September 1, 2007: Vol. 30, No. 34

The Carroll Gardens widow who fought to die in the home she’d lived in her entire life, won a Pyrrhic victory this month — dying in the apartment on Aug. 12 and defeating a developer’s two-year-long quest to evict her.

Angelina Visconti, 88, died of natural causes at Long Island College Hospital, though she was still a resident of the Cheever Place rowhouse.

“She got her wish, and that was what it was all about,” said Leonard Visconti, her son. “She always said she was born here, she wanted to die here.”

Visconti’s residency became an issue in 2005, when her nephew Joseph DeLeonibus, the son of Visconti’s late twin sister, tried to evict her so he could make a killing in the booming Carroll Gardens real-estate market.

The house was eventually sold for $1.13 million to developer Wayne Warnock, who picked up the eviction proceedings where DeLeonibus left off.

Visconti and her sister fought back, arguing in court that Warnock could not evict them because their long tenancy effectively made her unit rent-controlled.

Visconti spent nearly her entire life at the modest rowhouse, between Degraw and Baltic streets. She is survived by an older sister, Katherine Carmada, 90, and her son, Leonard Visconti.

Warnock, the developer who sought Visconti’s eviction, told The Brooklyn Paper that he had tried to find the widow an alternative place to live, but that, on some level, he, too, was glad she got her final wish to die at home.

“In that sense it was good,” said Warnock. “It’s a sad situation.”

Now that Visconti has died, Carmada has agreed to move to New Jersey to be near her children. Warnock plans to fix up the house and possibly resell it, depending on the market.

But first he must evict Leonard Visconti, who is considering taking up his mother’s fight.

©2007 The Brooklyn Paper