Christopher Vialonga

Cool Guy, Warm Heart
Hey. To be 30, single, a sharp dresser, with a front pocket full of cash and a back pocket full of friends and family? Little brother, your married-with-children two older brothers think you're having too much fun!

Even though he meant to settle down (no serious contenders for the wife title, so far), Christopher Vialonga, a foreign exchange trader with Carr Futures, was having a great time flying solo.

A big, good-looking guy, former offensive tackle, he whistled everybody together for Jets tailgate parties and organized the tee- off times on Sundays for a gang of six. He always arrived a half-hour early, because he was so revved. Johnnie Juicebag, they called him, Johnnie Black Shoes.

The money spilled from his pockets. Yes, it went for the black BMW and those clothes — forgetting to pack ski clothes for a Lake Tahoe trip, dropping $1000 on new stuff — but it flowed like crazy for his niece and nephews ("Chris, you're spoiling them!)

A full-tilt guy, who happened to be a sweetheart. He was worrying about his mother, Katherine, who struggled with widowhood. So at the beginning of September, he moved home to Demarest, N.J., to help around the house, just for a little while.


Profile published in THE NEW YORK TIMES on December 9, 2001.


Christopher Vialonga, a 30-year-old trader from Demarest, N.J., loved his job on the 92nd floor of the World Trade Center's north tower, the first building struck by terrorists Tuesday. A former college football player, he also loved the New York Jets--and had the season tickets to prove it.

And he loved his mother, Katherine, with whom he lived. She was the last family member to speak with him. He called her after the plane smashed into the building, half a dozen floors above him.

"He said, 'I'm OK, I'm at an open window,'" recounted Christopher's sister-in-law, Michelle. "He said, `I'm OK, I love you. She said, 'I love you, too,' and the phone went dead."

Profile courtesy of THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE.


Christopher Vialonga, 30, a favorite son When his father, Conrad Vialonga, died unexpectedly in November 1999, Christopher Vialonga filled the void for his mother, Katherine. He took her golfing, called twice a day, and last month moved back into the near-empty family home in Demarest so he could be around her even more.

When a hijacked plane hit One World Trade Center, Mr. Vialonga, 30, immediately dialed his mother from his 92nd-floor office at Carr Futures, where he traded foreign currencies.

"He said he was all right, he was near a window and he loved her," said Gary Vialonga, one of Mr. Vialonga's two older brothers. "That was the last we heard from him."

Mr. Vialonga, the burly baby of his family, was among an entire shift of about 70 Carr Futures workers killed in the attack.

Chummy and fiercely loyal, Mr. Vialonga was a favorite son and an adored uncle, a former football player and avid New York Jets fan who savored tailgate parties at Giants Stadium.

In fact, it was in the family's usual tailgating spot, section 13B of the stadium parking lot, before the Jets' Sept. 9 home opener where most of his friends and family saw him last.

Looking forward to a new season, Mr. Vialonga was "intense and happy and into the game and all fired up," brother Gary recalled.

It was typical for the 6-foot 2-inch, 220-pound Mr. Vialonga.

"He was larger than life, a guy you'd want to go and have a beer with, play golf with, go to a ball game with," Gary Vialonga said.

Mr. Vialonga was a standout lineman for Bergen Catholic High School in Oradell and at Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, Pa., where he graduated in 1993 with a bachelor's degree in business administration. Carr Futures hired him out of school.

Mr. Vialonga had a small knot of close friends who'd remained together since high school. He was the one who organized fun things for all of them to do, including an annual road trip to an Army football game.

"He was the ringleader," said one of those friends, Eamonn Twomey.

The circle lost another member in the attack -- Robert Zampieri, whom Mr. Vialonga had helped get a job at Carr Futures.

Even with such close friends, Mr. Vialonga was most enthusiastic about being with family. His parents attended all of his football games, and he passed on his passion for athletics to his three nephews and niece.

When his father died of an aortic aneurysm, leaving his mother alone in the house where he and his brothers had grown up, Mr. Vialonga became her steady companion. He lived in Edgewater until four weeks before the attack, when he moved back home to be with her.

"They had each other," Gary Vialonga said. "Now . . . it's going to be very different. For all of us."