Parents Seek a Street for Two Lost Sons

 by Carl Glassman

There are 299 streets in New York City that have been “co-named” for World Trade Center victims. Victor and Mary Colaio would like to see Beach Street in Tribeca added to the list.

The Colaios lost not one but two sons in the disaster. Mark, 34, lived with his wife and two children at 260 West Broadway, which overlooks Beach Street. Stephen, 32, was to be married the following month and was going to live on Harrison Street. The brothers, both bond traders, as their father was, worked for Cantor Fitzgerald on the 104th floor of the North Tower.
 
In their Montauk home, Victor and Mary Colaio hold a portrait of their two sons, Mark, left, and Stephen, whom they lost on Sept. 11. Photo: Doug Kuntz

Recently, the Colaios sent a letter to Community Board 1 requesting that Beach Street, between West Broadway and Varick, be named for their sons.

“It’s a vibrant young neighborhood,” Victor Colaio said in a phone interview from his home in Montauk, L.I. “Why shouldn’t they be recognized. They were both part of it.”

The request came to the board just a month after it had approved the co-naming of North Moore Street, between Hudson and Varick streets, for Lt. Vincent Halloran, the only World Trade Center casualty from Ladder 8, which is located on that block.


CB1 had been careful to note that Halloran was worthy of the distinction because, as board member Albert Capsouto put it, “It’s a way of honoring someone who didn’t just die on Sept. 11, but served this community for many years.”
Last month the board took up the Colaios’ request and saw theirs differently.

“We have a very sad request,” Chairwoman Madelyn Wils told the board’s Executive Committee.

Wils said she cried when she read the letter. But she was worried about the precedent. “I don’t feel comfortable with naming stuff out of sympathy,” she said.

Jeff Galloway agreed. “I’m not wild about renaming streets, More people died than streets exist.Where do you stop?”

The full board voted overwhelmingly for a moratorium on street co-naming, saying that a single memorial, now the subject of a design competition, “is in many respects more sensible and manageable” than co-naming specific streets.

But Victor Colaio, who spoke of his fondness for Tribeca from the time it was a butter and egg district, said the memorial is “too big a focus for me. I want something local, that’s in the neighborhood, rather than a national monument.”

In many parts of the city, street co-namings for Sept. 11 victims have been largely pro forma. In Staten Island alone, there have been 182.

Community Board 12 in Brooklyn unanimously approved both requests it received. “The fact that they lived in the community and because of the tragic events, we had no problems with them,” said assistant district manager Karol Joswick. She called the gesture “symbolic,” because the new name goes below the street name rather than replacing it.

Colaio said he sent his request to Councilman Alan Gerson. But if he is turned down, he won’t fight on. “Maybe I’ll take a deep breath,” the father said, “and try it again some other time.”