Still Finding Ways to Help: Catching Up with David Rocco

When David Rocco retired as a NYCHA carpenter in 2001, he put down his tools. He did not, however, leave behind the impulse that had guided his work for nearly two decades: finding ways to make life better for other people.

At NYCHA, that meant repairing cabinets, doors, and windows, and handling other carpentry jobs in thousands of residents’ apartments. He worked in several boroughs, spending nearly 14 years in the Bronx.

What he remembers most vividly, though, is the people: residents who brought him plates of rice and beans so he would have dinner; children he watched grow up, some of whom later started families of their own.

“Those good people – they’re the part of NYCHA I miss most,” he said.

A decade ago, NYCHANow caught up with Mr. Rocco to explore his already busy retirement. Now, 25 years after leaving the Authority, he continues to find projects that put his curiosity, energy, and willingness to help to work.

His efforts have taken him from Ground Zero to a former railroad bridge over the Hudson, and more recently into the history of New York City’s fireboats. Connecting those pursuits is a familiar question: What needs doing, and how can he make a positive difference?

That next chapter began soon after his retirement, in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. Around Thanksgiving 2001, Mr. Rocco saw a newspaper photograph of volunteers serving food to recovery workers. Learning that the Salvation Army needed more volunteers, he signed up.

From a large Salvation Army tent on West Street near Ground Zero, he helped supply the people working at the recovery site. When someone asked whether he could drive a service vehicle between downtown checkpoints, he took on that assignment too.

For months, he made the rounds: delivering supplies, checking what workers needed, replenishing his vehicle, and returning. It was practical, repetitive work, with a purpose that needed no explanation.

He still remembers the workers and the strains they endured. He also remembers the value of simply being there when someone needed a hand. Retirement had given him time to serve, and he had found a place where that time mattered.

Other opportunities followed, including a project that appealed to his love of cycling. Mr. Rocco had long enjoyed the converted railroad trails running through Westchester County. When he learned of a proposal to turn a former railroad bridge across the Hudson into a public walkway, he wanted to get involved.

The project became known as “Walkway Over the Hudson.”

His first response was straightforward: How could he help? Then came the work of understanding the proposal, studying the site, and learning what it would take to help bring the idea to fruition.

Quite recently, Mr. Rocco researched, wrote, and published a book on New York City’s fireboats, entitled Fireboats of the FDNY. In it he explores the vessels, the people who served onboard, and their place in the city’s remarkable waterfront history.

The book offers another way to serve: helping readers discover a part of New York’s public-service history they might otherwise never hear about.Ask David Rocco what he has been doing since retirement, and the answers now cover a full quarter-century. But the thread that connects them is quite simple: He keeps finding ways to help make life better – for as many of his neighbors as he can.