This week, the Reporter’s “Tuesdays in Hoboken” series moves into the city’s west side, historically one of the region’s and the country’s most colorful Italian-American neighborhoods – full of delis, restaurants, social clubs, summer festivals and wonderfully historic churches.
This week’s walking tour encountered many of the traditions immortalized in the plays of one of the country’s most noted Italian-American playwrights, Louis “Lou” LaRusso II, a Hoboken neighborhood legend who wrote about his native city. LaRusso passed away last February, but the local Italian-American community does not forget him.
LaRusso wrote about two dozen plays that chronicled working-class life in Hoboken, starting with “Beginnings,” which recalled his grandparents’ arrival at the west side Hoboken home that became his own home. His most famous work is “Lamppost Reunion,” which won Tony and Drama Desk nominations for best play in 1976. It told of friends spending the night drinking with a famous singer, a very Sinatra-like singer, after a performance at Madison Square Garden.
“LaRusso’s work recreated the drama of his own family and neighborhood acquaintances, largely from Hoboken’s Italian-American community,” said Dr. Emelise Aleandri, the artistic director of The Olde Time Italian-American Music and Theater Company.
Into Italian Hoboken
During the late 19th century and the first quarter of the 20th century, Italian immigration exploded in the metropolitan area. The lack of good paying jobs and the depletion of natural resources brought about by a population boom in Italy prompted flocks of immigrants from the Italian peninsula to leave for the promises of a better life in America.
In Hoboken, many of these immigrants took advantage of the construction boom of the turn of the century or worked on the docks where jobs were plentiful.
Many, if not most of the immigrants, wanted to make enough money to return to their hometowns in Italy, but in the end, very few did. That longing for their homeland created in Hoboken a close-knit community that has always kept a deep, heartfelt reverence for the country of their ancestors.
In the mile-square city, most of the original Italian immigrants settled on the west side. During Hoboken’s rougher days, Willow Avenue was the divide between the Irish and the Italians. This arbitrary border stayed firm until the 1960s.
Tuesday’s walk began at Piccolo’s at 92 Clinton St. The restaurant has served famous cheesesteaks since 1955. Photos of Ol’ Blue Eyes cover the walls, and the crooner’s tunes still play non-stop.
“This used to be a pretty tough neighborhood,” said Joseph “Sparky” Spaccavento, 74, a huge Sinatra fan. “You didn’t go past Willow unless you wanted to get into a fistfight.” He said he has seen the city go through three distinct stages in his almost 50 years of business: the riots and violence of the late ’50s and ’60s, the mass exodus to the suburbs in the ’60s and ’70s, and the yuppie invasion of the ’80s and ’90s. Through it all, Spaccavento says he has a sincere affection for Hoboken. “I love Hoboken,” said Spaccavento. “I’ve spent most of my 74 years here and wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”
There are still dozens of locations throughout the west side that remind local Italian-Americans of the days when the neighborhood was entirely Italian. There are social clubs relating to specific Italian towns of origin, as well as Italian churches, bakeries, delis and restaurants.
Heading up Clinton Street and turning on Second Street, there is Leo’s Grandevous Restaurant. Leo and Tessie DiTerlizzi opened the restaurant in 1939, and Leo worked there for 60 years until he retired in 1999. According to popular local lore, Sinatra often visited the authentic Italian eatery before he was famous, and even during the night he would sneak back into Hoboken in the 1970s to have a meal at the windowless restaurant. Over the bar there is a barstool that legend says the immortal crooner sat in.
Religious devotion
Two and a half blocks northwest of Leo’s is St. Francis Church on the 300 block of Jefferson Street, a church small in size but steeped in tradition.
According to church officials, the history of St. Francis’ parish can be traced back more than 100 years, to when the Italian-Americans of Hoboken worshipped at the old St. Joseph’s Church on Ferry Street, now Observer Highway. Many of these people, mostly of Genoese extraction, had been in this country only a short time, and the language barrier was a genuine problem for them at English-speaking St. Joseph’s. They wanted their own Italian Catholic Church with instructions, services and confessions in their own tongue to unite them more fully with their faith. Their common backgrounds and goals helped establish St. Francis and build the spiritual presence that it is today in the community.
