John Quadrozzi; Concrete King (great obit)
Hyfler/Rosner
Largest Projects
By STEPHEN MILLER Staff Reporter of the Sun
John Quadrozzi, who died Sunday, poured the concrete for
some of New York's most visible structures, including the
control tower at Kennedy Airport, the Trump World Tower on
First Avenue, and World Trade Center Seven, currently under
construction.
At the recently completed Time Warner Center on Columbus
Circle, Quadrozzi Concrete Corporation poured 100,000 cubic
yards of concrete during the construction of the largest
private building project in North American history. The
55-story building went up at the frenetic pace of one floor
every two days.
His firm was one of the four largest in New York City,
which, it has been said, pours the equivalent of a new
Hoover Dam every 18 months. He also owned Nycemco, one of
the largest importers of cement on the East Coast. Each year
the firm imports a quarter-million tons of highquality
cement from Venezuela, distributing it from its Red Hook
marine terminal to mixers in the tristate area.
Quadrozzi concrete mixers, with their bright orange,
yellow, and gray paint-jobs, can be seen daily at
construction sites throughout the city. They fill up with
liquid concrete at plants in Queens and Brooklyn, then hurry
to deliver their loads within a 90-minute window before the
concrete hardens.
Quadrozzi grew up in Rockaway and first went to work with
his father, a blacksmith whose work included shoeing horses
for milk carts. Quadrozzi was the hammer man, and photos of
him as a young man reveal rippling muscles born of manual
labor.
Going into business for himself, he opened a metal shop
in Rockaway where he repaired and custom-built trucks. At
one point, he was in charge of maintaining the gigantic
grapple cranes that put the boulder jetties off Rockaway and
Coney Island. The cranes had steel teeth each as big as a
man that would routinely snap off during operation.
Family lore has it that he was the first to design the
side panel-style soda delivery truck and the modern
tow-truck connection. Both inventions cut costs by making
the jobs single-man operations.
By 1964, Quadrozzi owned an Esso station in Rockaway and
was considering opening a large metal-working shop. He got
into the concrete business more or less by accident, his son
said, when he was given a small Rockaway plant as settlement
for a business debt.
The firm's first big job was Cross Bay Veterans Memorial
Bridge spanning Jamaica Bay, connecting Rockaway to the rest
of Queens. It was completed in 1970.
Over the years, he built more concrete plants, eventually
numbering 10. As the business expanded, it became known for
providing high-quality, specialized concrete for ambitious
Manhattan projects.
At the Trump World Tower, Quadrozzi poured what is, at
881 feet, the tallest reinforced concrete building in the
city and the tallest residential building in the world. It
needed concrete with a compressive strength of up to 12,000
pounds a square inch, the first time such a high-tensile
product was used in a New York project. Quadrozzi's firm was
also responsible for most of the concrete poured in Donald
Trump's recent West Side developments.
It is a truism that virtually every major construction
firm in the city had dealings with organized crime, and
Quadrozzi was no exception. At various times, the government
alleged that he had associated with organized crime figures
and had made payments to them. Finally, in 1993, he pled
guilty to two counts of paying bribes to the former boss of
the Luchese family, Alfonse D'Arco, and also to union
bosses, to buy labor peace. He was sentenced to two years of
probation in 1997, and his firm was barred from doing
business with the city for five years.
Nevertheless, his Gowanus Industrial Park firm, now run
by his son, John Jr., managed in 1998 to purchase the
long-abandoned Columbia Street Grain Terminal in Red Hook
from the Port Authority for $3.5 million. The sale caused a
minor uproar when the Port Authority had to admit it knew
nothing about Quadrozzi's conviction. The sale stood, and
the silos were renovated. More than 30 businesses, most
involved in import/export, are located there, in addition to
it serving as a cement depot. Gowanus Industrial Park has
also supported cultural events in Red Hook, and the
Waterfront Museum is moored on its property.
Quadrozzi served for many years as the president of the
Association of New York Concrete Producers. He was three
times named Man of the Year by the Rockaway Chamber of
Commerce, which is planning to build a yet-undefined
monument to him.
John Quadrozzi
Born August 18, 1928, in Rockaway; died March 7 after a
lengthy illness; survived by his wife, Theresa, four
daughters, Juliana, Regina, Theresa, and Catherine, his son,
John Jr., his mother, Catherine, and five grandchildren.