Peter Amoruso, of Huntington, founded construction company, dies at 90
Peter M. Amoruso with his grandson Ben Francis Amoruso about eight years ago. Credit: Amoruso family
Huntington contractor Peter Amoruso built things. Home and office foundations. Roads. Friendships.
“He had a big smile and he just made everybody feel good. Whoever he talked to, you were the most important person in the world. Everybody was his best friend, and everybody was friends with him,” said Gerry Alessi, an industry colleague and a friend. “He was just one of those guys [who says], ‘You got to call my best friend. He's going to help you out.’ And you’d call and say Peter sent you, and it’s: ‘OK, how can I help you?’ ”
“We’d be out to eat and he would greet the waitress with a smile and a ‘How are you today? What is your name? My name is Peter, and these are my sons Paul and Peter,’ ” recalled son Paul Amoruso, managing partner of the Jericho-based commercial real-estate developer Oxford & Simpson. “My dad was the guy who wanted to have background on everybody and to see them as human beings, as individuals, and not just as a worker being paid to do a job.”
Peter Amoruso’s own jobs included founding a Farmingdale construction company, Marvac, whose projects included a 40-acre athletic field at Rikers Island in 1972 and the foundation for the Perry B. Duryea Jr. State Office Building in Hauppauge in 1970. According to his son and Alessi, Marvac worked on the 1960s additions to the Robert Moses Causeway, among other arteries of Long Island’s infrastructure. “Marvac was a huge, huge company in its time,” said Alessi, formerly of Plainview and now of Fairfield, Connecticut.
Peter Amoruso died of natural causes on Wednesday at age 90, at the Mary Ann Tully Hospice Inn in Melville.
Born Peter Michael Amoruso on Sept. 23, 1934, at the family home in Flushing, Queens, he was the middle of three children of Italian immigrants Pasquale and Angelina Amoruso. After graduating from Bayside High School in Queens, he and his late brother Dominick, called Dan, borrowed money from an uncle to form the bulldozer-rental company Amoruso Equipment.
But after Peter Amoruso returned from his 1953-55 Army service during the Korean War, during which he was posted to Newfoundland, Canada, and then honorably discharged at the rank of corporal, the brothers had an ownership disagreement and Peter Amoruso struck out on his own. He worked operating heavy equipment as a union construction operating engineer before founding Marvac in the early 1960s.
He had married Rosemarie Josephine Bergianti in 1958, and after moving first to Douglaston-Little Neck, Queens, relocated to Dix Hills, where they raised four children. Following his wife’s death in 2007, Amoruso moved to Huntington.
Marvac shuttered around 1973, and later that decade Peter Amoruso became president of the contracting company PRP Industries and a partner in College Point Contracting. He pleaded guilty in 1983 to two counts of willfully failing to file a tax return, in a plea arrangement to testify against two others involved in the construction of the Hempstead Resource Recovery Plant, a recycling center. Peter Amoruso “never served a day in jail” on those misdemeanor charges, said his son, who added: “Maybe he got probation.”
As a father, Amoruso would take his kids to Jets and Mets games at the old Shea Stadium, and insisted that, for their future, they learn to golf. “So we worked at a public course,” Paul Amoruso said. “I washed dishes. My brother put away the golf carts. And we'd be able to play golf for free and get free lessons from the pro.” They and their dad would hit the links together, and son Peter R. Amoruso became proficient enough, Paul Amoruso said, to earn a golf scholarship to Florida State University.
The elder Peter Amoruso was a member of the Indian Hills Country Club, in Northport, and the Columbus Citizens Foundation, the Manhattan nonprofit that sponsors the city’s annual Columbus Day Parade.
In addition to his sons Paul, of Jericho, and Peter, of Fort Salonga, he is survived by daughters Renee Rose Amoruso Pascal, of Jericho, and Maria Therese Amoruso, of Delray Beach, Florida; his longtime companion, Beverly Mingola; a sister, Annette Amoruso, of Fairfield, Connecticut; and six grandchildren.
A visitation will be held Friday from 2 to 5 p.m. and from 7 to 9 p.m. at Beney Funeral Home in Syosset. A funeral Mass will be celebrated Saturday at 9:15 a.m. at the Church of St. Patrick in Huntington, with interment at St. Patrick Cemetery in Cold Spring Harbor.
In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to The Don Monti Memorial Research Foundation or Northwell Health Physician Partners Neurosciences at Huntington.
