By Mike Schnitzel
and Karenlyn Barone
Police responded to East Rockaway's renovated waterfront area, at Althouse Avenue and Front Street, at about 10:40 a.m., after the girls, who were feeding ducks, saw the body in the water. Police said that Fasciglione was removed from the water by the Marine Bureau and pronounced dead at 12:15 p.m. Police were unsure how Fasciglione ended up in the water, across the street from Pier 101, the bar where he was last seen alive, but they did not suspect foul play.
Fasciglione's brother Michael was preparing to conduct a search for him on Rockaway Boulevard in Queens, near Kennedy Airport, when he got the call notifying him that his brother had been found. "I got a call from a bartender at Pier 101 saying that they had found a body in the water and it might be my brother's," Fasciglione said.
He immediately gathered with friends and other family members near the dock, and watched silently as his brother's body was pulled from the canal.
Michael said that there appeared to be no foul play, and that at this point "it looks like he may have slipped and hit his head." He said that police told him they believe it was an accident. Fasciglione said it was even possible that his brother may have fallen from the dock behind his home on Marjorie Lane. "No one is really sure," he said.
Friends and neighbors who live in the quiet waterfront area stood together for a long time after Thomas Fasciglione's body was removed from the water. Some offered comfort to Michael. "At least the family knows what happened now," said a bartender at Pier 101 who declined to be identified. "Now they have closure."
The next day, a patron at Pier 101, who also wished to remain anonymous, said he found it ironic that Fasciglione was found so close to the place where he was last seen alive. Bartender Ken Mugsey told the Herald last week that on the night of Jan. 28, Fasciglione had two drinks and dinner, then took his groceries and began walking home.
He was reported missing after Metro North called his brother and told him that Thomas had not shown up for work at Grand Central Terminal, where he had been a car cleaner for 18 years, according to Metro North spokeswoman Marjorie Anders.
Fasciglione is survived by three brothers, Richard, James, and Michael, and a sister, Patti Ann Petite. He was waked on Tuesday and Wednesday at Perry Funeral Home in Lynbrook, and his funeral was at St. Raymond's Church in East Rockaway on Thursday.
No information on the cause of death has been released, but police said that an investigation is ongoing, pending an autopsy by the medical examiner.
