Widow of slain officer DiNardo sugggests naming school after him

Monday, March 29, 2010

Mary DiNardo wants people to remember her husband and the sacrifice he made for Jersey City. So she has proposed that the School 23 Annex, at 128 Duncan Ave., where Marc DiNardo went to school, be renamed in his honor.

"I just think there should be something of some significance where everyone says, 'Who is Marc DiNardo?' 10 years from now," she said.

Marc DiNardo, a Jersey City Police detective, was shot July 16 by an armed robbery suspect as he and other officers went door-to-door in a Reed Street apartment building looking for the man and an accomplice.

Marc Anthony DiNardo died a few days later at Jersey City Medical Center. He was 37.

When DiNardo graduated in 1985, the building that is now the School 23 Annex, housed School 17. He later attended Hudson Catholic High School and St. Peter's College.

The Police Officers Benevolent Association, with the help of local businesses, collected the requisite 1,000 signatures - and hundreds more - to propose that the school be named in DiNardo's honor.

The Board of Education is accepting other name suggestions for the School 23 Annex in writing until April 6.

MELISSA HAYES