In this week's WAVE - Obituary - "Al" McCarthy

The below obituary announcing the passing of Al McCarthy, one of Broad Channel's own, appeared in this week's edition of our local newspaper, The WAVE.

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Alfred R. McCarthy

Foreman

Alfred ‘Al’ R. McCarthy, a foreman for George E. Joyce Inc., died on October 1st.

A Broad Channel resident for 53 years, McCarthy was a life member of the VFW Post 260 and the American Legion of Broad Channel Post 1404.

McCarthy is survived by his children, Diane Carroll, Robert (Trish) and Scott (Debra) McCarthy; grandchildren, Michael and Lisa Marie Carroll and Shannan Rose McCarthy and brother, Terrance McCarthy.

Funeral arrangements have been entrusted to Hillebrand Funeral Home in Broad Channel. A funeral mass was held on October 4th at the Christ Presbyterian Church in Broad Channel.

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Al McCarthy with Louise DeVirgilio of W12th Road

I first met Al when our family moved into our house on West 12th Road back in the 90's after making the long trip from the East side of our island (Walton Road) to the West.

A day or two after we moved in, Al grabbed me in the street,  introduced himself and welcomed me to West 12th Road,  and then shoved a tide calendar into my hands stating "Here kid, you're gonna need this...West 12th is the lowest street in the Channel and we get flooded by the tides all the time."   

Al also mentioned that my intentional relocation to West 12th Road could be an indication that I needed the assistance of a psychiatrist to explain why I would want to move into a house at the bay end of that street he affectionately referred to as the "swamp."  

I asked Al if my move to West 12th Road meant I had issues, how did he explain his long term residence on the block?

Al smiled and responded, "Kid, I don't need a shrink to tell me I'm crazy but you obviously do!"

After being caught several times by an unexpected high tide, Al pulled me aside and told me to simply "look up at the block at the flagpole in the front of my house,  If the flag is waving up the block, don't get too excited.  If it's blowing down the block towards the bay, move your car." 

I told Al that made no sense whatsoever, but after a period of time I found that he was right on the money with his flagpole high tide flooding indicator. 

Never figured it out.  It's like one of those roads in the country where cars actually roll uphill while in neutral. Go figure!

When I became involved in the struggle with the Archdiocese of Brooklyn to keep our local St. Virgilius Parish School open, Al was constantly at my door to encouraging me to keep fighting and to let me know that he was there for us if we needed him to do anything.

Ultimately, we lost our battle and our St. Virgilius Parish School was closed.

Al grabbed me on the side one day not long after and told me not to be discouraged as we had all "gone down fighting" unlike some other parish schools which had simply acquiesced to the Bishop's bidding and "lied down and closed."

As the years went by, Al started dragging me and other West 12th Road residents along with him on his annual trip to see the Queens Borough President, Helen Marshall, to see if we could get something done about the continual tidal flooding of our street.  

Many of the other "old timers" on the block told me that I was "spinning my wheels and wasting my 

time " because the "City was not going to do anything to help us."

When I would ask Al about this pervasive attitude among our other neighbors he told me Al told me that because I had been such a pain in the ass to the Brooklyn Arcdiocese with the St. Virgilius School issue, he wanted me to become a thorn in the city's backside, along with him, with the issue of our street flooding problems...."If all you're gonna do is write some letters and hope for the best then you are wasting your time. You have to continually bother them with telephone calls, go meet with them, face to face, and become a royal pain in their ass! Sooner or later, they will get tired of hearing from you and give you what you want to shut you up!"  

It was Al's continual sense of optimism and purpose that resulted in nearly 70% of the residents of West 12th Road traveling to Helen Marshal's office back in April of 2010 that finally got the ball moving with the Flood Mitigation Project (new bulkhead and street raising) that is presently scheduled for West 12th Road.

In speaking with some W12th Road neighbors at Al's wake earlier this month at Hillerbrand's Funeral Home, someone remarked that it was sad that Al did not live to see this long term project of his come to fruition. 

I told them they were wrong because Al could always see what others could not.  He always held a clear vision of a retrofitted West 12th Road in his mind while many others simply could not.  That was the main reason he continually made it one of his priorities to continually work with the city to get it done.  

When you talked with Al you were always impressed that the conversation was always about you or the issue at hand, never about Al.

It wasn't until some weeks after Sandy struck when I drove Al into Queens to visit his bank that he mentioned that he was battling cancer.  

He mentioned this in passing, adding that after Sandy, there were many other in town who had bigger problems to deal with.  He quickly changed the conversation to something I had never heard him speak about - music.

He asked me what my favorite song was and when I replied it was Deep Purple by Nino Tempo and April Stevens he laughed and told me that he was shocked I would even know that song and artists but quickly added they couldn't hold a candle to Vera Lynn's rendition of the WWII ballad We'll Meet Again.

Al will be sorely missed by all of us who had the distinct pleasure of knowing him.

To ensure he will always remain a part of our community I would like to offer a suggestion that at the next Broad Channel Civic Association meeting we all offer a motion that upon completion of the work on our street sometime next year, that Community Board #14 start the process to enable DOT to rename West 12th Road "Al McCarthy Way."

In closing, this ones for you Al.