Warren Samuelsen, the father of transit labor leader John Samuelsen, died Sunday. He was 83.
Samuelsen, a retired and hardscrabble Brooklyn native who toiled in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District, was treated for infections following a recent heart surgery. No cause of death has been determined.
“He was a typical salt of the Earth, throwback Brooklyn, blue-collar guy,” said his son, John Samuelsen, president of the Transport Workers Union Local 100.
Samuelsen — Bunky to those who knew him — was a union member with the old Amalgamated Meat Cutters Local 174.
“He was monstrously strong from doing that type of hard work,” his son said. “Even in the end, up until the last couple of days, he still had some of that physical strength.
“He just fought like hell to the end.”
Samuelsen would leave for work at 3:30 a.m. from his Gerritsen Beach home to drive trucks and lug 180-pound slabs of beef into the plant. John Samuelsen said he realized the value of labor organizations, even though his father was less politically minded than his mother, a benefits administrator for the bakery drivers’ union.
“The union was putting dinner on the table every night and we knew that,” John Samuelsen said.
Outside of the meat market, Samuelsen said his dad was a “man’s man” — a Mets fan since the Brooklyn Dodgers left town — and a piano player with a love of blues and Fats Waller.
Warren Samuelsen is survived by his wife, Theresa; five children; eight grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.
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