'He lived on the water': Recalling boat crash victim
Barry Albert is stunned Monday after he learns that his neighbor George Canni and Canni's wife died in a boat crash near Wantagh on Sunday. (Oct. 5, 2009) Credit: James Carbone
When George Canni was not at work at his transmission repair shop in Baldwin, he could be found working on his speedboat or putting it on the water for a ride, according to a nephew and a neighbor.
PHOTOS: Powerboat crashes off Wantagh
Sunday was the perfect day to do just that. The sun was out. The sky was clear. The air was crisp.
"I'm going to take it out for a last ride and we're going to go out for dinner," Steve Marotta recalled what Canni, his next-door neighbor in Copiague, told him Sunday morning.
Afterward, Canni told Marotta, he was going to store the boat for the winter.
Marotta didn't know where Canni, 65, and his wife, Theresa Maniaci-Canni, 46, had planned to go for dinner but he said the couple frequently stopped in Island Park for a bite.
Monday, outside A1 Baldwin Transmission, which Canni owned and operated for 40 years, his nephew, Jerry Koenig of Seaford, struggled to come to terms with the crash that killed his uncle and aunt.
"This is the worst day of my life," Koenig said. "We just don't know what happened. He's been in that water since before I was born."
Koenig said his uncle used to race boats until about 15 years ago.
"He lived on the water," Koenig said. "If he wasn't here [at the shop], he was on his boat."
Marotta said Canni kept his prized boat docked in a slip behind his waterfront home and would hoist it above the water to protect it.
Canni's business had been open for so many years he was well known in the community, Koenig said, adding that he was inundated with calls from friends and acquaintances Monday asking whether it was Canni who died in the horrific crash Sunday.
"He's an icon in this town," said Koenig, who helped out at the shop periodically since he was 12, and worked alongside his uncle as a manager.
Canni's neighbor, Marotta, said he went to the Cannis' house Sunday morning to inform Theresa Maniaci-Canni that the duck she and his 11-year-old son, Nick, rescued in May and nursed back to health had to be euthanized.
The duck, named Quacky, was initially attacked by swans in the lagoon behind the Marottas' and the Cannis' homes, which both sit on the Gateway Lagoon. A few days ago, a raccoon attacked Quacky and he was badly injured.
Marotta said Theresa Maniaci-Canni was a homemaker and she and Nick used to go crabbing in the lagoon.
Joe Logiudice's whose company, Hustler Power Boats of Calverton, built Canni's boat, was also his friend for four decades.
Logiudice said he and Canni spoke nearly every morning.
"We spent every New Year's Eve together," Logiudice said. "He was a person you could truly call a friend. You could call him at 12 at night and he was there. . . . You only get a few friends like that."
With Jennifer Barrios and Laura Rivera
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