If you ever found yourself in a room with UJ, you already know — you were immediately the second best-dressed person there. That was just John Carlisle Carson. He wasn’t trying to show you up. He just had standards, a gift for style, and the rare ability to make everyone around him feel like they’d leveled up simply by being in his presence.

John was born on January 22, 1944, in Atlantic City, NJ, to Elizabeth Jones and John Carson Sr. His family eventually made their way to Montclair, NJ, where — at around age 11 — he met a boy named Richard Gaines who had also just moved from the Bronx, NY. They lived a few blocks apart. They started playing outside together. They never really stopped. Richard and John went to the same schools all the way through high school, eating dinner at each other’s houses so often that both mothers simply planned for it — one leaving an after-school plate for John, the other setting a proper dinner for him at the family hour. He wasn’t a guest. He was just there. It was during those high school years that UJ met Camari, and the two became the closest friends. John introduced Richard to Camari and Camari’s friend, Mallory. They spent years hanging out as friends. When it was time, Richard went off to college and John answered his country’s call, enlisting in the United States Army and serving honorably during the Vietnam War era. It was during this time that he lost his mother, Elizabeth — a grief he carried quietly and with dignity. He was honorably discharged and returned to the life waiting for him: his best friend, his city, his people.

By then, Richard had become an attorney and started a family. John fell in love with Richard and Camari’s son, Cory, on sight and never looked back. He became Cory’s godfather and, over the years, a second father — really, just a father — to all four of their children: Cory, Tami, Daryl, and Derek. He showed up. At the schools, the games, the graduations, the weddings. He spent weekends and holidays with the family as though they were his own, because they were.

He also cherished Amber Gaines, daughter of Richard’s brother Mallory, with that same full-throttle devotion. After returning from service, one of his first stops professionally was the law firm where Richard had made partner. Richard brought him on to support the partners with whatever the day required — a role that required someone trustworthy, capable, and sharp enough to handle anything. UJ was all three. From the firm, his path took him to Citibank in NYC, where he found yet another lifelong brother in Frank Gourdet.

Together, John, Frank, Richard, and a circle of six best friends founded Half a Dozen Plus, Inc. — a social club that was really just a formalized version of what they’d already been doing for years: going to the boxing matches at Madison Square Garden, chartering boats to fish off the coast of Montauk, Long Island, going out to dinner, gathering, celebrating, and even sponsoring musical productions that gave emerging artists like singer Peggy Alston a start.

John’s love of music ran deep — he owned thousands of albums spanning blues, jazz, R&B, and rock and roll. Music wasn’t background noise for UJ. It was essential. From Citibank, John went on to spend decades working at the Federal Courthouse in Brooklyn, where he quietly witnessed some of the most consequential legal proceedings in the city’s history, including high-profile mob-related trials. He had the kind of frontrow seat to history that most people only read about — and the good sense not to talk too much about it. He retired from that courthouse, having given it the same steady, dignified presence he gave everything else in his life. And he would proudly remind us about his speaking line in a Batman movie filmed in Brooklyn – “What up Batman? What up Robin?!” Wanting to give the suburbs a try, UJ bought a townhome in Warwick, NY, where he lived for 3 years before moving back to Brooklyn. John Carlisle Carson never married and leaves behind no surviving family by birth.

He is preceded in death by his mother, Elizabeth Jones; his first cousin Duncan Jones; his best friend and brother of the heart, Richard Gaines; Mallory Gaines; and Randy Tomlin. He is survived by everyone who called him UJ — which is to say, everyone who really knew him.

Rest well, UJ.

The suits were sharp, the shoes were right, and the pocket square was always perfect. But everyone who loved you knows the truth — being the best dressed in the room had nothing to do with clothes.