Roderick Paulus burial record | The Hart Island Project

Roderick Paulus loved toys and games. When he wasn’t at work, he went to conventions like Toy Fair and Play NYC and recorded interviews with toymakers for his website, ToyMasters Video Magazine. Paulus was born in Brooklyn to immigrant parents from Trinidad. He started working in the mailroom of an office building on Wall Street as a teenager in the 1980s. There, he met his best friend, Anita Perry, and the pair remained close for more than three decades, spending Christmas together almost every year. Paulus was a godfather to Perry’s children and gifted them with his favorite toys. “It brought him joy,” she said. He continued working during the pandemic, Perry said. Paulus died on April 18, 2020, at the age of 56.

“He had a smile that would just melt your heart.”
— Anita Perry, Roderick Paulus’s friend
Written by Josh Merchant