By Albert Amateau
The Church of the Most Precious Blood in Little Italy was filled to capacity on Saturday with community leaders and friends of Anne Compoccia, the brash, fearless and compassionate fighter for her Downtown neighborhood who died Thurs., Feb. 24, at the age of 62. The cause of death was reportedly cancer.
A member of Community Board 1 and its chairperson for 12 years, she earned a reputation as an intrepid advocate who, if she didn’t always get what she wanted, always came away from the negotiating table with a valuable benefit for Lower Manhattan.
With her gruff voice and salty speech, Anne Compoccia waded into the struggles that helped turn Lower Manhattan from a 9-to-5 business district with outlying ethnic neighborhoods into a bustling, 24/7, mixed residential and commercial community.
With her fellow Community Board 1 members and local elected officials, she was instrumental in getting ball fields built in the open space of Battery Park City in 1993 and making them a permanent amenity a few years later.
In an interview with The Villager a few years ago, Compoccia recalled that after Battery Park City first denied the community board’s request to locate ball fields in the development, she made a direct appeal to then-Governor Mario Cuomo, who overruled the public authority, which he controlled, and ordered the fields to be built.
Robert Townley, executive director of the community-based Manhattan Youth organization, credited Compoccia with leading the effort that resulted in establishing the Manhattan Youth Downtown Community Center in Tribeca and the center’s use of Pier 25.
She was among the community leaders who convinced the city and the Battery Park City Authority to build P.S./I.S. 89, which opened in 1998 on Warren St. in Battery Park City. She also fought for The “Greening of Greenwich St.” project that began in 1999 and included widening the sidewalks of the street and improving the Washington Market Park playground.
After federal prosecutors indicted members of the Genovese crime family in 1995 on charges that they secretly controlled the annual Feast of San Gennaro street festival on Mulberry St., then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani in 1996 named Compoccia to run the festival, the largest street fair in the city. Around the same time, Compoccia persuaded the city to shut down Mulberry St. between Canal and Broome Sts. during the summer, creating the Mulberry St. Mall to stimulate pedestrian traffic. She collected monthly rents from merchants in the mall that were supposed to go to the city Department of Finance. But she was charged with bank fraud after it was discovered that she deposited about $85,000 in accounts she controlled by forging documents.
She pleaded guilty and served 10 months in a halfway house and did community service in a Manhattan hotel for people with AIDS. She said at the time that she was struggling to save Cafe 21, a Mulberry St. restaurant founded by her father, which was rapidly failing. She said she was “borrowing” the money but the cafe went under and she couldn’t restore the funds.
She resigned as chairperson of the community board, gave up running the San Gennaro Feast and she witnessed the dissolution of the Little Italy Chamber of Commerce, which she had founded.
Chastened but not defeated, she continued to work after her sentence at the hotel for people with AIDS, where she helped residents who were going through the prison system and got them jobs. Although shunned by a few, she retained the respect and affection of many of her neighbors.
“She was a great sister, a wonderful aunt and she was generous to a fault,” said her brother, Anthony Compoccia. “It was her generosity that got her in trouble,” he said, adding, “The church was full at her funeral and I wish all her detractors had been there to see and hear it.”
Although she rarely returned to Community Board 1 meetings, she remained a constant and critical observer of everything in the neighborhood. Around June 2008 she was at Regal Battery Park Cinema with her 5-year-old niece when smoke prompted the staff to evacuate the theater. Outraged that the smoke did not activate the fire alarm, she fired off a letter to the theater manager and to Regal corporate headquarters in Knoxville, Tenn.
A month later she received a reply from the company’s counsel and chief administrator apologizing and acknowledging that the theater safety plan was violated. He said he ordered the theater to review emergency procedures and check the fire alarm system.
Among the mourners filling the church were members of Downtown Independent Democrats (D.I.D.); Figli di San Gennaro, the feast’s organizing board; Northern Little Italy Neighborhood Association (NOLINA); and Little Italy Merchants Association; as well as residents of Independence Plaza, where Anne lived for the past 35 years. City Councilmember Margaret Chin gave the eulogy.
Sean Sweeney, a friend and fellow D.I.D. member, said later, “Anne fought tirelessly on behalf of the Lower Manhattan community and her dedication, hard work and determination will be missed.”
In a statement, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said, “Anne Compoccia dedicated her life to serving the Lower Manhattan community she loved so much. She showed her toughness and tenacity as she fought to improve the lives of our working families, and she showed her compassion when it came to helping our neighbors in their times of need. I join so many of my friends and neighbors in mourning her loss and I am grateful to her for all of the lives she touched in our Downtown Manhattan community and beyond.”
After the funeral Mass, the Red Mike Band — which plays during the San Gennaro festival and other Little Italy events — led a procession of mourners from the church’s Baxter St. side down to Canal St. and up Mulberry St. to Hester St. On Mulberry St., the hearse carrying her body stopped for a moment while the driver got out and opened the doors to let in the air of Mulberry St., to comply with family wishes.
Perazzo Funeral Home, on Bleecker St., was in charge of arrangements. Burial was in Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Valhalla, N.Y.
