Robert D’Amelio, a seasonal South Palm Beach resident and Vietnam-era veteran, visits with his 2-year-old grand-daughter, Siena. D’Amelio was one of thousands of workers who cleaned up the World Trade Center site after the September 2001 terrorist attacks and was part of the massive project erected afterward in New York City. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star
Must-see stops on a visit to New York are the 9/11 Memorial and Museum and the impressive array of buildings that now constitute the rebuilt World Trade Center area.
Among thousands of others, one of the workers responsible for both the cleanup after the September 2001 terrorist attacks and the massive project erected in their wake is Robert D’Amelio of South Palm Beach.
D’Amelio, 80, not only participated in the years-long cleanup of Ground Zero, but later served as a superintendent in construction of the Oculus, a transportation hub that according to Trip Advisor “serves as a representation of New York City’s strength and resilience after 9/11.”
“Four-and-a-half months I was there” during the recovery, D’Amelio said. “For years after that ... I couldn’t bring myself to look at that hole. Ten years later, when my company got the contract to build the Oculus, I didn’t know if I could do it. I said, ‘I don’t know if I want to go through this (expletive) again.’
“But by the time we got ready to build it, you didn’t even recognize it.”
D’Amelio worked for a construction company that did recovery at the site of the twin towers. All work would stop when word went out that there was a “hit,” he recalled.
“They called the bodies ‘hits,’ and you would call either the Fire Department or the Police Department and they would come in and exhume the bodies. Whenever that happened, whenever they found a bone — any bone, it could even be a chicken bone — all work would stop, they would call the families, and they would come down to see if maybe that was a friend or relative.”
Asked how many times he saw this happen, D’Amelio said only, “Lots.”
Since that experience, D’Amelio and his fellow workers are required to undergo an annual physical and meet with a psychiatrist to assess how much it still affects them. D’Amelio, who also spent two years in the Navy, said he has been diagnosed with PTSD.
He has been married to his wife, Joanne, for 54 years, and their primary residence is in Hopatcong, New Jersey. They have three children: Melissa and Joe are teachers living in New Jersey, and Jason, a rehab trainer, lives in Harlem in New York City. The couple have five grandchildren.
In South Palm Beach, D’Amelio spends his free time in the gym, playing golf and enjoying the beach outside his Imperial House condo.
— Brian Biggane
Q: Where did you grow up and go to school? How do you think that has influenced you?
A: I grew up in Paterson, New Jersey, and moved to Totowa, not far from Newark, when I was 12 or 13. My father died when I was 15, so I was raised by my mother. I attended Passaic Valley Regional High School. After the Navy I used my VA benefits to attend William Paterson College for two years, but had a family so I had to go to work.
I really believe my street experience helped me more than my school experience. You learn so much from the streets — how to defend yourself, how to manipulate people, how to read people, who to stay away from and who tries to lure you in and screw up your mind. To me the streets are very important.
Q: What professions have you worked in? What professional accomplishments are you most proud of?
A: I started out as a truck driver for 10-11 years. When I got married, I got into the carpenters union and spent 26 years as a carpenter. Then I became a construction superintendent, working high-rises and things like that. One of my biggest accomplishments was being a part of the rebuild at World Trade; I was there five-and-a-half years.
Q: What advice do you have for a young person seeking a career today?
A: Learn the streets. Learn all you want academically, but it’s not going to work for you unless you know the streets. If you want to be a drunk you hang with drunks. If you want to be successful you hang with successful people. Your surroundings, whether you know it or not, have a lot to do with who you become. So, education and the streets are compatible. You have to have both.
Q: How did you choose to make your home in South Palm Beach?
A: My uncle died in 1984 and willed a condo to my brother and me. We held off on selling it and more recently we started to fix it up and I started to give it a chance. I still only spend a few months a year down here, but it could be more as time goes by.
Q: What’s your favorite part about living in South Palm Beach?
A: Weather, accessibility to things. People? Send the Northerners back North (laughs). No, I’ve met a lot of nice people. People who needed time to get to know who I am. I may have an aggressive look, an aggressive approach, an aggressive-sounding voice. I’m not that way all the time, but it takes time for people to know that.
Q: What book are you reading now?
A: I’m not a big reader, but I’ve just started reading Swing and a Hit, by Paul O’Neill, the baseball player. It’s about his experience starting to play at 5 years old, being signed by the Cincinnati Reds and playing alongside Pete Rose, who was one of his idols, then being shipped over to the Yankees. Military books interest me also.
Q: What music do you listen to when you want to relax? When you want to be inspired?
A: If I want to think back to my young years I’ll listen to the ’50s: Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin. If I want to think about my growing-up years I like doo-wop time — Four Seasons, the rhythm and blues, the girl groups like the Ronettes. When I get to the ’70s and ’80s I think about where I’m at, going into the future. But I don’t want to make the mistake of getting caught up in the past.
Q: Have you had mentors in your life? People who have inspired your life decisions?
A: My father for a time, but then street guys who taught me how to deal with things. Roger Giardello was a smart guy, arrogant but smart. He was older than me. I was concerned about going into the military and not being able to take orders, and if it turned out that way I might be released or get a dishonorable discharge. So, he taught me how to roll with it.
In the military I met a guy named Pat Currie who worked as a contractor with the military. He was so Irish, and I was Italian, so he called me “Irish” (he says with a laugh). We would sit and talk for hours, and he knew the streets, but could also talk to any politician one-on-one.
Q: If your life story were to be made into a movie, who would play you?
A: Al Pacino. Andy Garcia. Robert De Niro. They’re the ones that I can relate to. I know their style, or they would know my style is a better way to put it.
Q: Is there something people don’t know about you but should?
A: We adopted a nun. Nuns who are cloistered are sworn to silence and poverty. One nun, who was older, was the liaison for the monastery. I would sit outside with her and we would kibitz, and she had a hearing aid that wouldn’t work, and it became like a vaudeville act. But her health began to fail and she went back to her vows, so there was one day a year we could go see her. So, we donated in her name and we got papers saying we adopted her.
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