Albert V. Maniscalco

Albert V. Maniscalco was born in Manhattan in 1908. His family moved to Staten Island when he was nine years old. He dropped out of high school and cleaned engines for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad before earning his bachelor's degree and law degree from St. John's University.

Mr. Maniscalco, a lifelong politician who joined a Democratic Party club at the age of 14, was Borough President from 1954 to 1965, a period in which the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge was planned, built and completed. The bridge, which opened in 1964, brought a flurry of development that caused the population of the city's least populous borough to multiply and new neighborhoods to sprout like mushrooms in what had been farmland.

Mr. Maniscalco delayed an urban renewal project that would have accelerated the damage. In essence, it would have involved putting a Manhattan-style street grid on the island. He also opposed running a parkway through land that became parkland.

The Greenbelt Conservancy, a private parks group, honored him for his role in saving land that eventually became an emerald spine of natural areas on Staten Island. Indeed, the term ''greenbelt'' was first used by Mr. Maniscalco at a meeting of the Board of Estimate. During his administration, the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge and 24 public schools were built and the Greenbelt was created.