Little Italy

Little Italy

 

    On a recent Saturday morning as I turned off

Independence Ave

on to Harrison and began driving north I could hear the Holy Rosary church bells signaling the start of a new day. The steady ringing echoed through out the quiet neighborhood known as the Northend, bringing with it a sense of calm and peace.

    My first job after I got married in 1972 was at McCarty truck line which was located on the west side of this little community that sits between Independence Ave on the south, fifth street on the north, I-35 on the east and Holmes on the west.

   Back then, it seems like almost everyone called the area “Little Italy” because of its large Italian population. I used to love driving through this part of historic northeast on my way home every night.

  Nearly every block had several old, well maintained apartment buildings mixed in with smaller homes. Clothes lines heavy with the days wash stretched from one building to another two stories above the ground. On any given night, the smell of garlic from Italian restaurants like Jennie’s and Lucian’s always managed to find its way into my car. I used to catch a glimpse every so often of an old man in a flat cap tending his grape vines in a small back yard.

  Space on front porches and balconies were always at a minimum on hot summer evenings. After a hard days work, the men would sit there trying to solve the world’s problems while the women kept a watchful eye on the children playing on the sidewalks and in the street. On hot steamy days it wasn’t at all unusual for ten or fifteen kids to be seen frolicking in the cool water gushing out of a fire hydrant someone had turned on.

  Whether it was an elderly couple walking hand in hand down the sidewalk or a group of kids playing baseball in a vacant lot, the neighborhood was always bustling with activity.

      I can understand the mysterious hold a woman or the sea can have on a person but can a mere neighborhood such as I have described do the same thing?  Can it be strong enough to hold its residents their entire lives without making any major changes? You better believe it. One block from Garozzo’s Ristorante sits the immaculate home of two charming, attractive women who have lived in the Northend for 91 and 86 years. Known as the Badami sisters by nearly everyone, Anna and Minnie were born just a few blocks away and have lived in the same house since the tender ages of five and one. Both ladies remind me of the short, feisty, loveably character, Sophia Petrillo on the old television series, Golden Girls. The house didn’t have indoor plumbing when the sisters moved there in 1920.As a young girl, Anna with soap and water in hand, trudged out to the old outhouse to scrub it from top to bottom every Saturday. She sure was happy to see it replaced with a modern bathroom.

   Air conditioning was another modern convenience that hadn’t found its way into homes in the 1920s.Hot summer nights sometimes forced the family to sleep outside on the porch. Some relief could be found by placing an oscillating fan behind a block of ice sitting in a shallow pan.  Minnie said this was a period in our country’s history when people left their keys in their cars and left their houses unlocked. She cautioned me not to try sleeping on my porch in today’s violent world.

  Their childhood was filled with wonderful memories but the one that stood out the most was the time they spent with the two African American ladies next door. Anna can’t recall their names but does remember that she affectedly called one of them Nanny. Both of the women were like second moms to the girls for several years. They helped dress them everyday and took them to school. They also helped take care of Mrs. Badami and did a lot of the cooking. Anna can still remember how great the cakes and cornbread were that Nanny would surprise her and Minnie with when they got home from school. Both women died when the girls were in their early teens and it nearly broke their hearts.

At the age of 15, Anne quit school because her father was sick. The family needed her help so she got a job with American Beauty at 5^th and Campbell where she worked for over 50 years.

 As we walked around to the front of the house, Minnie told me she would never forget the parade to celebrate the end of world war two. “The sidewalks were packed with people cheering and crying as our troops marched right down our street. What a wonderful, marvelous site it was.”

  I left the Badami home and walked a couple of blocks south to the home of Henry and Silvia Rizzo. Directly across the street sits the home of their son, Tony and his wife Stephanie who is my middle daughter.

  Silvia and Tony were waiting to walk with me down the same streets they both played on as children. Like Anna and Minnie, they were also born and raised in Little Italy and have lived here their entire lives.

  Their faces brightened as mother and son took turns proudly pointing out not only old places that were once part of their childhood but current homes and businesses as we  slowly walked down the sidewalks.

 “We had just about everything we needed here when I was a girl back in the 1950s and 1960s explained Silvia. Grocery stores, drugstores, beauty shops, bakeries, candy shops, shoemakers, laundry mats and cleaners lined the streets through out our neighborhood”.

   Most of these businesses are gone now but several such as Larocca’s Grocery, Vocci’s Italian Products, Sebeto’s funeral home, Garozzo’s Ristorant, and Lassales are still around and doing  very well. Silvia, who graduated from Northeast High school in 1972 fondly remembers eating Italian ice and playing with her friends at Karnes Park which is now named Columbus Park. It was a simpler time when young people always put a Mr. or Mrs. in front of an older persons name when addressing them. Silvia’s first job as a teenager was at the Don Bosco Community Center. The center has helped acclimate thousands of immigrants to the Northeast area over the years. Countless families in the Northend have spent many hours there participating in activities such as basketball, boxing, sewing and pottery just to name a few.

  Tony remembers there being mostly older people living in the area when he was growing up. You didn’t see very many people outside like you did when his mom was a child. The neighborhood was slowly declining. Many homes were razed to make way for the construction of I-35 and quite a few houses were lost to urban renewal.

  Stephanie was a little worried about crime and property values when they decided to build a new home there two years ago. After all, it was a huge investment in an area that had been slowly going down hill for a decade or so. Tony and his parents assured her that just the opposite was true. A new restaurant and several art galleries had recently opened and some of the bigger apartment buildings were being turned into lofts.

    Once settled in the new house she quickly learned what it was that kept families like the Badami’s and Rizzo’s living in the small tree lined neighborhood for generations. It was really quite simple. The urban ambiance, the quietness, the closeness to downtown, easy walking distance to the city market and river front park and most importantly, great neighbors that look out for each other.

  As the setting sun began to cast shadows across the front of Holy Rosary church I noticed several residents coming out on their balconies to soak it all in and I realized that my daughter made the right decision. Little Italy is back and better than ever.