Leopoldi's Hardware Owners Get Their Own Block In Park Slope

PARK SLOPE, BROOKLYN — A stretch of Seventh Street has officially turned into "Joe and Flo Leopoldi Way" to honor owners of a beloved hardware store that has run on the Fifth Avenue block for more than 50 years.

Friends, family and elected officials gathered at the street corner Saturday to unveil a new sign that will co-name the Seventh Street block between Fifth and Sixth avenues for Leopoldi's Hardware.

The new name was approved over the summer after Council Member Brad Lander requested it in memory of the late couple— Joe died in 1989 and Flo last year — who first set up shop at the 415 Fifth Ave. storefront in 1966.

"They started a family with deep values of hard work, being good neighbors and public service," Lander said in a Tweet from the ceremony. "Grateful for their example. Moved to help name 7th Street for them today."

(Council Member Brad Lander).

Leopoldi was the grandson of Italian immigrants and grew up in Park Slope, according to a report on the business' 50-year anniversary by DNAInfo.

Before opening the hardware shop, he worked as a shoeshine boy on Fifth Avenue, delivered groceries and served in the U.S. Air Force for a few years. When he returned to Brooklyn, he also opened The Place, a luncheonette on the corner of 5th Street and Sixth Avenue.

Flo and the couple's three sons ran the store for the last three decades before Flo died late last year.

(Council Member Brad Lander).

"Joe and Flo Leopoldi Way" was one of 86 New York City streets and places that got renamed for significant community members through a City Council bill in July.

In Park Slope, a corner at 6th Street and Prospect Park West will also become "Rose and Edward Dunn Way" under the bill to honor two more significant community members. Rose Dunn had been on the board of the Red Cross and involved in Girl Scouts and their church. Edward Dunn co-founded the 7th Avenue Merchants Association and was a Boy Scout.

Also on the list was a block in Clinton Hill that will be renamed Walt Whitman Way to honor the Brooklyn poet and a Williamsburg street that remembers a late deli owner known as "The Italian Mayor of Williamsburg."