Longtime North End resident fatally hit by van

Gloria Pizzarella was a fixture in the North End.

A memorial rests near the intersection of Michelangelo and Charter streets in the North End. It is a simple memorial - three candles and a bouquet of lilies - for a woman who, for the past three years, began her day at this corner and on Thursday lost her life there.

Gloria Pizzarella, 78, died early Thursday morning after she set off on her morning walk. She failed to notice a van backing up into her small street, and the driver, it seems, failed to notice her, friends said.

"We usually watch each other when we're crossing," said Rita Ingala, 78, one of Pizzarella's close friends.

For about three years, like clockwork, the two women would meet outside their apartment building on Michelangelo Street a little before 9 a.m. They would walk down Charter Street to a small café and then head to Mike's Pastry for a treat.

"I come out. She comes out. 'Good Morning.' And then we're off," Ingala said, ticking off their morning routine. "She was a wonderful person. If you needed help, she was right there."

Ingala was not with Pizzarella on Thursday, though. She had a doctor's appointment. Pizzarella decided to go it alone.

Paul Pepicelli, who has known Pizzarella his entire life, said that on Thursday he was leaving his mother's home, which is just across the street from Pizzarella's residence, when he heard someone shout "Call the ambulance!"

"The first thing I saw was a person resting on the ground," he said. "I knew it was Gloria. When I got over to her, she was banged up pretty well."

He tried to joke with her as he held her hand and stroked her hair. "We've got to stop meeting like this," he teased.

Once the ambulance arrived, he called one of Gloria's sons to let him know what had happened.

"She was just a sweetheart of a woman," said Pepicelli, who grew up with her six children in the North End. "This is a loss that's going to ripple through the entire community. In a neighborhood like the North End, you're sort of like extended family."

The Boston Police Department is investigating the accident, said spokesman Eddy Chrispin. Police will not release the driver's name unless their investigation results in criminal charges. Police did say the van was the property of North End Community Health Center, an affiliate of Massachusetts General Hospital.

The driver has been suspended pending the results of the investigation, according to a statement from Mass. General.

North End residents described Pizzarella as a neighborhood fixture, someone almost everybody knew and admired.

At the neighborhood service center that makes its home in Pizzarella's apartment complex, Villa Michelangelo, a half dozen women sat around a table. A single lily and an empty chair marked Pizzarella's spot.

"She was the best one in here," said Pauline Iacozza, one of her friends. "I'm really going to miss her. What else can I say?"

A few days ago, Iacozza had a bad fall. Pizzarella checked on her every 15 minutes to make sure she was doing OK, she said. A day before she died, Pizzarella brought her a potato and egg frittata. She thought it might make her friend feel better.

The other women swapped similar stories. For one of them, Pizzarella had a custard pie - her favorite - waiting when she came over one evening.

For Ingala, her walking friend, it was soup and constant attention after her own fall last year.

"She was the only one who really cared," she said. "That was so good of her to do what she did."

But Pizzarella's reach extended well beyond this brick building, through the winding streets of the North End.

Angela Guarino sat outside Contrada's Coffee Shoppe, the café Pizzarella and Ingala would stop at each morning. Pizzarella would always order a cup of decaf coffee, no cream or sugar, with a couple of ice cubes to cool it off, said Guarino, the store's manager. When the two women did not show up Thursday morning, she wondered where they might be.

"I just can't believe it," she said. "It was such a terrible thing. It's hard to get it in your head."

Guarino has some stories, just like the women up the street: Guarino's boyfriend likes tripe, and every so often, Pizzarella would bring some with her to the café in a little Tupperware container. On holidays, Pizzarella, who was a grandmother, mother, and widow, would have candy for Guarino's grandchildren.

Occasionally, Pizzarella would bring in one of her own grandchildren after a sleepover at her place. She was a good grandmother, Guarino said.

"She is just loved in this community. Everybody knows her here," she said. Even the construction workers. "The neighborhood is devastated."

Yesterday morning, Ingala set off on her daily walk to Contrada's. This time, she was alone.

Globe correspondent Christopher Baxter contributed to this report.