Joseph Patrick Giargiana

Joe had this admirable zest for life that people couldn’t help but be in awe of. He’s what I would consider to be the very definition of a good person. He had a way of making everyone he met feel special, appreciated and loved. I will forever miss him and be thankful for the impact he’s made on mine and my daughter’s life.

You came to the roller-rink to meet Bill. I wouldn’t give any strange boys my phone number… but I promised to meet Bill there the next week. All Bill’s friends were teasing him as we entered that I had shown up with another guy. You were there from the very beginning to give your approval and you have remained such a dear friend to Bill and me always!!!
Our kids call you their “Bop-oop” Joe. You got that nickname because of that ridiculous car locking sound you’d learned to make when “everybody” started to have that electronic car lock and alarm. Nothing we drove at that time had that technology, but you always knew how to make us all appear quite caught up on whatever the latest trends were.
You took your dream date to the Prom, and I took mine! You, Debbie, Lisa, Bill and I had a fun night and your awesome parents hosted such a fancy breakfast to end the night.
You were there for our wedding as one of Billy’s groomsmen. You’ve been there always for us. You made sure to show me all of the things you loved about NYC before we moved away. There’s a photo you sent of me next to some street mosaics artists had brightened up the city with. You showed me Tudor City as a place you aspired to live… “someday.”
After we’d moved away MLK became “Bop-oop Joe” Weekend. We’d get together and once the kids embarked on adulthood we kept that “our” weekend and you’d always invite us on so many of your world travels… we kept declining because we had a hard time keeping up. Joe, you’ve crammed the very full lives of at least seven very active men into your very short life on this side of eternity!!!! Despite your ridiculously busy work life we were always thrilled you were always ready to meet us a million different times and places when we had plans to go back to NY.

Joe,
You were someone who always made others feel so special. The world is at a loss without you in it.
Rest In Peace…
Nancy and David Preisler

Our Dear Joe;
It cannot be true; yet it is…
We want to start by offering our heart-felt condolences to Mr. & Mrs. Giargiana & his sister Kim.
Joe will always remain the friend we refer to as the nicest, sweetest & most selfless person we know.
To Heidi Y., we are sorry for the loss of your childhood friend. May your lifetime of memories help you heal more quickly.
To Liz K., thank you for introducing us to Joe and may fond memories bring more smiles than tears.
Joe made everyone feel special. He was the Energizer Bunny on 5 cups of coffee & he shared his excitement for life with us all. Joe always personalized an agenda for the person he was seeing complete with schedules, times, magazine clippings, fun facts and one had better be able to keep up with him. Lol. We will miss him dearly.
We are happy to be able to call Joe our friend. We are happy that he is re-united with his brother James and other friends and family that have passed.
And we pity St. Peter if he tells Joe there are no pastry & coffee shops in Heaven.
We love you Joe.

We have been truly blessed to have remained neighbors and family to each other for the past 56 years.
Joseph was a unique and beautiful person; always caring, thoughtful, going above and beyond spreading happiness and joy with a marvelous sense of humor that always made everyone appreciate the wonderful person he was to each and everyone of us.
Being restricted , at this time, from the human touch and the usual religious rituals and words of consolation and hugs; is an added challenge and loss especially to his family and everyone.
Our children all grew up together and still keep in touch with each other. My oldest daughter Mary was in the same math class as Joseph in high school and shared a memory. She and Joseph were talking during class, the teacher said; ” Mary and Joseph” and Joseph would whisper in his timely sense of humor;”and baby Jesus”
Joseph was a light that shone brightly even on rainy days; he will continue to shine through the moon and the stars giving us the hope , love and peace of Jesus ; helping us to continue to trust in the Lord.
You will continue in our thoughts and prayers
God bless everyone
Joan Meehan

In Iceland

Joe, you were such a bright light in this world. Your kindness and generosity of spirit were inspiring. So many memories of your plans for trips to explore the world, sharing tidbits about architecture, deep dives into culture, all the times you extended your hospitality to me and Jon at your gem of an apartment in Tudor City, and the laughter, the sparkle in your eyes – I will miss you, but I am so very glad that I knew you and can carry your spirit with me. I will keep you in my heart as will so many people whose lives you touched and made better.

