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Jerome D'Amaro, civil engineer, lawmaker's dad, dies

BY RICK BRAND | rick.brand@newsday.com

April 29, 2008

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Jerome D'Amaro, a civil engineer who helped design and build many of Long Island's roads during the region's suburban boom years, died yesterday after a two-year illness brought on by a stroke. He was 77.

D'Amaro died at 11 a.m. at Good Samaritan Hospital in West Islip after spending most of the last year at the adjoining Our Lady of Consolation Nursing Home.

His son, Suffolk Legis. Louis D'Amaro (D-North Babylon), said his father worked as the engineer in charge on many Long Island road projects during his decade as an engineer for the state Transportation Department.

"As a kid I can remember him taking me to a job site where he helped design the railroad trestle on Route 231," Louis D'Amaro said. "I remember often driving with him, and he would describe how the road was built, what the base was made of. He worked on roads all over Suffolk County."

While working for the state, D'Amaro, on a part-time basis, started his own engineering and land surveying firm. He later opened an office on Deer Park Avenue in Deer Park, one of the roads he helped design for the state. D'Amaro ran that business, which employed as many as 35 workers, for 31 years until he retired in 1990, turning the firm over to two of his sons.

The lawmaker also said his father always put his family first to make their lives better. "When I told him I had passed the bar examination, there was a look of relief and joy on his face. ... He was a very unselfish man for me and two brothers."

D'Amaro was born in Manhattan; his family moved to the Bronx when he was a youngster. He attended Clinton High School in Manhattan and later City College of New York. His studies where interrupted when he was drafted during the Korean War. He served from 1952 to 1954, rising to the rank of sergeant and serving in an artillery unit in Korea.

Before leaving for the front in 1953, D'Amaro married. He and his wife, Marcy, were together for 55 years. The couple met at the wedding of D'Amaro's brother, Paul, who later became a state Supreme Court justice in Suffolk and is now deceased.

On his return from the service, D'Amaro went back to school at first part-time and later full-time, earning his degree in 1958.

He and his wife followed his brother to Long Island and moved to Deer Park where the couple raised their family. "He worked hard and loved us all," his wife said yesterday.

After their children grew, the couple moved to a condominium in North Babylon in 1989 and a Bay Shore town house four years ago. The couple also traveled extensively to Italy, Mexico, Spain and Germany and had a winter home in Boca Raton, Fla. D'Amaro said his father liked to build model ships and track finances on the computer.

Survivors include two other sons, Jerome of Manorville and Robert of San Diego, and six grandchildren.

A wake will be held tomorrow at Mangano Funeral Home in Deer Park from 2 to 5 p.m. and 7 to 9:30 p.m. A funeral Mass will be celebrated at 10:15 a.m. Thursday at Saints Cyril and Methodius Roman Catholic Church, 125 Half Hollow Rd. in Deer Park. Burial will follow at St. Charles Cemetery in Farmingdale.