'I Hope for the Best, I Expect the Worst'

By Jo Craven McGinty | STAFF WRITER

September 15, 2001

John Dallara, with his family, NYC cop missing in the World Trade Center attack on September 11, 2001.

Helen Dallara cooked her son, John, his favorite meal of spaghetti with garlic, red pepper and sausages for lunch on Monday, and when he left she urged him to take a $1.50 bag of spice drop candy she had bought at Rite-Aid.

"I said, 'Here, Johnny, you take these with you," she said. "He said, 'No, Mom; I'll be back.'"

New York Police Officer John Dallara, 47, of Pearl River is among the thousands who are missing in the World Trade Center collapse following Tuesday's terrorist attack.

Awaiting word are his mother and his father, John, who are in their 80s; his wife, Carol, a homemaker; his sons, John, 7, and Nicholas, 3; and his twin brother, Daniel.

"I'm hoping tomorrow they're going to say, 'There he is! He's in the hole down there,'" Helen Dallara said. "I hope for the best, I expect the worst, and I'll take what comes. This is in the hands of God."

John Dallara grew up, along with his wife, in the Bronx, where his parents have lived for 43 years, Carol Dallara said. John and Carol attended Lehman College together in the Bronx, and John started his career as a high school teacher at Park West in Manhattan.

But, Helen Dallara said, her son always wanted to be a police officer and later joined the New York Police Department. She estimated he has been with the NYPD for 20 years. He is assigned to the Emergency Service Unit.

When he left his mother and father after lunch on Monday, he kissed them both goodbye.

"These things have a way of repeating themselves," Helen Dallara said. "Hold your child close. Hold those you love close. Because you never know."