Peter Nigro, Professor Emeritus of Economics at the College of Staten Island, died peacefully in his home in Redding, CT on August 16, 2026. He was 92 years old.

Peter was a native Staten Islander, having arrived in the world at St Vincent’s hospital feet first, on the Feast of St. Ann – the name saint of his future wife, Ann Marie McHugh. Peter would continue to do things his own way for the rest of his life.

He spent the first years of his life in the Italian enclave of South Beach, in the company of his father’s extended family. He also spent almost every Sunday of his childhood with his mother’s relatives in Brooklyn, where he savored the multi-course meals cooked by his grandmother, Dora, whose recipes nobody in the family could ever, to his mind, successfully replicate.

As the first-born grandson on both sides, Peter was adored and sometimes indulged by his grandparents and aunts and uncles, particularly his mother’s younger siblings. He was dressed in hand tailored suits made expressly for him by his Brooklyn grandfather, a tailor, and his Uncle Tom even bought him a little metal car to “drive” during the Great Depression. When his paternal Nona gave his female cousins a dollar, she secretly snuck him five.

When he was about six years old, Peter’s parents moved to New Dorp, where he was the first Italian kid in what was then an Irish neighborhood. While this probably wasn’t easy, Peter found a way, notably by befriending two boys his age from a family named Walsh. He also spent time every summer back in South Beach, where he enjoyed the company of his many Italian cousins. He recalled how they would have to wash oil slicks off their legs after swimming there, and how a German submarine was secretly hiding in the waters off the beach during WWII.

Peter attended PS 41 and proudly kept the report cards that were largely filled with As, except for penmanship, which he never mastered. At age 11, he acquired a little sister, Marie, whom he loved and protected. When his parents had disagreements, he would walk her around the block until what they affectionately termed the “Pete and Camille show” was officially over.

Peter eventually attended St. Peter’s high school, where he was an outstanding student and sports reporter. In fact, he simultaneously reported on basketball games and kept the time clock. After the game, he called in the scores and major plays to Staten Island Advance reporters by memory.

After high school, Peter went to the College of the Holy Cross, where – unlike his future brother-in-law, Bill – he was never kicked off campus for failing to attend mass. Although he intended to major in Physics, he discovered instead a life-long love of economics, particularly finance. Between his experiences as a child of the Great Depression and as a student of “the dismal science,” he became a fount of financial knowledge for his three children. A few of his favorite lessons for life included: delay gratification, avoid impulse buys, never pay retail, and always squeeze the toothpaste tube from the bottom. Some of these lessons became second nature to his progeny; others – most notably the toothpaste directive – were simply ignored.

Peter did well at Holy Cross, and became a lifelong, passionate alumnus with great affection for his college on the hill. In his last illness, he could sometimes be heard whispering the Jesuit motto, “Ad maiorem Dei gloriam,” or “for the greater glory of God.” Just two months before his death, son PJ, also a Holy Cross alumnus, brought him to his 70th college reunion where he insisted on participating in every single event.

Following graduation from Holy Cross, Peter received a full tuition fellowship at Brown University to work towards a graduate degree in Economics. However, his second-hand car kept breaking down and he ran low on funds, so he ended his studies after earning a master’s degree.

Instead, Peter began working at the Treasury Department of Con Edison in Manhattan, which led to a fortuitous encounter with Ann Marie McHugh – a beautiful, auburn-haired Con Edison librarian from Queens. She once said he used to stand outside the door of the library and wave and smile at her through the window while she was trying to work. To win her hand, he had to pass the gauntlet of four brothers and two Irish parents. Nonetheless, he persisted, and the two were married in 1961, just as he was wrapping up an MBA at New York University.

Although he was tracked for leadership at Con Edison, Peter did not enjoy the strictures or structure of corporate life but instead preferred to control his time and pursue his own interests, namely, the stock market. Around the time of his marriage, he began pursuing a PhD part time at New York University, with a focus on money and banking. He did all this while working full-time as a professor at Staten Island Community College and starting a family.

The young couple eventually had three children: Ann Marie, Peter (PJ) and Mary Jane. Somehow Peter, the dark-haired Italian, managed to reproduce not one but two redheaded daughters and a (one-time) blonde, and not a single child who could tan – probably thanks to recessive genes from his red-haired Nona, Carmella Nigro. The family moved to 223 Rice Avenue in 1966 and in that same year, Peter received his doctorate, earned tenure and became an Associate Professor.

Peter went on to become a Full Professor and was elected – not appointed – Chair of his Department for 18 years running, a notable and unusual achievement. During his tenure, he lived through many changes, including the evolution of Staten Island Community College into the four-year College of Staten Island. He also saw the college move campuses from Sunnyside to St George and finally to Willowbrook. Peter was a mentor to younger faculty and to many students, and he was supportive of the (albeit very few) women in his department. He hired the college’s first black professor of accounting in the1960s saying, “He was just the best candidate for the job.”

