Photos and reporting by Stacie Joy
For more than three decades, Albert Fabozzi helped bring neighbors together each holiday season around the Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Tompkins Square Park — a tradition rooted in remembrance, community and the East Village he ultimately came to love.
Fabozzi, who was born in June 1940, died recently at age 85 after a short illness.
A painter, interior designer, community activist and former chair of Community Board 3, Fabozzi became one of the East Village's most recognizable neighborhood figures during the 1980s and 1990s.
He was perhaps best known for founding the annual Tompkins holiday tree lighting in 1992, following the death of his longtime partner, Glenn Barnett, who died that October from AIDS-related illness. What began as a memorial for Barnett and others lost during the AIDS crisis became a lasting neighborhood tradition.
As a young adult, he moved to the West Village before relocating to the East Village in 1978 with Barnett, his partner of 18 years.
At first, Fabozzi resisted the move, later recalling that he viewed the neighborhood as "dangerous and filthy."
According to close friend and neighbor David Leslie, Barnett finally convinced him by saying, "If you don’t come here, we can't be together."
Fabozzi eventually embraced the neighborhood — and, characteristically, decided to help improve it.
"He figured if Glenn was going to make him live here, he may as well do what he could to tidy the place up," said Leslie, an artist/producer and co-founder of both The Howl Festival and East Village Community
Coalition.
Fabozzi became deeply involved in civic life, joining Community Board 3 in the early 1990s after an appointment by City Councilmember Antonio Pagán. He became chair in 1995.
During that era, he advocated for cleaner streets, safer parks and greater investment in the neighborhood, though some of his positions, including opposition to the volume of social services provided in the East Village and support of market-rate housing, also sparked controversy among activists and longtime residents who feared being displaced.
He also helped establish cultural programming in Tompkins Square Park, including support for the Charlie Parker Jazz Festival and the holiday tree-lighting ceremony that became his signature community event.
Beyond public life, friends remember Fabozzi as warm, theatrical, funny, and deeply caring — someone whose Seventh Street apartment was filled with art, music, newspaper clippings, and stories from decades of downtown life.
Sam Shipman, Barnett's nephew, recalled how Fabozzi remained close with the family after Glenn's death.
"When I came out as gay my senior year of high school, that same week Albert mailed me the gay-themed box set of 'Tales of the City' with a note saying how proud he was of me," Shipman said. "Soon after, he hosted me for a weekend in the city, touring me around gay historic sites and talking up all the beautiful experiences that awaited me as a gay man."
Shipman and his brother later attended NYU, where Fabozzi became a steady and comforting presence.
"We both have memories of arriving at an apartment smelling of delicious Italian cooking and being greeted by music and a singing/dancing Albert," Shipman said, noting that Cass Elliot's "Make Your Own Kind of Music" and k.d. lang's "Constant Craving" were among his favorites.
"He was always a young soul," Shipman said.
I'll personally miss spending time in Albert’s art-filled apartment listening to stories about old New York, brushes with famous people and his thoughts on the changing neighborhood around him.
He cared deeply about preserving the memory of Glenn and the many people lost during the AIDS crisis, and he became part of the fabric of this community in the process.
And when the lights go on again at the Tompkins holiday tree in December, many people will surely be thinking of Albert, too.
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And the celebration of Albert’s life — titled "Thank you, bless you, we celebrate you, Albert Fabozzi!" — will be held on Saturday, May 16, at 11 a.m. at the holiday tree in Tompkins Square Park.
Attendees are encouraged to bring flowers to help encircle the base of Albert and Glenn's tree with what organizers are calling a "bouquet bed." Coffee and cookies will be provided by Veselka and C&B Cafe.
