Kenneth Casilla Way (Brooklyn)
Present name:None
Location:At the intersection of Baltic Avenue and 3rd Avenue
Honoree: Kenneth Casilla (d. 2013) was was an aspiring rapper who was killed while pursuing his career in Florida. He was a very talented basketball player. FDR High School won back to back Division Titles while he was on the Varsity Basketball team. His senior year, FDR was ranked third in the PSAL A Division Playoffs and was ranked in the Top Ten for most of the year, among NYC’s elite AA PSAL and Catholic school programs. He was considered one of the top point guards in Brooklyn. Kenneth Casilla was a community leader who mentored young people in Wyckoff Gardens area. He organized turkey giveaways and coat drives during the holidays for neighborhood children and mentored multiple kids every year, making sure they had school supplies, MetroCards, and groceries to stay in school. He opened his home to young people in the area without a stable household, some who are still close with his mother today because of the family’s generosity. His legacy as a neighborhood basketball coach continues to this day through the Gowanus basketball team, the Nu-Nick Team. The team was created in honor of Kenneth ‘Nunu’ Casilla and Nicholas Hayward Jr., and the team regularly plays in Nicholas Hayward park. In his memory, his mother regularly attends and organizes events supporting the end of gun violence. She also partnered with a gun violence organization to donate his high school jersey and retire it in the school he attended. (Levin)
LL:2022/54