A few weeks ago, Anthony Riccio sent me this picture taken in the North End and asked if I could identify the men. Anthony is writing a book about the North End that will be published later this year. The book will consist of pictures and interviews collected by Anthony when he worked at the Read More…
I read recently that Tufts Medical Center is renaming the Boston Floating Hospital and it will now be known as the Tufts Children’s Hospital. Although I think this is sad, I suppose they have to compete with Children’s, MGH/Brigham, and Boston Medical Center, and a name change might better reflect the hospital’s present location. To Read More…
Twenty years is a big chunk of a man’s life, no doubt about that. The day in 1955 when Billy DeChristoforo walked out of MCI Concord he swore he would never go back. The twenty best years of his life were gone. In 1935, the year he went in, the country was in the middle Read More…
Read Part 1 of Nick Dello Russo’s “Tenement Life” here. Living in a congested neighborhood like the North End meant there were always people out in the streets and going in and out of the apartments. Families were large and people were always either leaving or returning from work. School children went home for lunch Read More…
December 7th 1941 was, as President Franklin D. Roosevelt said, “a day that will live in infamy.” It was also an important day for the North End. All the street kids, tough guys who were chronically unemployed and broke because of the Depression, signed up in droves to serve in the military. What a great Read More…
This is the fifth installation of Nicholas Dello Russo’s “A Shtetl in the City”, following part one, part two, part three, and part four. Phillips Street, on the North Slope of Beacon Hill, is a small, unremarkable street. Many years ago, it was considered part of the West End and was once home to a sizable Black population. Read More…
Everyone has a favorite North End restaurant and there have always been many to choose from. These days I see throngs of tourists, elderly leaf peepers, and high school groups waiting in long lines at our local restaurants. Sixty years ago visiting the North End was taking a walk on the wild side and only Read More…
Back in the 1960s limousines were a rarity in Boston. They were luxurious, elegant, and expensive, you had to be either very rich or very dead to afford one. Undertakers used them for funerals and rented them out for weddings so riding in one was a special treat. In all of Boston there were only Read More…
The Boston of my youth was a city of well-defined tribes. The Irish in Dorchester, Southie and Charlestown, the Blacks in Roxbury, the Jews in the West End and Mattapan, the gentry in Beacon Hill and the Back Bay, and the Italians in East Boston and the North End. Intermingling occurred in schools and the Read More…
It appears we have a new feast to celebrate in the North End. On September 13th, 14th, and 15th, the second annual feast of San Gennaro will be held on Hanover Street. When I first heard about this I thought that the last thing we needed was another feast. More noise, more tourists, more trash, Read More…
By the early 1920s my grandfather, Nicola, had saved enough money to buy a small tavern at the corner of Lewis and Commercial Streets which he named Nick’s Tavern. Nonno Nick came to America as a stowaway and there is no record of him entering the country at Ellis Island or any other port of Read More…
This is the fourth installation of Nicholas Dello Russo’s “A Shtetl in the City”, following part one, part two, and part three. My name is Solomon Levi,At my store in Salem Street,There’s where you’ll find your coats and vests,And ev’rything else that’s neat:I’ve second-hand Ulsterettes,And ev’rything else that’s fine;For all the boys they trade with me,At one Read More…