Underneath the 52nd St. stop on the elevated No. 7 train in Woodside, Queens is Nunziato's, a small outdoor flower shop surrounded by a weathered fence. The yard is filled with potted perennials, and a small building sits out back. For the past 100 years it has been run by Council Member Eric Gioia's (D-Queens) family, and sitting recently in front of his childhood home nearby, Gioia recalled how the store inadvertently put him on the path to politics.  

“For a hundred years, every member of the family has gone into the business, but the big joke is that I'm allergic to flowers,” he said. “So it was sort of God's way of pushing me out the door and telling me to do something else with my life. But I didn't know that politics would be the thing.”

  

Sitting on the stoop of the house on 50th St., Gioia's father Neil remembered when he realized his son wasn't going to cut it in the flower business.

“We'd be outside loading and unloading the trucks and putting the stuff in the yard,” he recalled. “By the end of the day he'd be dragging, and I'd say to myself, ‘Boy, he's not a hard worker.’ But after a while we realized he was allergic, so I went to the bookshelf, handed him a book and said, ‘You're no good to us here, so you might as well start reading.’ Otherwise he'd be making boutonnières right now.”

“It was my lucky break,” Gioia said.

The house at 3926 50th Street is a standard issue Queens split level in the middle of a block lined with nearly identical brick homes. Gioia's mother grew up there, and his parents still live on the first level while his sister occupies the second. Gioia, his wife and young daughter live around the corner. He estimates there are hundreds of extended families spread through the surrounding neighborhoods.

Although he landed a job in the Clinton White House at age 22, politics was foreign to him as a kid, Gioia said.

“My family are regular people,” he said. “They always voted, but they've never participated in politics. It wasn't something I was thinking about as a kid.”

Walking the four blocks to his old elementary school, Gioia recalled games of stoop ball and basketball in the park. Looking at his old neighborhood courts, newly refurbished, he recognized the changes.

“When I was growing up, this park was so dilapidated,” he said. “There was graffiti and broken bottles everywhere. And I have this memory of coming here one day and only one backboard had a hoop.”

Cupping his hands and peering in the windows of his old elementary school, Gioia rattled off the names of his teachers from kindergarten through 6th grade. And he recounted what he called his start in politics—being chosen in the 5th grade to lobby the mayor and school board on behalf of the school for more classroom space.

“It was luck, she just picked me out,” he said of being selected by the principal. “It was great for the school, but it was also a powerful lesson to me, which is stand up for yourself and speak truth to power. I've since learned that it's not always so easy.”


“Sports played a huge part in my life growing up,” Gioia said. “I played baseball, soccer and basketball—none of it particularly well, by the way.” 

He would listen to Mets games on the radio and was allowed to take the No. 7 train out to Shea Stadium alone before he was allowed to go into Manhattan as a kid.

“I remember in 1981 during the baseball strike, Mookie Wilson, who was a rookie, got a part-time job as a greeter at Joe's Seafood on 61st St.” Gioia remembered. “And we went and I met him. Then of course five years later, on October 25th, 1986, the seminal moment in any young man's life from Queens,” he said, referring to the famed Mets comeback against the Boston Red Sox in the 10th inning of Game 6 of the World Series. The Mets went on to win the series in Game 7.

“It was just this incredible moment where you learn that whatever the odds, you never give up,” he said. “Those are kind of coming-of-age moments.”

Although he grew up more among flowers than politics, Gioia, who is running for public advocate, said his early experiences in the neighborhood heavily shaped his priorities when he got to the City Council.  

“You live somewhere and your whole life you sit at the dinner table and listen to your mom and dad say ‘Why don't we have this or that,'” he said, “and then you find yourself in a position to actually do it.”