Photo by Daniel Jackovino Nick Zois stands outside of his store, Roxy Florist, on Saturday, Feb. 22. The building was destroyed by a fire on Tuesday, Jan. 21, his 89th birthday. Now he is waiting to see whether or not the building will be condemned. BLOOMFIELD, NJ — Nick Zois arrives at the corner of Glenwood Avenue and Washington Street six or seven times a week, just to pass the time in the sun or shade. At this corner is where he ran his business, Roxy Florist, and had eight tenants, until a fire destroyed everything on Tuesday, Jan. 21, his 89th birthday. “I come down and just look,” he said this past Saturday. “My son sometimes opens the door and we look in to see if anything can be salvaged. It’s been 65 years since I’ve been here improving the building.” Zois says he got to know the flower business at Forest Hill Florist, his father’s shop on Broad and Market streets in Newark. “When I was 9 or 10, my mother said I was a bad little boy,” he said. “I lived in Newark and, one day, I was walking on the top of a freight train car. A policeman caught me and, for punishment, I had to work in my father’s flower store. Everyday I had to go down to his shop to stay out of trouble. I hated the business when I had to do that.” After graduating from high school, Zois was drafted into the Army and spent three years, nine months and 15 days in military service as a medic. He was stationed at Fort Lewis, Washington, and still carries a military service card in his wallet. He pulls it out and shows it. “When I got out, I realized how much I […]