Brooklyn’s De Micco Dynasty

BAC’s longstanding traditions of passing on craft skills and union pride from family member to family member and from generation to generation have helped make our Union what it is today.

One such family is the De Micco family of Brooklyn. Not only did six members of the De Micco family join BAC, but all six gave 50-plus years of service to the Union. Family patriarch Marco De Micco worked as a mason contractor from the early 1900s until the 1929 stock market crash, when the De Micco Construction Company was put on hiatus. But despite the setback, De Micco kept laying brick in order to support his seven sons and four daughters during the Depression. His hard work allowed him to build their impressive family home, which still stands and is known throughout the Brooklyn neighborhood as the “De Micco house.”

Clockwise from top, family patriarch Marco De Micco, who began the family’s Union bricklaying tradition in the early 1900s, sons Louis, who joined BAC in 1922, and Anthony, who followed suit in 1925, Nick joining in 1946, Robert in 1952, and Anthony’s son Marco De Micco joined in 1951.

After World War II, four of Marco’s sons – Anthony, Louis, Nick, and Robert – joined their father in reviving the De Micco Construction Company. The business thrived through the 1950s by taking on three or four apartment complexes at a time, mostly in Queens.

The family grew, too. In 1953, Anthony’s son, Marco, had a short stint as a member of the Brooklyn Dodgers. The following year, Marco married his high school sweetheart, Sara, and enrolled at Pratt Institute. After receiving a degree in Architectural Engineering, he joined the family business until it closed shortly after his grandfather’s death in 1962.

Marco, a member of Local 1 NY, became a foreman and superintendent for Diesel Contracting, mostly on projects in Manhattan. He has fond memories of a fast-paced industry that was always changing, like the time in 1973, when he worked with a woman bricklayer for the first time. It didn’t faze him, however. “I was always a supporter,” he said.

The family’s lasting impression on masonry construction in the area was illustrated by how often fellow workers approached Marco to ask him about his family, or tell him they had worked for his grandfather, father, or uncles. Marco De Micco says he couldn’t have asked for a better job. “It was a great living, and allowed me to put my girls through college,” he said.

Marco’s wife of 46 years, Sara, passed away in 2000 and he retired in 2001. They raised two daughters, Debbie De Micco, who works for the New York Supreme Court, and Linda Conti employed by Barclays Bank. Marco also has a three-year old granddaughter Arianna, who he calls, “the cream of his life.” He continues to live in Brooklyn with his daughter Debbie, only two blocks away from the “De Micco house.”