In his academic working days, Peter liked to swim and exercise at the Downtown Athletic Club in Manhattan, and to grow vegetables in the backyard, particularly over the burial place of the family dog, Simon, who in life had destroyed many of Peter’s favorite plants. Peter was somewhat notorious in the neighborhood for having a bad lawn and a cloudy pool, the first of which is a point of pride for his daughter, Mary Jane, who thinks that lawns are an environmental evil and that her dad was simply ahead of his time.

Peter was also an expert investor and took pride in beating the stock indexes almost every year of his investing life. He formed a small investment company with his father known as Richmond Securities. Both men were maverick, genius investors with rates of return that would make a hedge fund manager envious. Both were also generous – albeit cautious - with their investing advice. Peter particularly loved to discuss strategies for how ordinary, individual investors could build wealth based on their own careful research and intuition.

Although he loved investing and was a pragmatist at heart, Peter always encouraged his children to pursue their passions and not to worry too much about money. He also taught them to be open to new experiences and to be willing to try anything, advice he himself took to heart. Peter learned to ski and golf in his fifties, and continued these activities well into his eighties, often relying on one of his grandsons to pick him up out of the snow or to play a round of golf.

As husband to a woman devoted to her extended family, Peter also welcomed her family members into his home to live, including his mother-in-law, Annie McHugh, and several of his nieces and nephews. An old-school Italian at heart, he believed in looking after family, including extended family, and did not believe in charging anyone rent or expenses. His generosity and kindness gave his nieces and nephews a safe, cheap place to stay in New York while getting established, and in the case of Granny McHugh, a warm and loving home in which to spend her final years.

After Peter retired at the age of 62, he and his wife Ann Marie celebrated their shared Catholic faith together in many new ways. They developed friendships with the Sister Disciples of the Divine Master, especially their adopted “daughter” Sr Emmanuel Kwok, and they enjoyed visiting the sisters’ former convent in Staten Island. They also befriended the Franciscan friars of Todt Hill, who eventually welcomed Ann Marie into their Third Order. The two of them once took a trip to Our Lady of Knock, where Peter good naturedly teased Ann Marie for overdoing it on the rosary on the tour bus. Still later, they travelled to Italy, where they visited the Vatican, the catacombs, and every church they passed.

Around this post retirement period, Peter became a part owner of the Waterville Valley, NH Sports complex, and for many years travelled there to ski, golf and participate in board meetings. On many Fourth of July holidays, his children and grandchildren, and occasionally his sister and brother-in-law, Paul, gathered in the Valley to celebrate his birthday early, and to eat his favorite dessert – strawberry shortcake.

After Ann Marie’s death in 2004, Peter remained a single widower. He focused his sights instead on his interests and hobbies, his children and especially his nine grandchildren. Indeed, Peter was an enthusiastic participant in life. He exercised multiple times per week; when skiing and golf were no longer possible, he took up weightlifting, chair dancing and chair pilates, which he insisted on pronouncing “Pie-lats.” He would dance badly but joyfully at all family weddings. In many ways he was a kid at heart. When he went to Disney, he went on all the rides, at one point going on Space Mountain by himself at age 80. He was a lifelong Yankees fan who also loved to go to minor league games and enjoyed their many gimmicks, and he did so as recently as last summer, when his grandson Peter took him to a Hartford Yard Goats game. He travelled as frequently as he could, enjoying trips to California and Scotland on his own, and to Hawaii, Alaska, Colorado, Florida and Bermuda, among other places, with various children and grandchildren.

While he still had living colleagues, he met with them several times a year in Staten Island for luncheons in his honor. During his time at Meadow Ridge senior living community, he particularly appreciated visits not only from his biological children, but also from his academic “daughter” Sylvia Clark, whom he had mentored as a young faculty member. He loved seeing “the cousins” on his Nigro side at various dinners arranged by John DiMaso, the unofficial Cugini coordinator. Most of all, Peter loved to cheer on his grandchildren at their sporting and school events, and he made it a point to attend all their graduations when it was humanly possible.

Peter is survived by his three children, Ann Marie Carney (Dan), PJ (Mary) and Mary Jane Reis (Paul), his sister Marie Berggren (Paul), nine grandchildren (Mary Hagan, Danny and Patrick Carney, and Peter Brutschea; Elizabeth, Brendan, Tim and Chris Nigro; and Anna-Kate Reis); and five great grandchildren.

Donations can be made in his honor to the Sister Disciples of the Divine Master in California, care of Sr Emmanuel Kwok; the College of the Holy Cross; or Fonkoze, in honor of the two Haitian women who watched over him at night during his last weeks.

Visiting hours will be held on Thursday August 27, 2026 in the Bouton Funeral Home, 31 West Church Street, Georgetown (Wilton) from 4:00 to 7:00 p.m.

A Mass of Christion Burial will be celebrated on Friday August 28, 2026 in St. Patrick Church, 169 Black Rock Turnpike, Redding.

To offer online condolences please visit www.boutonfuneralhome.com