Frank Thomas Aquilino: A Crackling
Imagination
If
Frank Thomas Aquilino could have invented a 27-hour day,
he would have gotten right on it. Mr. Aquilino -- F. T.
to most, just F. to the closest dozens -- was, like many
Cantor Fitzgerald traders, young (26) and whoppingly
successful (vice president and partner), a fellow in
perpetual motion. What set him apart was that crackling
imagination.
The boy who played cards with his sisters on the top
of the refrigerator, who "borrowed" wood from
construction sites to build multistory tree houses, grew
into the man who was building a gambling Web site where
visitors could bet on anything from sports to the
weather.
That loopy inventiveness would not quit. What next
from a short guy from Staten Island who danced tall and
confident, who owned a red velvet shirt and black
Reeboks, one of which he spray-painted white?
The ideas did more than serve financial gain and good
times. As a teenager, Mr. Aquilino's best friend, Anthony
Palumbo, had to use a wheelchair. "F., how can I keep my
newspaper route?" he asked.
First, Mr. Aquilino tied the delivery bag to the
wheelchair. Then he tied a jump-rope to his bicycle, and,
with Mr. Palumbo holding onto the rope's other end, Mr.
Aquilino pedaled hard, towing his buddy, day after
day.
.