When I first came across the title of this book on Amazon.com, I knew I had to buy it. The reason? Because I also grew up in Little Italy and lived in the “neighborhood” for 48 years, before moving to Sarasota, Florida in late 1995.
“Memories of Growing Up in Little Italy, NY – A Memoir by Guz Petruzzelli” is only 83 pages long and may be a bit pricey at $15.99. But other than that, this book provides an accurate account of what it was like growing up in Manhattan’s Little Italy more than 50 years ago.
Petruzzelli is a few years older than me and grew up in Little Italy on Mulberry Street above Canal Street, while I grew up just half a block south of Canal, one block west of Mulberry on Baxter Street. Believe it or not, these are basically two different neighborhoods; Canal Street being the dividing line. I remember many times crossing Canal Street and having to run for my life, lest I get beat up by the Canal Street thugs, who considered me an invader on their sacred ground. Good thing he was a fast runner.
Petruzzelli writes short chapters, with titles like “Street Games,” “Handmade Scooters and Wagons,” “The Fire Hydrant,” and “Street Ball,” which resembles exactly how things were when I was a kid growing up. in Little Italy. . We played the same games, sometimes in the same places, but most of the time we didn’t.
Petruzzelli writes a chapter on the “James Center,” a youth center on Hester Street, where I played basketball and softball many times. I remember that the basketball court at the James Center was short and narrow, with two beams hanging parallel to the ceiling, from one basket to the other, making it impossible to shoot from any corner. The only jump shots that were possible were around the key.
But when Petruzzelli writes about neighborhood restaurants and specialty luncheonettes, he lists totally different ones than the ones the people below Canal Street frequented. Petruzzelli mentions restaurants like Puglia’s, Vincent’s Calm Bar, Angelo’s and Grotta Azzura, all places where he occasionally ate. But he doesn’t mention good restaurants like Forlini’s, Antica Roma, The Lime House and Giambone’s, which were favorites of those who lived under the Channel. He writes a chapter on Dave’s Corner, which was a legendary restaurant on the corner of Canal and Broadway, but that’s the only place to eat that we both frequented regularly. (There is a whole chapter in my novel Find Big Fat Fanny Fast that takes place in Dave’s Corner.)
Petruzzelli completely loses me when he mentions the elementary schools, high schools and parks that he frequented. In “Grammar School”, he lists PS 130 as the school “everyone in the neighborhood went to too”. It just isn’t true for us who lived below Canal Street. Everyone he knew went to Transfiguration Grammar School at 29 Mott Street, which was a Catholic school that had a very small enrollment to attend. If anyone under Canal couldn’t pay the fee, they went to PS 24, on the corner of Mulberry and Bayard.
Petruzzelli also mentions Haaren High School in Hell’s Kitchen as the public high school that most of his friends “decided to attend”. Under Canal, though, most of us went to Catholic high schools like Cardinal Hayes in the Bronx, where I attended, or Lasalle Academy, located almost in the neighborhood, on Sixth Street between Second and Third Avenues. The public school of choice for the people below Canal Street was Seward Park High School, also near Little Italy, on Grand Street near Essex.
However, the chapter that really baffles me is the one titled “Playing in the Parks.” Petruzzelli mentions Christie Street Park as where he and his friends hung out, but he doesn’t even mention Columbus Park, in Mulberry, just a block south of Canal. Everyone he knew, both up and down Canal Street, hung out in Columbus Park. We played cards on the many benches and played baseball, soccer and basketball on the large concrete athletic field, with hundreds of people from the neighborhood watching the league sporting events, many from above Canal Street.
Those differences aside, “Memories of Growing Up in Little Italy, NY – A Memoir by Guz Petruzzelli” is a good read. I wish the book was a bit longer, so that Petruzzelli could have included the places in Little Italy that those of us who lived below Canal Street also frequented.
No mention of Columbus Park in Little Italy in the 1950s and 1960s? That’s almost like writing a book about growing up in the South Bronx and not mentioning Yankee Stadium.