South Brooklyn Profiles: Joe and Sonya Biasci

Joe and Sonya Biasci
The first time I went into Joe Biasci's basement apartment, I found him listening to "The Supremes: Live at the Copa." He may listen to pop vocalists of the 50s more frequently, but Joe's record collection (3000 vinyl albums strong) is decidely eclectic: he has country, classical, pop, and jazz ("a little bit") all carefully cataloged and ready to be taped and played in his finished van, which he and his wife Sonya take cross country on their frequent and often spontaneous trips. (Last year, when the couple went to Newfoundland, but returned after only a few days, the brevity of their trip was the subject for some President Street speculation.)
Every subway commuter in the area knows Joe, not because of his work as a Community Board 6 member or a stalwart of the Committee to Improve Carroll Park, but because, when the mood hits him, he runs a one-man flea market outside his front door, the building with the cut out drawing of Martin Luther King. Joe either sits wearing a terry cloth head band next to a few tables of old records and kitchen bricabrac, or he posts a sign outside his door usually written on brown cardboard, something like: For Sale: porcelain sink, rubber car gaskets, Playboy (1967-1972). Ring doorbell.
Joe, expansive and easy going (every woman he meets is addressed "Lady"), has watched the current work on Carroll Park with pleasure; he lives across the street from the park, and he can't understand some of the complaints he hears. "You'd think we were putting in the Empire State Building."
At his kitchen table, Joe rummages through meeting notices from the various community board subcommittees he's on, including the housing subcommittee. Joe calls himself an advocate for senior housing, noting the particular crunch in the neighborhood for elderly men and women. He doesn't think the commercial development of Smith Street has made the situation worse; we should be able to have successful stores and restaurants without jeopardizing housing costs for people on fixed incomes. In fact, he wishes the Smith Street boom would extend a bit farther south.
Sonya and Joe grew up on the Lower East side, but have lived in their current house for ten years; Joe's parents owned it for forty years. The two love the Eastern European food of their childhood neighborhood. They've been on an unfruitful search for a Russian black bread once made by Moishe's, the Second Avenue bakery. Sonya herself bakes the kind of elaborate bake shop desserts that require things like dough hooks, heavy duty food processors, and an excess of patience. She feeds the stream of neighbors and relatives who regularly stop in. A son of Joe's cousin, a man who works in construction, came in one day to pick up a jacket Sonya had altered for him, while Joe called down his grandson, Ian, who lives upstairs, a handsome, sad-eyed 22 year old. The cousin, prompted by Joe ahead of time, gently talked about working in construction and the sort of work he might be able to find Ian, who stood tentatively in the doorway, a slim figure listening and nodding politely before make his quick exit back upstairs, in that moment, at least, the opposite of his voluble grandfather.

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This project is sponsored, in part, by the Greater New York Development Fund of BAC/Brooklyn Arts Council, Inc., which is made possible with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.