Diane Bancheri
My deepest sympathies to Joe’s family. We met at the Reilly’s meetings back in the 80’s and used to do nursing home ministry at Southaven and have so many memories of all the crazy ideas he used to come up with to minister to the residents. He was always positive and encouraging and will be greatly missed.

So sorry to hear that Joe passed away, but so glad to see that the friend I knew well so many years ago continued to affect the lives of others like he did mine. Joe and I met through a youth meeting when I was a senior in High School. We were close friends all through my 20’s. All of the memories I have of him bring a smile to my face. He was such a good friend. He was always there when you needed him, comforting, fun, etc. Here are a couple of memories I’ll never forget. One time 3 of us (Joe, Van, and I) camped in a 2 man tent at Smith’s Point. It was a tight fit, but we didn’t care. We were a couple of friends just enjoying each other and the beautiful ocean/beach. So Much fun. Joe took me to my first Opera. We bought standing room only seats, Joe was always thrifty and knew they’d move us up to better seats partway through. At intermission, we were lead to 2nd row orchestra seats. It was amazing! The thing I remember most about Joe is how easy he was to be friends with. He was so accepting. You could just be yourself with him. He never judged, was always honest, always understanding and encouraging. I will miss him.

An Old Friend,
Lisa Kutil Mistretta

Rest in Peace my dear friend. You will be missed more than words can express.

Rest eternal grant Joe, O God, and may light perpetual shone upon him.

This is the poem that was read during Joe’s service at the funeral home. It was written by Irish poet, John O’Donohue, who died in his sleep at 52 years of age. We find Joe in its words.

On the Death of the Beloved

Though we need to weep your loss,
You dwell in that safe place in our hearts,
Where no storm or night or pain can reach you.

Your love was like the dawn
Brightening over our lives
Awakening beneath the dark
A further adventure of colour.

The sound of your voice
Found for us
A new music
That brightened everything.

Whatever you enfolded in your gaze
Quickened in the joy of its being;
You placed smiles like flowers
On the altar of the heart.
Your mind always sparkled
With wonder at things.

Though your days here were brief,
Your spirit was live, awake, complete.

We look towards each other no longer
From the old distance of our names;
Now you dwell inside the rhythm of breath,
As close to us as we are to ourselves.

Though we cannot see you with outward eyes,
We know our soul’s gaze is upon your face,
Smiling back at us from within everything
To which we bring our best refinement.

Let us not look for you only in memory,
Where we would grow lonely without you.
You would want us to find you in presence,
Beside us when beauty brightens,
When kindness glows
And music echoes eternal tones.

When orchids brighten the earth,
Darkest winter has turned to spring;
May this dark grief flower with hope
In every heart that loves you.

May you continue to inspire us:
To enter each day with a generous heart.
To serve the call of courage and love
Until we see your beautiful face again
In that land where there is no more separation,
Where all tears will be wiped from our mind,
And where we will never lose you again.

“We’re a thousand miles from comfort, we have traveled land and sea
But as long as you are with me, there’s no place I’d rather be
I would wait forever, exalted in the scene
As long as I am with you, my heart continues to beat…no place I’d rather be.” Rather Be by Clean Bandit

These are Lyrics from the last concert I went with Joe aka Bop boo Joe as I call him it’s a long story but has to do with a sound he used to make for us when I was a little kid imitating the car alarms. He always made us laugh and smile! I like to think of Heaven as no place I would rather be and although we all miss Joe (Bop Boo Joe) I’d like to think of him up there singing and dancing that it’s no place he would rather be as well!:)

I’m so blessed to have had Joe in my life and he will be greatly missed! He was so full of Life, Love and Joy. He knew all the best Music, all the best places to eat and all the best people. He made my life and many others more colorful and bright! My family and I Love him very much and can’t wait to see him in Heaven again and hear about all about the awesome Music, Food and people! 🙂

After all I’ve heard our fathers house in heaven is “a big big house With lots and lots a room A big big table With lots and lots of food” -Audio Adrenaline lol another song from childhood about heaven.

I’ll end this with the last text he sent me because it seems fitting!

“Xoxo
More soon”

Until we meet again Bop Boo Joe!:)

Love Always!

Stephanie

Our deepest condolences to Joe’s friends and family. We only knew Joe through our 15 years of coming to Carrabba’s, but we really feel he had become a friend, a friendly face to greet us. He will be truly missed! The world lost one of the good ones!

