James Ostrowski Obituary

James Ostrowski attended Garden City High School in Garden City, NY. View the obituary, post a memory, or share a photo about James Ostrowski.

Graduation Year	Class of 1982
Date of Passing	Sep 11, 2001
About	On a hazy day in July of 2001, Joanna Ostrowski decided the family should have a fence around its Garden City home so her three children could go out in the yard and play. Her husband, James Ostrowski, went out that very day and drilled holes for the fence posts in 90- degrees heat. He was no stranger to hard work. A month earlier, Ostrowski had earned a master's degree in management and technology at Polytechnic University in Manhattan. He completed the degree in 15 months, while he worked full time as an interest-rate swap broker at Cantor Fitzgerald. Somehow, Ostrowski made plenty of time for his family - his wife, his children and even his in-laws. "We talked every day. I thought I was keeping in touch, but he was always the one calling," said Tom D'Antonio, Ostrowski's brother- in-law. Ostrowski was at work on the 104th floor of Tower One the morning of Sept. 11, a day before he and Joanna were to celebrate their ninth wedding anniversary and 19 years after they went to Garden City High School's prom. They graduated in 1982. Ostrowski earned his bachelor's degree in business administration in 1988 from Adelphi University in Garden City. Ostrowski married Joanna in 1992 and went on to work at Cantor Fitzgerald three years later. Even after years of marriage, he still asked his wife out on dates the way he did when they were high school seniors. "He was a true romantic," she said. Ostrowski was as quick to shower affection on his children - Annie, now 5, James, now 4, and Olivia, now 2 - as he was to shower gifts on his wife. When he would come home from work, his wife said, Olivia would turn her head and bat her eyelashes at him. Festivities brought out the best in Ostrowski, his mother, Beverly Ostrowski, also of Garden City, said. He loved Halloween and never missed a chance to dress up and go trick-or-treating with the kids. He also made an event of decorating the Christmas tree, having his wife sit down with a glass of wine while he hung every last ornament. Like the Christmas tree he decorated, Ostrowski's bright blue eyes and smile lit up the room, his sister, Jill McCullough of Floral Park, said. Joanna Ostrowski said she already sees the children exhibiting her husband's energy. Every now and then, she said, she notices Olivia batting her eyelashes as she would for her father each night. "I wonder if she is remembering him," she said. (Source: Newsday)