Just down the block from St. Francis was the original home of another of Hoboken’s religious intuitions, the St. Ann’s Society. Here, immigrants from San Giacomese, most of whom settled in the metropolitan area and principally Hoboken, maintained sentimental feelings for their place of origin. In the early days of their arrival in a new land with a strange language and customs, the immigrants encountered many difficulties and endured many social, economic, and political hardships just like those who attended St. Francis. During this period, the newly arrived San Giacomese drew strength from their communal ties. They were bound together by the love of their homeland and deep-rooted faith, said church officials. The desire to maintain their traditional values and religious customs led these immigrants to establish the St. Ann’s Society.
The members, most of whom were not affluent, originally met in a basement at Fourth and Jefferson streets. With the passage of time, the Society’s membership increased and the members were able to purchase a storefront property at Seventh and Adams streets by 1900. Until the completion of the church in 1906, the St. Ann’s Parish priests said mass and held religious services in a small area of the storefront which had been converted into a chapel at Seventh and Jefferson.
In addition to these two churches, there is also the tradition of the St. Ann’s Italian Festival. Every year, the city proudly hosts two of the country’s most popular and respected Italian festivals, the Feast of the Madonna Dei Martiri, which is being held this week, and the Feast of St. Ann, which is held annually in July. At both events, hundreds of thousands of people come together to share the traditions and customs of the old world. The highlight of the festivals is the procession where congregation members carry a statue of their patron saint through the streets.
“I remember when I was a kid,” said Spaccavento. “We used to have a festival every single weekend, but now we only have two a year.”
Just a block and a half away from St. Francis near the corner of Adams and Fourth streets is the Fiore Deli, home to some of the country’s most mouth-watering homemade mozzarella. The storefront deli has been a staple in Hoboken since 1913, and for the past 50 years, the affable Joseph Amato has owned the deli.
“The difference between the clientele today and 50 years ago is that back then 90 percent of the people that came in here only spoke Italian,” Amato said. “Today people of every imaginable race, creed and religion are customers.”
He added that the numbers of Italians in the neighborhood may have thinned out, but Italian pride and presence is still very much alive in the mile-square city.
“I think one of the reasons that we’re still so popular,” said Amato, “is that we haven’t really changed the way we do things. We take pride a great deal of pride in our mozzarella, and take the extra time to make it the same way we did 50 years ago.”
That attention to the old way of doing things has garnered a worthy list of patrons to the store, and according to Amato, his list of repeat customers includes Hoboken’s own Joe Pantoliano, as well as fellow actors Danny Aiello and Danny DeVito.
Presenting Mr. Sinatra
The final stop in this week’s tour was the birthplace of arguably the most famous Italian-American of all, Frank Sinatra. The golden voice was born Dec. 15, 1915 while his parents lived at small home at 415 Monroe St. The house has since burned down, and all that remains is a brick arch and an empty lot.
Although Sinatra grew up in Hoboken, the last time the late crooner was actually in the city was in 1985, when he received an honorary degree from the Stevens Institute of Technology. Before that, he came with Ronald Reagan to the annual summer festival sponsored by Saint Ann’s Church to help get Reagan re-elected in 1984.
There are as many rumors about why Frank abandoned his hometown as there were mysterious middle-of-the-night Sinatra sightings there in which he supposedly visited friends. Some say he turned his back on the city when he became famous; others say he was egged during a parade.
Whatever the case is, Sinatra is still loved like no other here in Hoboken. For many, he epitomizes the American dream – a Hoboken kid from meager beginnings who made it to the pinnacle of success.
After his death in 1998, thousands of flowers were placed at an impromptu memorial in front of his childhood home. Still, every year on his birthday, the city throws a birthday party complete with cake and candles at City Hall.
Next door to Sinatra’s former home is the modest museum dedicated to Sinatra which contains a menagerie of autographed pictures, memorabilia and letters of correspondence between Sinatra and his family. Also included are such items like a handkerchief Sinatra once gave a fan during a show, a menu from the Rustic Cabin in Englewood where Sinatra began his storied career, and a display featuring a recently uncovered eight-inch record that is thought to be the first solo recording of his voice.