By Suzanne Molino
Singleton
(published in The
Baltimore Examiner April 2008)
For five weeks,
I’ve been having a torrid love affair with Little Italy. Following
Italian lessons at the Rev. Oreste Pandola Adult Learning Center, the
tiny enclave has seduced me into lingering for hours, luring my Italian
blood into its romantic clutches.
Yet it is not
the delectable restaurants or pastry shops that dangle temptation
(though those alone are seductive). It is
the allure of the heritage, the friendly born-in-the-neighborhood
Italians and their stories buried beneath the crooked sidewalks.
Saturday’s dreamy rendezvous satiated me for six hours. I had no will-
power to resist Little Italy’s sweet charm.
Mention “Molino”
and the generations before me easily recognize my family name. “Aunt
Angie” born here a Culotta, and “Uncle Johy” were an intricate piece of
the neighborhood puzzle for more than 60 years. My brother and his son
bought and renovated their Civil War-era house on South Eden Street.
That spiral-staircased dwelling with its outside “tunnel” leading to a
miniature backyard holds sweet memories, like the dolci served to us as
children.
Real estate has
been passed down from Italian parents to Americanized offspring, who
sometimes renovate and rent. The gridded Baltimore City neighborhood is
a blend of folks, unlike when it was inhabited by names ending only in
vowels. Uncle John studied Italian because he wasn’t fluent in la
bella lingua. Surprisingly, others of the second generation do not
speak it either. Their parents and grandparents craved the
Americano
tongue, thus failing to teach Italian in its entirety.
Piccola Italia
embraced Theresa Ferraro in its green, white and red arms from age 5 to
72, “a lifetime,” said the 80-year-old. Does she miss it since moving to
senior housing in Fells Point? “How can I miss it when I’m here all the
time?” Indeed she is. Ferraro shuffles around town each week, in and out
of the school, past her former house a block over, or parks herself at
an out-door table, simply watching, probably remembering. Seems she
can’t break off her affair with Little Italy either. Leaning against a
brick column near the bocce court, Pete Ranieri and Tom LaCosta watch
their friend Joe Scalia teach the game. The long, dusty, open-air court
is wedged between a line of row homes and the nearby Order Sons of Italy
lodge with two faded flags pinned to the wall; one flaps the Sicilian
three-legged trinacria. Ranieri reminisces about
shooting marbles with “Nicky,” the son of then-Mayor Thomas D’Alesandro
Jr.
“A great place to
grow up,” he said, pointing to the back of his childhood home, now a
restaurant.
Lifetimer
Gene Schiavo dared not declare a favorite eatery, he said, because
“they’re all my friends.” The tall and tanned retired hairdresser used
to be spotted during the neighborhood’s summer festivals hand-cranking a
102-year-old hurdy-gurdy, the organ that belonged to his grandfather
from Genoa, Italy, though he never liked monkeys.
Schiavo stores the precious antique in the garage instead of his
18-foot-wide, 100-foot-long “shotgun” house, said the congenial
74-year-old, because it needs moisture.
He feels
melancholy watching the older Italians die off. “I saw many, many
changes,” he said. “We had everything here. I miss the old people.”
Two durable
fixtures are Dominic “Fuzzy” Leonardi and John Pente, both as sharp as
the tacks once made at The Holland Manufacturing Co. on Little Italy’s
fringe (now a well-hidden bar-bistro-bowling alley).
Outside Mr. Pente’s corner home (its top floor used for movie projector placement
during Little Italy’s Open Air Film Fests), his weathered car sits in
front of “Gina’s Place” — two words etched in the sidewalk cement to
designate his cockapoo’s private restroom, a dirt square surrounding a
scrawny tree.
“We hang out,”
said Fuzzy, 82, sitting on one of the half-dozen plastic chairs lined up
against his friend’s house. “He calls us teenagers.” The two gents
wobbled off down the block toward 5:30 Mass at St. Leo’s, passing
Isabella’s. Leonardi said to it with a nod, “Tell them Fuzzy said to
treat you good.”
Italian Baltimorean Suzanne
“Susanna” Molino Singleton is the granddaughter of four grandparents who
emigrated from Italy – two from Vasto, Abruzzi and two from Luras,
Sardinia. Susanna is the founder and director of
Promotion Center
for Little Italy, Baltimore.
E-mail her at
susannamolino @LittleItalyMD.com.
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