And how can they be? You’d almost think the “system” is working as it is designed to work … It makes my head spin.
The only thing these. non-profits help is their own execs with outsized 6 figure salaries.
Would you be ok if they had *normal sized” six-figure salaries?
Really? The ONLY thing? Isn’t that a tad hyperbolic?
Waitlists for social service programming came sometimes be years long. There are some great programs doing amazing work, but there simply isn’t enough money in the system to support the demand. More money = more teams = more support and hopefully fewer people in Rewell’s position
no there are not orgs that can help.
There are, but just because you’re ready to go today doesn’t mean they’re ready to take you in today.
How very sad.
Our mental health services are horrific. It is all to benefit the contractors who do nothing of substance for the mentally ill.