Best of the Bronx: 93-year-old William Rodriguez-Doville

<p>William Rodriguez-Doville may live in a senior housing complex, but he says he does nearly everything himself &mdash; from cooking to altering his own clothes.</p>

News 12 Staff

Aug 9, 2018, 11:45 PM

Updated 2,097 days ago

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William Rodriguez-Doville may live in a senior housing complex, but he says he does nearly everything himself — from cooking to altering his own clothes.
And he loves to dance salsa.
"You meet a lot of women if you're a good dancer," he says. "I was one of those guys."
He's been independent his whole life.
"My mother never took care of me," he says.
Like the time he fell out of a seventh-story window and had to have his hip removed. Since then, he's had a rod in his right leg running from his hip to his calf.
Born in Puerto Rico, he came to New York at a young age with his parents. But after the accident, they sent him back.
"I found some people there that said they were my family," he explains. 
But as he tells it, he ended up raising himself on the streets. 
He also took up baseball, and he found himself playing with Major League Baseball Hall of Famer Roberto Clemente in both San Juan and the Bronx, where he eventually returned in his 20s.
He says he hopes young people with disabilities find inspiration in his story.
"They've been playing with one leg in Major Leagues, all right? And one arm," he says. "So, baseball is the best thing. In the other sports, you can't play with one arm, one leg."


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