I met Joseph at Carrabba’s, since a group of us from our woodworking club became regulars, always asking to be at Joseph’s table. We also came back with our families because of him; I was happy to introduce my son Eric to him when we came for dinner one night. We considered Joseph to be an honorary member, giving him one of our T shirts, and he was kind enough to come to our annual woodworking shows. Ever generous, he figured we would be hungry so he brought a bag of apples.

Joseph, you were a kind person, always pleasant to be around, you never had a bad word to say about anyone, and it was a joy to have known you.

We have only now paid tribute to our good friend Joe, whom we met through his volunteer work at Open House New York and over the course of nearly twenty years have become fast friends. Much has been said about about Joe the ‘unicorn’ volunteer, who could pretty much do anything you asked of him, anywhere at any time.

Of course, his innate ability to care for others and his love of New York City made him the ideal choice to be a part of the inaugural Volunteer Council for Open House New York, particularly in the early years of the organisation. As others may note, Joe was the consummate New Yorker – even referring to himself as Tudor City Joe (in reference to his NYC abode) as his surname was so hard to pronounce for so many.

But more important, for us, is that over the years, Joe became a FOREVER friend – with time and distance seeming to bind our friendship tighter rather than becoming barriers. The Joe who loved great design and travel, who was always up for some harebrained adventure…that’s the person whom we would most like to share with those who loved and knew him.

Joe was the kind of guy that when he committed to something he was ALL IN. Not only did he go to the 15th anniversary of Open House London with me and Jessica Mak as the OHNY representatives …he managed to visit nearly 18 sites that weekend, a pretty incredible feat for a local, let alone a Yank who was relying on a printed version of the A to Zed London map.

Aside from Open House, we bonded over our love of great design objects. Joe owned a number of iconic designer chairs from Gerrit Rietveld’s Zigzag Chair to Philippe Starck’s iconic Louis XV Ghost chair – all crammed into his tiny, home away from home pied-à-terre in the Tudor City complex, which he would proudly note had a view of the architects Oscar Niemeyer’s and Le Corbusier’s famous United Nations secretariat building. In his Long Island house, he stored something like 2,000 pieces of ceramics, and knew every single piece and its maker!

And yet, despite having a keen eye for beautiful things, Joe was SO down to earth. He would gleefully leave $1 packets of a ‘cake in a cup’ for guests lucky enough to have a sleepover in his New York loft. And if you were lucky enough to visit him at his beloved Northport Long Island home, the highlight was not his erudite tour of the village’s terrific vernacular architecture, but it was eating his favourite morning breakfast meal from the well-known, local Copenhagen Bakery, where of course everyone knew his name.

We can go on and on about gracious, well-mannered and generous Joe. But we want to end with his extreme love of travel. Joe was one of our first friends to visit us in our new lives in Australia, and he was basically a walking, talking billboard for Open House Worldwide. He travelled like it was an extreme sport and with the zeal of a missionary for Mark Twain’s axiom: Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness…

If one person was single handedly breaking down misconceptions about the Ugly American Abroad it was Joe.

To quote from an email from him last year: ‘ I LOVE the open house experience, obviously. This year I’ve attended Open House weekends in San Diego, Athens, Greece, Porto [in] Portugal, and Madrid in this September, Dublin in October.

(other travel this year included Palm Springs California Miami, Detroit ,Jackson Hole Wyoming ,and Salt Lake City… forth coming Shanghai, Taipei, Belfast, and in November it looks like three days in Paris France. ). UNQUOTE

BUT all who were lucky to meet Joe, knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that his absolute, favourite city was and always will be the Big Apple.

It makes our hearts burst with love and gratitude to know that so much of Joe has been spread across this world…

There really is no solace when we lose someone as magical as Joe – our loss is particularly made even more tragic by these challenging times. He still had so many adventurers and places to explore with friends and family ….,between us, we always had semi-serious ,future plans to create a new Open House somewhere, at some future date, in some other city.

As a small comfort for ourselves, Joe’s Open House family, all his friends around the world, and particularly his sister, father and mother is this:

We can guarantee that St Peter at the Pearly Gates, NOW has a new angel assisting him with heavenly arrivals. Can’t you just see him? Angel Joe… with a big, welcoming grin, gently ushering people through as he says, ‘Welcome to Heaven. How can I help you, and can I show you around?

God Bless you Joe. We will miss. you. forever. Joy and Alan