Where Are They Now?
There are over one million residents in our borough of the Bronx and who knows how many people lived here, grew up here and perhaps moved on from here? But starting today, we will highlight one person per week who grew up here, lived here and perhaps moved on from here….today we start with:
Where Are They Now
From Home Street to Honeymoon Island
George Nigro was born in 1943 and grew up on Home Street where it runs perpendicular to Southern Boulevard. He is the second generation of immigrant families from Slovakia and Italy who arrived in America, through Ellis Island, in the very early 1900s. Growing up on Home Street, he has vivid memories of stickball, slug, doowop from the juke box and dancing in the back of Mohan’s bar on the corner Home and Hoe Avenues. “We played hide and seek, stickball, touch football and kick-the-can on Vise Avenue, Hoe Avenue and periodically walked down to Simpson and Freeman Streets to play stickball”, George says. “Most of the time it seemed”, he joked, “we stood in line outside St. John Chrysostom’s Grammar School to either go to confession or mass”.
In 1960, the family, whose Dad George remembers worked as a truck driver at Hunts Point Market and whose Mother worked as a seamstress on Westchester Avenue, moved from Home Street to Lafayette and Castle Hill Avenue. From there George walked to St. Helena High School (now Monsignor Scanlon) in Parkchester to dance and meet girls at the Friday night sock hops. Six or seven of us, close friends would enjoy the hop and often make our way to what was the best pizza joint on the corner of Zerega and Westchester Avenues.
In 1961, following high school at St. Helena’s George enlisted in the U.S. Air Force and soon found his way to an assignment in Turkey and London, England.
It was in London where the Air Force found him and he found Jackie, his wife now of nearly 49 years. The Air Force selected George for a full scholarship to the University of Massachusetts for a degree in Quantitative Methods. “Frankly” George says, “I didn’t know what those two words meant together, but I was soon to learn it was math and statistics for business.” Graduating “cum laude” George continued his career as a commissioned officer and retired in 1985 as a Major after completing 10 years of service as an enlisted man and 15 years of service as a commissioned officer.
A second successful career in finance followed the Air Force where George managed three brokerage offices, became a Certified Financial Planner and a Registered Principal with the Financial Institution Regulatory Authority (FINRA). If George has a financial mantra, it would be “Pay Yourself First”, he said with certainty.
The current chapter of George’s life is now on Honeymoon Island Dunedin, Florida. Situated off of the west coast of Florida, north of Clearwater, sits a string of small barrier islands; one of which is Honeymoon Island. George remains very active in his Dunedin community and you would find him as one of the members of the City Board of Finance, as a Director of the Dunedin Council of Organizations, or as Vice-President of the Dunedin Historical Museum; two daughters, Tanya and Teresa, are now adults and with their mates and each has 2 children. Anna, William are in Buffalo, New York and Travis and Ayda, can be found in Shainghai, China.
George and Jackie can be found…..yes, on Honeymoon.
Where Are They Now? Well, if it’s a nice day with a gentle breeze, as it usually is in Florida, you would probably find George and Jackie on their sailboat appropriately named “Our Boat” sailing somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico.!
Written by George Nigro
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