Nicholas Scoppetta, the former fire commissioner who led the FDNY after 9/11, passed away Thursday. He was 83.
Scoppetta’s son Eric told Newsday that his father died in hospice care after a battle with cancer.
Scoppetta was a longtime veteran of New York’s civil servant system, and oversaw New York’s Bravest from 2002 to 2010. City leaders past and present expressed their condolences once the news broke.
“New Yorkers will be forever grateful for his leadership as Fire Commissioner following 9/11, when he led the FDNY through its darkest days,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a statement.
Born in 1932, Scoppetta lived in foster homes in his youth and eventually graduated Brooklyn Law school 20 years later. He worked as an assistant DA in the Manhattan district attorney’s office for seven years and in 1970 worked as an associate counsel to the city’s Commission to Investigate Alleged Police Corruption.
Scoppetta worked for other private and public offices for the next 26 years, including the Deputy Mayor for Criminal Justice, before Mayor Rudy Giuliani named him to be the first commissioner of the city’s Administration for Children’s Services.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg chose him to be the FDNY commissioner when he took office in 2002, citing his strong leadership experience.
“At every turn in his career, Nick succeeded in making our city a better place, and he set a wonderful example for others,” he said in a statement. “All of us will miss him.”
Current Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro said Scoppetta was “instrumental to rebuilding the FDNY during a time of unimaginable loss and devastation.”
“He was truly a public servant without peer, and we deeply mourn his loss,” Nigro said in a statement.
Scoppetta is survived by his wife, two children and grandchildren.
