Josephine WIlliams Interview 08/09/2025
Josephine Williams Interview Transcript:
NATASHA: Hello, I am Natasha Fearon and I'm here with Josephine Williams at the Park Slope Old Timers Reunion at 4th Street and 6th Avenue on Saturday, August 9th, 2025. Can you please spell your name for me, ma'am?
JOSEPHINE: J-O-S-E-P-H-I-N-E, last name Williams, W-I-L-L-I-A-M-S.
NATASHA: What is your relationship to Park Slope or to Brooklyn?
JOSEPHINE: My parents. My father came here in '65 from Montgomery, Alabama. He was a master mason. He created his own shop, with– I have seven brothers. He created his own shop, and each of the brothers worked to do construction and contracting and plumbing around in the area. It was JJS and Sons. And we had it out, the office was there on the corner of 4th Street and Fifth Avenue for 25 years. Until he retired and moved back to Montgomery, Alabama. And that's where he passed away.
NATASHA: Do you have a particularly powerful or important memory of Park Slope or Brooklyn you'd like to share?
JOSEPHINE: The block parties, the bus rides. My dad was the head of the Block Party Association, and each summer he would give a bus ride to Bear Mountain or to some other park where we didn't have to pay. It was amazing.
(Dude, I'm in an interview!
I'm on an interview. You're doing an interview?
Yeah. Okay, I'm just going to say hi. Okay. How you doing?)
JOSEPHINE: Yeah, so that was– The block parties were amazing, you know. Everyone was just... It was wonderful. It was just a good time. A good time. Until midnight. No fights, no arguments. It was just all of us from blocks and blocks away coming together to have a good time. Yeah.
NATASHA: Why did you decide to come to the Park Slope Old Timers Reunion today?
JOSEPHINE: Well, I come from the beginning. Because, you know, John and we all lived on the same block, and John was an admirer of my dad because he thought that what he did was– with the block parties and bus rides was an amazing thing and all of the people had moved away and he wanted to get them back together again, you know, just to say hello to each other.
NATASHA: What are some things you think more people should know about Park Slope or Brooklyn based on your own experiences?
JOSEPHINE: That the Black people were prominent and they made the neighborhood wonderful.
NATASHA: What are your hopes for the future of the neighborhood and Brooklyn?
JOSEPHINE: They won't be captured. 'Cause in the '80s, when the white people came in and were buying out, you know, offering money to all of the Black people, families that owned houses, and they would offer them this amount of money and they would sell it to them and then they would have no place to live. And now it's, you know, we can't even afford to come back here. Yeah, it will never go back to that time. There won’t be no repeats. It’s sad because you know [unclear] Because this park, where I used to play handball, there were handball courts down there where that house is built, that was a handball court…. And a bocce ball with the Italians. It was amazing, and you know you walk this street and everybody say hello, it was not a problem you know. And the hardware store, Leopoldi’s, the hardware store on 5th Avenue between 7th and 8th? That's where my dad got all his supplies from. You know, whenever I would walk past there now, they still remember me from when I was little, like “Oh, you’re Mr. Williams’ daughter!” It’s amazing. “Oh are you still in the neighborhood?” Yeah, that’s what they wanna know. You know, we can’t afford to live in this neighborhood anymore. It’s just like, it’s crazy, right Artie? We can't afford to live in this neighborhood.
ARTIE: Not anymore. But you know what? Who would want to? Because we knew we were supposed to live here back in the day.
JOSEPHINE: Yeah.
ARTIE: And it's the same way. Nothing changed. Yeah. It's the same way. So why use all that money to stay here when it costs that much. I’ll show you something, I’ll show you something..
NATASHA: Thank you.