Park Slope Block Named For Owners Of Leopoldi Hardware

PARK SLOPE, BROOKLYN — A neighborhood block will soon be known as "Joe and Flo Leopoldi Way" to honor the late longtime business owners whose family has run the Leopoldi Hardware store for more than 50 years.

The new name for the 7th Street block, between Fifth and Sixth avenues, was approved last week as part of a City Council bill that co-named 86 streets and places throughout the city for significant community members.

In Park Slope, Council Member Brad Lander sponsored a request to co-name the block in honor of the Leopoldi Hardware owners, whose store is now run by their children on Fifth Avenue between 7th and 8th streets.

“The Leopoldi Hardware store has been a community fixture for over 50 years," Lander said. "I’m glad to recognize the many contributions that Flo and Joe Leopoldi have made to the city and to the Park Slope community, so that neighbors and visitors to these blocks will know their names for years to come.”

Joe Leopoldi, who married Flo in 1959, first opened the hardware shop in 1966, according to a report on the business' 50-year anniversary by DNAInfo.

Leopoldi was the grandson of Italian immigrants and grew up in Park Slope. He worked as a shoeshine boy on Fifth Avenue and delivered groceries before serving in the U.S. Air Force for a few years, the feature said. When he returned to Park Slope, he opened The Place, a luncheonette on the corner of 5th Street and Sixth Avenue.

Joe died in 1989. His three sons and Flo ran the store for the last three decades before Flo died late last year.

The Leopoldi's block on 7th Street was not the only Park Slope spot to get a co-name under the council bill.

A corner at 6th Street and Prospect Park West will become "Rose and Edward Dunn Way" under the bill to honor two more significant community members.

Lander's office said that the couple's son reached out about co-naming the intersection to honor his parents.

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.

The co-name will recognize their lifetime of service to the neighborhood, Lander's office told Patch.

Also on the list was a block in Clinton Hill that will be renamed Walt Whitman Way to honor the Brooklyn poet. The intersection, on the corner of Ryserson Street and Dekalb Avenue, is just a few blocks from one of Whitman's former homes, which activists with The Walt Whitman Initiative have been trying to preserve for the last few years.