This champion for Valley Stream Italians and pillar of village life dies at 72

Will Florio’s pride for his Italian heritage served as a vanguard for Italian Americans who brought their generational culture and talents to Valley Stream and etched them deeply into the village’s public life. Florio died on May 3. He was 72.

Born in 1951 to two first-generation Italian immigrants, living in Dyker Heights, Florio would not stay in his native Brooklyn for very long. In a matter of years, Will and his family would leave their Italian neighborhood and make their home in suburban Long Island. Droves of other Italians, Brooklyn-bred or otherwise, were destined for the same future.

This movement was part of a larger societal shift for Italian Americans. The currents of anti-Italian and anti-Catholic sentiment that characterized the 1920s and ‘30s was, for the most part, in the rearview mirror. Florio came of age at a time where Italian Americans across the country were being folded rapidly into America’s mainstream.

Raised for the remainder of his childhood in suburban Valley Stream, Florio never lost his conviction for his Italian heritage, his son Bill Florio noted.

As a fervent Republican, his politics and his Italian ideals often went together. He threw himself into the local Italian-led social groups. He mingled with hometown Italian luminaries and helped get them into public office. He was a founding member and treasurer of the village’s Italian American Civic Association before the organization folded in the early 2000s.

Back in its heyday, the Italian American Civic Association completely reshaped the village’s political culture, noted Bill, who is president of the Valley Stream Historical Society. Enough so that when the Association hosted its meet-the-candidates town halls, no serious candidate would dare shirk off an invitation.

Florio’s convictions for his culture may have sprung early in his childhood, scarred by the generational sting of discrimination his parents experienced.

“My father’s parents were not always treated great by non-Italians, and he witnessed that,” said Florio. Yet his impassioned loyalty to his roots was only matched by his loyalty to his host village.

To many residents, he is remembered as a fount of knowledge on everything zoning related, a status few disputed or questioned given the fact he co-authored the village’s zoning code. He was appointed to the Village Board of Zoning Appeal in the 1980s and later served as its chairman until the mid-90s.

As chairman, Florio was known for approaching very technical and serious zoning matters with pragmatic frankness and sincere compassion. A 1989 New York Times article shows Florio standing fiercely behind amending the village’s zoning code to allow blood-relatives to legally live within single-family homes.

“I’m afraid we waited too long to create a blood-relative category in Valley Stream,” he is quoted saying, touching on housing anxieties that are still resonant today. “Seniors just can’t afford to live here anymore. We need to give them a break: have a relative move in, bring the young people back to our community.”

Once he stepped down from his chairmanship, individuals and businesses regularly sought him out to represent them before the board to secure variances and zoning plans.

“Outside the board is where he felt he could do the most good for most people,” said Bill. “He wanted to help people one-on-one, even with small things, like getting a porch installation cleared by the board.”

With or without his status as zoning chair, journalists on more than one occasion sought out Florio for his clear-eyed opinions on village zoning matters: his quotes often appearing in their news coverage.

With Florio’s gift for planning and sound design, he also contributed to the on-time completion and management of various construction projects throughout New York as an engineering expediter. And he worked as a real estate broker, working under his own name and company, Cameo Realty.

Florio struck a fine balance between his healthy work ethic, which he had up to his last days, and his far more playful, spirited side. He loved to host and entertain. He was able to do both as the co-owner of Cantina Cheese and Wine Café on Merrick Road with his wife Cathy Russo Florio in the early ‘70s.

There, the duo regularly took part in food shows in the Green Acres Mall basement and Roosevelt Field Mall, featuring their famous charcuterie board of meats and cheeses. The two had even come fresh from a show the day before their marriage in 1980. Even after their café closed a few years after, their signature annual barbecues and buzzed-about house parties were always the talk of the neighborhood.

“My father loved to cook and loved to eat. He had a fondness for Italian delicacies and was very particular how to cook things, following recipes that were handed down the generational line,” said Florio. “It was important to him. His heritage, his culture: very important.”

Florio is survived by his wife Cathy Florio and his two sons, William B. Florio and Michael Florio.

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