Joe the Plumber’s Unipipe Plumbing & Heating Corporation at 380 Harman St. — photo by Ben Chapman
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Turns out, Brooklyn is flush with plumbers named Joe. Joseph Kos, owner of Unipipe Plumbing & Heating Corporation at 380 Harman St. in Bushwick, took some time to talk to me about the debate, the election, and plumbing.
Married with three children, 56-year-old Kos works but does not live in the borough -– home is in a suburb he declines to name. He is an independent voter. And he is still undecided.
Does he like Obama? McCain? Nader?
Nope: “I treat them all with equal disdain,” he said.
How did Kos find last week’s debate? “I am not impressed,” he said. “I’m just waiting to hear something different.”
Kos caught parts of the debate last night but didn’t watch the entire thing. “I heard him say ‘Joe the plumber,’” he said. But even hearing his name and profession mentioned in the debate didn’t compel him to sit down and watch.
McCain’s Joe the Plumber leitmotif didn’t strike a chord with this real life Bushwick plumber. “Maybe the plumber he was referring to was a smaller business, that does repairs,” said Kos. “We don’t do repairs.”
Kos has clear opinions about what issues he’s concerned with. “Taxes and the economy are the big issues.” Foreign policy is not as important. “It’s of concern but the end is kind of in sight in Iraq.” And though Kos is a homeowner, he’s not terribly concerned with the fate of the local real estate market. “Here in New York it’s not as dire,” he said. “It’s not as bad as middle America.”
His 12-employee plumbing installation business is doing well this year despite the fallout in the local economy. “So far it’s okay,” he said. “We do a lot of very fancy work.”
He’s not very confident about the ability of the federal government to sort out the current financial situation. “Twenty years ago Congress got into the act of regulating toilets,” Kos said. “It didn’t really work. And now they’re looking at regulating our economy.”
ricmac01 October 21st, 2008 at 2:29 pm
Things are not always as they appear. These guys work out of a nasty plumber’s-crack building but “do a lot of very fancy work”. Who woulda thunk?
Do you think that voters “undecided” at this point are either voting for McCain but too embarrassed to verbalize their decision or possibly just not going to bother voting at all? Or can something actually happen in the next few days to shed light on one’s decision-making process?
And how can a man hoping to “hear something different” hear anything at all if he doesn’t bother/care to listen to the debates? People are strange….
mopar October 24th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
He wants the economy to be good and he doesn’t want more income tax on people earning over $250,000. Well, too bad. This whole economic crisis was caused by deregulation.
Jeremy Sapienza October 24th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
No, it was caused by artificially cheap credit. No amount or kind of regulation could have prevented this when the Federal Reserve was hosing the country down with almost-free money.