By Brian Zanzonico
After a hard-fought battle with a spine infection that spread throughout his body, Mastrocola, an attorney, died on March 5 at age 53.
An advocate for the purchase of the long dormant Alva T. Stanforth School building by the Elmont School District in the interest of reopening it as an elementary school to ease the overcrowding in the district's other buildings, Mastrocola formed the People for the Preservation of the Alva T. Stanforth School. But the Elmont district opted instead to expand its six schools, so PPATSS lobbied Sewanhaka Central High School, owners of the Stanforth building, to renovate it and use it for educational programs. When that didn't happen, the idea of building a new library was hatched.
Most of the Stanforth building has been razed, but, as was Mastrocola's wish, the 450-seat auditorium will remain and the rest of the library will be built around it.
Aubrey Phillips, Elmont school board president and Mastrocola's longtime friend, said Mastrocola's hope of preserving the auditorium stemmed from his philosophy regarding Elmont: embrace the future while recognizing its legacy.
PPATSS, established in the late 1990s, took a lot of criticism from then Sewanhaka superintendent Dr. George Goldstein for being a maverick outfit, a group with a vision that differed from the district's. But Mastrocola's persistence paid off, as Sewanhaka voters elected to sell much of the 21 acres of land the Stanforth school occupied to the Elmont Public Library in 2004. Voters then approved construction of a new library on the Stanforth site.
"In no small way is Richard responsible for that state-of-the-art library," Phillips said. "It was important to him that a piece of Stanforth was incorporated into the new structure."
In addition to his work with the Stanforth preservation group, Mastrocola also helped establish the Community Coalition Council and was president of the Parkhurst Civic Association Board, spearheading a campaign to create the "Welcome to Parkhurst" and "Welcome to Elmont" signs that are so visible around town.
It was through the Parkhurst Civic that he met Phillips and Cheryl Lee in the late 1990s. Mastrocola urged both to run for office, and Phillips won a seat on the school board and Lee became a trustee for the library board, the first Parkhurst Civic members to run for office and win, according to member Livingston Chrichow.
Days before Mastrocola's death, Phillips, Lee and friend Joyce Stone visited him in the hospital. For hours, they sat and talked. "He was particularly moved that three community leaders took the time to visit just before his surgery," Phillips said.
Divorced and without children, Mastrocola, who earned his law degree at Rutgers, was especially appreciative of friends. After Phillips's wife, Allyson, was injured in a car accident, a weakened Mastrocola called several times a week to see how she was doing. He even worked up enough strength to leave the hospital to bury his father, Ben, who died last year at 91 and whom Richard spent years caring for.
"He was more concerned about me than he was for himself," Allyson Phillips said. "He was genuinely concerned about the next person."
At Elmont's Black History Month Celebration several weeks ago, Mastrocola was posthumously awarded Assemblyman Tom Alfano's 21st Assembly District Martin Luther King Jr. Award. "Rich was a different kind of leader," Alfano said. "He listened, watched and contributed in a meaningful way to everything he touched. When he spoke, you listened. The quality of his ideas and the thoughtful way he expressed them made him a powerful force for good in Elmont. I for one will miss his many contributions to the community."
So will the Phillips family, who live just blocks from Mastrocola's home. "He'll be terribly missed, and it's going to be that way for quite a while," Allyson Phillips said.
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