Fufidio Triangle

This triangle is named for Walter Fufidio (1924-1945), a native of Hunts Point in the Bronx, who was killed in the bloody battle of Iwo Jima during World War II. Enlisting in the Marines at the age of 19, Fufidio participated in the Pacific campaign from 1944 to 1945.

Fufidio lived on Casanova Street in the Bronx, and attended the Manhattan School of Aviation before he began to work for his father at the Esdorn Lumber Company.  Fufidio was seventeen years old at the outbreak of war in 1939, and as the war progressed he became anxious to participate, eventually enlisting in 1944. Fufidio served in the Marines for a year during the pivotal U.S. drive towards Japan.   

The United States entered World War II following the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Although Japan’s attack temporarily crippled the U.S. Navy, after the Battle of Midway in 1942, the U.S. was able to take advantage of its superior resources and drive the Japanese back across the Pacific. Because the Japanese controlled dozens of fortified island bases in the Pacific Ocean, the U.S. employed a strategy known as “island hopping” in which large forces would focus on one island at a time, bypassing the most heavily fortified ones in order to surround and cutoff the garrisons there.

Island hopping proved difficult, as the Japanese forces refused to submit when on the brink of defeat, even resorting to kamikaze attacks late in the war. In late 1944, the U.S. forces were poised to attack Iwo Jima, a tiny island only five miles in length, but pivotal in its location 650 miles from Tokyo. If captured, the airfields would place Tokyo well within range of American heavy bombers.

The first U.S. troops landed on Iwo Jima February 19, 1945, and in the ensuing 36 days, 110,000 more troops would follow. The Americans were in clear sight of the hidden Japanese, well protected in their deep bunkers. The barren island offered no cover, and the dense concentration of soldiers gave rise to an extremely brutal month of fighting. 

All 22,000 Japanese troops were killed; while the U.S. side suffered 26,000 casualties, of which over 6,000 died. One of the casualties of Iwo Jima was Corporal Fufidio, who was killed on March 23, only a few days before the American victory. Fufidio was only 21 years old when he died. He was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross Medal, the highest honor for a veteran marine, for his brave charge towards a Japanese bunker. The Army Veterans 38th Post named their post after Fufidio following the end of the war.

Fufidio was further honored in April 1953 when Garrison Square, which had been named for a prominent Hunts Point family, was renamed Corporal Fufidio Square. The property, which is located on Spofford Avenue and Tiffany Street, features a stone monument dedicated to all United States citizens who perished in war. The monument was erected in 1955 by the Army Veterans 38th Post. Fufidio Triangle is owned by the Department of Transportation, but maintained by NYC Parks through the Greenstreets Program, a joint project begun in 1986 and revived in 1994. Its goal is to convert paved street properties, such as triangles and malls, into green spaces. Fufidio Triangle was replanted in May 2000.