UPPER WEST SIDE — Inside the Riverside Memorial Chapel Friday, the things Thomas McAnulty treasured the most were gathered together — dog tags from his time in the Air Force, golf balls, a pair of worn sneakers, photos of his sculptures, even pretzel rods — and so were the people he loved from every chapter of his life.
They came by the hundreds Friday afternoon to honor McAnulty, 73, a nearly 35-year resident of the Upper West Side, a popular art history teacher and an accomplished sculptor.
On Jan. 14, McAnulty was hit by a motorcyclist on West 96th Street at Amsterdam Avenue, an intersection that's among the most dangerous in the neighborhood and one which police say needs retooling.
He died of his injuries the next day.
Again and again, speakers at his memorial service talked of McAnulty as an incredibly smart and passionate person, but also a humble man who didn't ever boast or make others feel inadequate.
He was a "great storyteller," said his longtime friend Adam Dolle. "He was Irish, so of course [he was]."
McAnulty was an "unassuming" and "unpretentious" person who favored corduroy jackets and whose pants were often rumpled, Dolle recalled. He was incredibly "nurturing," his friend said.
For the past decade, McAnulty, who worked for Adelphi University, led a summer program in art history in Florence. Deeply passionate about the Italian Renaissance, "he seemed to get younger as the semester went on," said his colleague Jen Maloney, who described the way he lit up when he lectured, with his students knowing they were witnessing something special.
When an Italian Renaissance exhibit came to the Metropolitan Museum of Art a few years ago, McAnulty brought his good friends to see it with him and immediately began to talk about the artwork and tell stories. Soon enough, he had drawn quite a crowd of other visitors around him — people who had abandoned tours led by official Met docents to hear him instead, his friend Marshall Gottsegen remembered.
In this way, "he was a force of nature... a human magnet," Gottsegen said.
Friends described the way McAnulty would just pick up the phone and call if he was thinking of someone or open his home to people in need. For example, he and his wife Mary hosted a friend with pancreatic cancer in their home for months, friends recalled.
Above all else, McAnulty was a wonderful father and grandfather, said his son Steven, 42, who added that he was overcome by the outpouring of love for his father.
"He had such a passion for life, such a zest for the things he cared about," he said.
The family has asked that in lieu of flowers, donations to honor McAnulty be made to Families for Safe Streets in his name.
