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In memory of

Dominick Frank Loscalzo

Whitestone, NY

December 8, 1932 - March 21, 2020

Dec 8, 1932 - Mar 21, 2020

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Dominick F. Loscalzo, 87, of Whitestone, New York, died peacefully of natural causes at his home on March 21, 2020.

Dominick was born on December 8, 1932 at Coney Island Hospital. During his youth in Astoria, Queens, he played stickball on city streets with others who remained lifelong friends.

Beginning at the age of fourteen, Dominick made daily roundtrips to Brooklyn for the next eight years, first to attend Brooklyn Technical High School, and then Pratt Institute, graduating with a degree in Industrial Design.

After graduation, Dominick was drafted into the U.S. Army and served two years. During the first year, he was selected by the commanding General of the southern states to be part of a three-man design team that included Frank Gehry, who would later become one of the most prominent architects in the world. They were assigned to design twenty service club rooms for servicemen. (Dominick’s recollections of that time are quoted by author Paul Goldberger in his definitive biography of Gehry, “Building Art: The Life and Work of Frank Gehry” (2015).) During the second year, Dominick was assigned to Special Services in Atlanta, to design material for soldiers promoting performances by entertainers who were drafted, including Elvis Presley, Leonard Nimoy (later of Star Trek) and Ken Berry (later of the Carol Burnett Show).

Dominick started his own Industrial Design business in New York City, which he continued for several decades together with a series of business partners. They designed a wide variety of houseware products, and did so before the invention of computer-aided design. All of their conceptual work was drawn, painted or modeled by hand.

A business client recommended a “blind date” with a relative’s friend, Barbara A. Walther. Dominick and Barbara married in 1961, later had two children, and remained married throughout his entire life.

An adept business negotiator and avid stock market trader, in 1974 Dominick appeared as a panel guest on the nationally-televised David Susskind Show.

Dominick was also an activist concerning matters affecting the local community. In 1980, he chaired the block association “Whitestone Action Committee,” which successfully opposed the construction of a second bank drive-through window that would have dangerously impacted pedestrian traffic.

A baseball fan, Dominick held season tickets for New York Mets games for more than thirty years, including the 1986 championship season. In 1991, he participated in "Ulti-Met-Week," wearing his own Mets uniform during training events and games coached by Mets players.

Dominick was most proud of his design work for the Tupperware Corporation during the 1980s. He holds several U.S. design patents for Tupperware products, and received awards for two of the most successful products in Tupperware history. Among the popular “Tuppertoys” he designed and brought to Tupperware are the Stencil Art Set, the Canoe Boat Playset, and the School Bus Playset which transforms into a school classroom. As Dominick recounted at his 80th birthday: “My most memorable moment at Tupperware was when [my family attended] the introduction of two of my products in a 6,000-seat auditorium for all Tupperware saleswomen. The applause and screaming for the products being shown was sound-monitored at a level of a 747 airplane warming up.” Today, the School Bus Playset is traded on Ebay as a “highly collectible” item.

In Dominick’s words: “I believe I have lived the American Dream, through hard work and family support.”

Dominick is survived by his wife, Barbara Loscalzo; his sister, Joyce Loscalzo; his daughter Linda White, son-in-law Michael White and their children, William and James; his son Robert LoScalzo and his stepdaughter Dihana Paixao, his stepson Diego Paixao and his stepdaughter-in-law Amanda Paixao and their son, Wagner.

In lieu of flowers, the family suggests a contribution to either the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, or Parkinson’s Foundation:

https://www.jdrf.org/donate/

https://www.parkinson.org/way…

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