{"id":390680,"date":"2026-11-02T08:36:14","date_gmt":"2026-11-02T08:36:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/390680\/"},"modified":"2026-11-02T08:36:14","modified_gmt":"2026-11-02T08:36:14","slug":"michael-barletta-of-garden-city-longtime-st-johns-university-pharmacology-professor-dies-at-84","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/390680\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Barletta, of Garden City, longtime St. John’s University pharmacology professor, dies at 84"},"content":{"rendered":"

Generations of St. John’s University students benefited from pharmacology professor Michael Barletta’s\u00a0deep well of knowledge, but they weren’t the only ones.<\/p>\n

A longtime Garden City resident, Barletta was also a\u00a0reliable source of valuable information for his family and friends.<\/p>\n

“If you had a question or were worried about taking a certain medication,” said Barletta’s grandson, Michael Malaszczyk,\u00a0“you could call him and he would explain how it would affect you from head to toe.”<\/p>\n

Barletta, whose passion for pharmacology began on the streets of his native Brooklyn as a drugstore\u00a0delivery boy, died Oct. 24 after a stroke, his\u00a0family\u00a0said. He was 84.<\/p>\n

A funeral Mass for Barletta is set for 11 a.m. on Monday at Church of St. Joseph<\/a>, 130 Fifth Street in Garden City, according to an announcement on the St. John’s University website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Barletta, who was born in Brooklyn on July 15, 1942,\u00a0\u00a0attended St. John’s and later earned a Ph.D in\u00a0cardiovascular pharmacology. In later years,\u00a0he began researching holistic medicines for diabetes, said\u00a0his wife,\u00a0Helen, who met her future husband at St. John’s.<\/p>\n

“Teaching was everything to him,” Helen Barletta said. “He could take the most complex concept and break it down for someone without being condescending.”<\/p>\n

The couple’s first daughter,\u00a0Lisa Marie, of Garden City, was born in 1967 in New Mexico, where\u00a0Michael Barletta served\u00a0at the time with\u00a0the\u00a0U.S. Public Health Service Commission\u00a0Corps<\/a>.\u00a0He eventually reached\u00a0the rank of lieutenant with the\u00a0uniformed service branch.<\/p>\n

The Barlettas\u00a0later returned to New York,\u00a0where their second daughter,\u00a0Alice Jeanne, of Kissimmee, Florida, was born in 1972. That’s also when Michael\u00a0 Barletta began his five decades on the faculty of St. John’s college of pharmacy and health sciences.<\/p>\n

He led a busy life, Barletta’s family said. Along with teaching, Barletta\u00a0worked part-time over the years as a pharmacist in Garden City and at\u00a0Winthrop Hospital in Mineola, now NYU Langone Hospital. But his priorities were always in order.<\/p>\n

“He never missed anything, whether it be a birthday, a concert or a graduation,” Michael \u00a0Malaszcz\u00a0yk said.<\/p>\n

Along with his wife, daughters and grandson, Michael Barletta is\u00a0survived\u00a0by\u00a0several grandchildren and\u00a0great grandchildren.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Generations of St. John’s University students benefited from pharmacology professor Michael Barletta’s\u00a0deep well of knowledge, but they weren’t…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":390681,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,322,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-390680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-obituaries","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=390680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390680\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/390681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}