George Bakos

The Duke who Touched us all

My dad was the child of a young couple dreaming of prosperity, his father selling fruit on the streets of Manhattan, his mother cleaning offices for other, more successful Greek immigrants after her husband passed. Baby George was two years old and penicillin wasn’t widely available to treat the pneumonia that left him fatherless.

Growing up in Hell’s Kitchen in the 1930’s and 40’s, George, his brother Nick & sister Rose took different paths to heed their mother’s imperative: to be American. George became a street thug, running from the police, getting in fights and playing basketball (“we were a basketball club”, he told me when I found his gang treasurer’s notes) with the Dukes on 10th Avenue in the 50s. Being a loving father who wanted his kids to not repeat his mistakes, he kept the more adventurous side of his antics from us until he was outed by his old gang buddy, Richie: “He was a Duke?! I was a Duke! Man did we cause trouble!” Dad just smiled and chortled in the way we all knew meant, “don’t tell your mother” and brushed aside any further discussion until the time was right to laugh about one escapade or another. One lasting testament to his high school years - I never could beat him at pool.

He fought in Korea, volunteered to be a radio operator, learned something about communications electronics that would shape his future, and the world’s, then came home to get better acquainted with the young woman his mother disapproved of. George & Barbara were married for the next 64 years until COVID-19 decided they had a good enough run and took her from Dad. Atlantic City will never be the same, although he kept driving down there every month or so to press buttons & watch flashing lights at the Borgata, just as they did for decades together. He never went back to the tables, even though he studied the mathematics & tactics of winning blackjack. Just knowing how was good enough for Dad; he never saw gambling as anything more than relatively inexpensive entertainment, having to reel Mom in on occasion when the going got sketchy. He was her (and our) keel, her rudder, her navigator and her safe harbor. Together they journeyed and were glorious.

While attending CCNY in pursuit of his engineering degree, courtesy of the taxpayers & military, he buried himself in the basement studying and tinkering, becoming a self-taught, well, everything. Fixing TVs for everyone on the block once word got out that he figured out how, mixing & pouring concrete for our fence posts, crawling under cars, reveling in showing me how his 1967 Renault 10 could be started with a hand-crank. I’ll never forget him answering my childish technical questions with annoying suggestions like, “let’s go to the library and find out”. Knowledge, and the ability to acquire & apply it, was one of the gifts he passed along.

Dad’s passion for knowledge changed the world, thousands of times over. While he never asked for expressions of gratitude (but humbly accepted it, often with a sheepish giggle), every New Yorker can thank him, as can travelers around the world. We fly on aircraft he engineered systems for (Boeing 747); we travel over and underground more safely & reliably because of communications radios and signals he designed & oversaw (MTA); so many our friends and loved ones are alive because of the antennas & radio repeaters he engineered so that firefighters could communicate in the most challenging situations imaginable, including the World Trade Center Towers on 9/11 (FDNY). He never spoke of the successes of the systems he was responsible for, even as they served millions of people, quietly and reliably, a humble reflection of the man behind them.

After retiring from the Fire Department, his focus tightened on Mom’s health and happiness. Nothing meant more to Dad than to see her smile, which ebbed and flowed with her cancer, beating it, the laughing of more and more grandchildren, and the occasional jackpot in AC.

Dad’s teaching, his demeanor, his commitment, and his integrity are immeasurable. He knew about the aneurysm that would lead to his catastrophic stroke sixteen months before his passing. It was responsible for his pickleball career coming to an abrupt retirement when he lost balance a few times and was examined for the root cause. He knew, but didn’t burden any of us with that. Maybe he didn’t want us to take his car keys or give him a hard time for living as if he was, well, still alive. In the waning days and weeks, he kept walking to the Y, driving south to look at the blinking poker machines and attend a beach concert, and braving Staten Island traffic to have dinner with his grandchildren. He was 91, silly, humble, loving, and, and, and...

George Bakos is survived by his children, George, Diane and Christina, their spouses, eight grandchildren, one great-granddaughter and nine nieces & nephews. We are all in eternal debt to Dad, we and the countless others he has enriched and enabled. Just don’t tell your mother.

A visitation for George will be held Monday, June 3, 2024 from 2:00 to 4:00 & 7:00 to 9:00 PM at Harmon Funeral Home, 571 Forest Ave, Staten Island, NY 10310. A religious ceremony will occur Tuesday, June 4, 2024 from 10:00 AM to 10:30 AM, and a Military Honors ceremony from 10:30 AM to 11:00 AM at Harmon Funeral Home, 571 Forest Ave, Staten Island, NY 10310.

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