Huntington contractor Peter Amoruso built things. Home and office foundations. Roads. Friendships.
“He had a big smile and he just made everybody feel good. Whoever he talked to, you were the most important person in the world. Everybody was his best friend, and everybody was friends with him,” said Gerry Alessi, an industry colleague and a friend. “He was just one of those guys [who says], ‘You got to call my best friend. He's going to help you out.’ And you’d call and say Peter sent you, and it’s: ‘OK, how can I help you?’ ”
“We’d be out to eat and he would greet the waitress with a smile and a ‘How are you today? What is your name? My name is Peter, and these are my sons Paul and Peter,’ ” recalled son Paul Amoruso, managing partner of the Jericho-based commercial real-estate developer Oxford & Simpson. “My dad was the guy who wanted to have background on everybody and to see them as human beings, as individuals, and not just as a worker being paid to do a job.”
Peter Amoruso’s own jobs included founding a Farmingdale construction company, Marvac, whose projects included a 40-acre athletic field at Rikers Island in 1972 and the foundation for the Perry B. Duryea Jr. State Office Building in Hauppauge in 1970. According to his son and Alessi, Marvac worked on the 1960s additions to the Robert Moses Causeway, among other arteries of Long Island’s infrastructure. “Marvac was a huge, huge company in its time,” said Alessi, formerly of Plainview and now of Fairfield, Connecticut.
Peter Amoruso died of natural causes on Wednesday at age 90, at the Mary Ann Tully Hospice Inn in Melville.
Born Peter Michael Amoruso on Sept. 23, 1934, at the family home in Flushing, Queens, he was the middle of three children of Italian immigrants Pasquale and Angelina Amoruso. After graduating from Bayside High School in Queens, he and his late brother Dominick, called Dan, borrowed money from an uncle to form the bulldozer-rental company Amoruso Equipment.
But after Peter Amoruso returned from his 1953-55 Army service during the Korean War, during which he was posted to Newfoundland, Canada, and then honorably discharged at the rank of corporal, the brothers had an ownership disagreement and Peter Amoruso struck out on his own. He worked operating heavy equipment as a union construction operating engineer before founding Marvac in the early 1960s.
He had married Rosemarie Josephine Bergianti in 1958, and after moving first to Douglaston-Little Neck, Queens, relocated to Dix Hills, where they raised four children. Following his wife’s death in 2007, Amoruso moved to Huntington.
Marvac shuttered around 1973, and later that decade Peter Amoruso became president of the contracting company PRP Industries and a partner in College Point Contracting. He pleaded guilty in 1983 to two counts of willfully failing to file a tax return, in a plea arrangement to testify against two others involved in the construction of the Hempstead Resource Recovery Plant, a recycling center. Peter Amoruso “never served a day in jail” on those misdemeanor charges, said his son, who added: “Maybe he got probation.”
As a father, Amoruso would take his kids to Jets and Mets games at the old Shea Stadium, and insisted that, for their future, they learn to golf. “So we worked at a public course,” Paul Amoruso said. “I washed dishes. My brother put away the golf carts. And we'd be able to play golf for free and get free lessons from the pro.” They and their dad would hit the links together, and son Peter R. Amoruso became proficient enough, Paul Amoruso said, to earn a golf scholarship to Florida State University.
The elder Peter Amoruso was a member of the Indian Hills Country Club, in Northport, and the Columbus Citizens Foundation, the Manhattan nonprofit that sponsors the city’s annual Columbus Day Parade.
In addition to his sons Paul, of Jericho, and Peter, of Fort Salonga, he is survived by daughters Renee Rose Amoruso Pascal, of Jericho, and Maria Therese Amoruso, of Delray Beach, Florida; his longtime companion, Beverly Mingola; a sister, Annette Amoruso, of Fairfield, Connecticut; and six grandchildren.
A visitation will be held Friday from 2 to 5 p.m. and from 7 to 9 p.m. at Beney Funeral Home in Syosset. A funeral Mass will be celebrated Saturday at 9:15 a.m. at the Church of St. Patrick in Huntington, with interment at St. Patrick Cemetery in Cold Spring Harbor.
In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to The Don Monti Memorial Research Foundation or Northwell Health Physician Partners Neurosciences at Huntington.
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'I have never been to New York' Jim Vennard, 61, an electrical engineer from Missouri, received a $250 ticket for passing a stopped school bus in Stony Brook, a place he said he has never visited. NewsdayTV's Shari Einhorn reports.
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