For several years I have been documenting the flowerpots decorated with pebbles found on porches throughout southern Brooklyn and in other New York City boroughs.

I have written several blog posts in an attempt to make sense of their prolific presence and little-documented history in the city. I have located examples of individuals creating decorated flowerpots for their own use, such as those found in the Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Grotto in Rosebank, Staten Island. 

But the profusion of flowerpots decorated with similar designs ensconced on porches in row housing built after World War II—for example, along the Kings Highway corridor and in the Sheepshead Bay neighborhood—suggests that someone or some group was creating these objects for sale, supplying building contractors and/or home owners. I was convinced that these pebble artisans were Italian Americans given a host of clues that I have detailed elsewhere in my blogs. 

Last month I came across another piece of the puzzle when I read Joseph Ditta’s blog post about Epifanio Nicosia (1882-1970), an Italian immigrant whose Nico Ornamental Works produced birdbaths, windmills, tables, benches, pagodas, among other garden sculpture, all decorated with pebbles. A 1952 Brooklyn Eagle article states that Nicosia had been making such objects since the early 1930s and that garden estates on Long Island and upstate New York featured his work. The Nico Ornamental Works even had its own postcards printed to advertise the shop.

Ditta’s find is an exciting one, one that prompts some questions: How big of an operation was Nico Ornamental Works? Was it a one-man outfit or did Nicosia have assistants?  Did he sell these to individual homeowners or was he subcontracted by housing developers? Ultimately, on what scale was he operating? Perhaps Nico Ornamental Works was not the only producer selling pebble-decorated flowerpots.

In November 2015, I published a post about Giovanni Crozzoli, an immigrant mason who had created miniatures of the Leaning Tower of Pisa and Bologna’s Two Towers each out of discarded marble in the yard of his home in College Point, Queens. I concluded my blog post with a promise of another one about Crozzoli’s pebble-encrusted flowerpots. Inspired by Joseph Ditta’s blog post about Epifanio Nicosia, I’m making good on my year-old promise.
 

Giovanni Crozzoli was born in Tramonti di Sopra (Pordenone province), in the northern region of Friuli, in 1894. He immigrated to New York City in 1923 and his wife and two sons joined him six years later, eventually they bought a house at 1831 129^th Street in College Point, Queens, which the family owned until in 2013. Crozzoli worked until his retirement as a mason for Facchin and Son Construction, a College Point company owned by a paesano.

 

 

I offer some of these images here, with Chris’s permission, in my attempt at tracking the mystery of the city’s decorated flowerpots and the artisans who made them.