Cirillo Brothers (Cibro) Photos
Cirillo Brothers station on NY route 88 north in Newark, NY and taken in
October of 1986 by Walt Wimer. Newark is located on NY route 31, about
halfway between Syracuse and Rochester. Route 31 is the main route through town,
so their aren't many stations on route 88.
Walt adds: "I went through Newark in October 2002, and did not see any
CIBRO stations anywhere in that area.
The station ID sign in this photo appears to be a converted MOBIL."
An early photo of Cirillo Bros Coal And Ice, which was the family's original
business before branching into the oil and gasoline business.
This photo of Gus Cirillo and his brothers was taken probably in the 1920s or early 1930s.
Photo donated by Greg Cirillo.
|
Cirillo Brothers were located at 1066 Zerega Avenue, Bronx, New York, for many years. This was a waterfront terminal. Their tankers were a common sight in White Plains, some 25 miles to the north. They got into gasoline retailing in the late 70's or early 80's, and had a station on Central Avenue in Hartsdale, one or two others in the Bronx and probably a few more in the metropolitan New York area. "Your money buys dependability" was their ongoing slogan. The stations were small but new or remodeled and in relatively good appearance. According to the 1981 NPN "Fact Book", they had just changed their name from Cirillo Bros. Sales Corp. to Cibro Sales Corp. (This was probably just the marketing arm of the company.) Headquarters were at 1040 East 149th St. Bronx, NY. Frank Cirillo was the president with five other members of the family in top management positions including a John Cirillo, who was VP of Operations. At the time they had a 33,000 barrels per day refinery at Albany. In 1984 and 1986 they listed 100 and 104 stations in the Fact Book, but quit listing after that. (NPN station counts are based on company info, and just because a company is not listed, doesn't mean they are no longer operating...just that they didn't send their info to the NPN.) The Cibro Petroleum Products refinery based in Albany was described as being one of the largest upstate wholesale and retail petroleum products distributors at the time it filed for Chapter XI bankruptcy protection in 1992. This bankruptcy was still going on almost a decade later. The demise of Cibro may have been associated with the explosion of the barge "Cibro Savannah" in 1990. See below for the story. |
1967 Cirillo Bros. map scan from Jon Roma. |
The CIBRO SAVANNAH exploded and caught fire while
departing the pier at the CITGO facility in Linden, New Jersey, on March 6,
1990. About 127,000 gallons of oil remained unaccounted for after the
incident: no one knows how much oil burned and how much spilled into the
environment.
Above image and caption courtesy of the Office of Response and Restoration,
National Ocean Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Original document was at:
response.restoration.noaa.gov/photos/ships/06.html
Above link found to be broken Oct 27, 2012. Sorry.
Thanks to Walt Wimer, Ian Byrne, and J. Eric Freedner for providing the
information for this brand. Also thanks to Greg Cirillo, Walt Wimer and Jon Roma for the
photos and map scan. And thanks to the ORR for allowing me to reprint their article
on the burning barge.
This brand was interesting to me because it carries my name.