By Courtney Dentch and Daniel Massey
John Gotti was laid to rest Saturday in the flamboyant style that marked his reign as head of the Gambino crime family as a cavalcade of 22 black limousines and 20 flower cars swept his body from a Maspeth funeral parlor to his Howard Beach home and Ozone Park social club.
The procession ended at a Roman Catholic graveyard in Middle Village.
“His theme in life was always ‘I’ll be John Gotti until the day I die,’” said Gotti’s longtime lawyer and friend, Bruce Cutler, just before the service at Papavero Funeral Home on Grand Avenue. Gotti died of throat cancer June 10 in a Missouri prison hospital. He was 61.
News helicopters hovered overhead as hundreds of mourners waited for the Dapper Don’s body to join the floral arrangements ranging from a martini glass to a Cuban cigar that lined Grand Avenue. The flashy former Gambino chieftain was Gotti even after death.
“This is a testament to his popularity and his memory and the way he lived,” Cutler said. “It’s not a question of beatification or making him a saint. It’s just a question of paying your respects to someone.”
Monsignor Joseph Pheiffer of St. Helen’s Roman Catholic Church in Howard Beach — Gotti’s home parish — led a short service inside the funeral home attended by his elderly mother, his daughter Victoria, son Peter, brother Richard and other relatives. The Diocese of Brooklyn had refused to give Gotti a Roman Catholic funeral Mass.
But several members of Gotti’s immediate family missed the service. Two of his brothers, Peter and Gene, and his oldest son, John Jr., were in jail and did not ask to be released for the funeral.
At 10:37 a.m. under a gray sky that threatened rain, eight pallbearers, including Gotti’s brother Richard and son Peter, carried his bronze coffin to a waiting dull gray hearse. A smattering of applause came from the crowd but quickly stopped.
The hearse took its position behind the flower cars and in front of the limousines carrying family and friends. More than 50 private cars brought the motorcade to about 100 vehicles. One of the first flower cars in the procession carried an arrangement of the numbers 101, after the Ozone Park avenue where Gotti threw famous July 4 block parties and ran his crime operation from the Bergin Hunt and Fish Club.
The 90-minute procession eventually rolled down 101st Avenue, but its first stop was Gotti’s modest two-story brick home at 160-11 85th St. in Howard Beach. About 50 people watched as the hearse paused for about five seconds for one last symbolic goodbye.
Andy Seifert, 30, of Ozone Park, wiped tears from his eyes as he stood on the sidewalk across the street from the Gotti home.
“I’m here to honor someone that made a difference in the neighborhood,” he said. “When I was growing up, he was like a hero.”
Followed overhead by helicopters, the procession snarled traffic on Cross Bay Boulevard as it made its way to 101st Avenue in Ozone Park. It passed beneath a Long Island Rail Road overpass where residents had hung a large banner with Gotti’s image and the words, “John Gotti will live forever.”
About 100 supporters lined the street in front of the Bergin Hunt and Fish Club, some holding candles in Styrofoam cups. Many, including Joseph and Linda Donafrio, lifelong residents of Ozone Park, reached their hands out to touch the hearse as it passed the club. Some called out “God bless you.”
Hundreds of spectators gathered at the main entrance to St. John Cemetery in Middle Village at the corner of Metropolitan Avenue and 80th Street, waiting to catch a glimpse of the procession as it pulled up to the Resurrection Mausoleum.
Inside the Sacred Heart Chapel, the family held a short prayer service before Gotti was entombed next to his son, Frank, who died at the age of 12 in 1982 when he was hit by a neighbor’s car.
The mourners spent about 30 minutes in the chapel, placing red roses in vases surrounding Gotti’s bronze casket as more than 300 spectators gathered silently on the edge of the cemetery to watch the family say their goodbyes.
The crowd of onlookers stayed on, hoping to peek inside and say their own farewells. Some lingered to get a closer look at the floral arrangements, and pick up fallen flowers as a memento.
Gotti joined a host of other high-profile mobsters in his final resting place at St. John Cemetery, including Carlo Gambino, Joseph Profaci, Carmine Galante, Joe Colombo and Lucky Luciano.
Many questioned the fuss made over Gotti’s death, and the attention he drew. Three protesters stood outside the cemetery bearing signs that read, “Why glorify?” and “Fanfare is for 9/11 heroes not criminals.”
A woman waiting to catch a bus in the midst of the crowd thought the pomp and circumstance was too much.
“He was a mobster,” she said. “He doesn’t deserve all this.”
Others thought the spectators should leave the family to grieve.
“Not that I should talk because I’m here, too, but there should be somewhere where he can rest in peace,” Cecilia Salute, of Ozone Park said. “He was a criminal, but he is human. Let the man go.”
Reach reporter Daniel Massey by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 156.
