Nicholas Guagliardo

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. - Longtime Midland Beach resident Nicholas J. Guagliardo, 80, a retired telephone switchman who enjoyed reading, learning and mostly the simple pleasure of being with family, died Sunday in Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Manhattan.

Mr. Guagliardo grew up in Borough Park, Brooklyn and served in the U.S. Coast Guard from 1949 to 1956, during the Korean War, stationed in Greenland and Alaska.

He settled in Midland Beach in 1963. He worked for nearly three decades as a telephone switchman. He started his career at Bell Atlantic and remained with the company after it had become Verizon. He retired 22 years ago.

Mr. Guagliardo was an avid reader; he especially looked for books on history and geography and best-selling thrillers.

"He couldn't absorb enough. He was such an intelligent man," said his daughter Jodi Guagliardo. "My father was a man of simple wants and simple happiness. Has only wants was for the happiness of his wife, his children and grandchildren. It wasn't about the size of his house or where he went on vacation, or anything materialistic. It was about quality of life. Nothing made him happier than to see life through the eyes of his family."

He was a fan of the New York Yankees and liked to take trips to Atlantic City, where he would be content to play penny machines, no matter what he won, to spend time with loved ones and to eat crab legs at the buffet.

In addition to his daughter, Jodi, surviving are his wife of 56 years, the former Mercedes Domingo; two sons, Robert and Ricky; another daughter, Joyce O'Keefe; a brother, Frank Guagliardo, and seven grandchildren.

The funeral will be tomorrow from the Bedell-Pizzo Funeral Home, Tottenville, with mass at 10 a.m. in Our Lady Help of Christians R.C. Church, Tottenville. Burial will be in Resurrection Cemetery, Pleasant Plains.

Services: Our Lady Help of Christian's RC Church Wednesday, May 18,2011 10:00AM

Visitation: Bedell-Pizzo Funeral Home Tuesday, May 17,2011 2-4 & 7-9PM

Memorials: Donations to Memorial Sloan Kettering in Nicholas's name would be appreciated.

Cemetery: Resurrection Cemetery (Staten Island)

Location: Bedell-Pizzo Funeral Home

Church: Our Lady Help of Christians R.C.Church