Tony Papagni Misses the Old Neighborhood at Europa

Neighborhoods change. Sometimes it’s not due to the popular progression of artists and then hipsters, developers and then condo-dwellers. Sometimes one culture moves out while another moves in. And in the case of the old-school neighborhood of Bensonhurst, a Chinatown grows in Brooklyn. The Italians are on their way out as the Asians have made their way in.

Tony Papagni has lived in Brooklyn since 1973. Yet you can still hear the thick Italian accent this sixty-five-year-old senior photographer for the New York Police Department brought with him from his hometown of Bisceglie, Bari, in the old country. (Full disclosure: I met Tony through my editor, who happens to be his niece.) For years, Bensonhurst has been Tony’s American home. “We used to call Eighteenth Avenue the ‘Little Italy of Brooklyn,’” he says. “If you go now, it is all Asian people who have opened up stores. The prime source of Italian people, the stores, is not there anymore. This feeling, your culture, your way that you grew up, is going away.” He says all this gently. There isn’t a trace of anger or racism that I can tell. Instead, his tone is somewhat deflated. As he saw the folks from his Italian neighborhood move to Staten Island, he dug his own roots deeper into Brooklyn.

While he laments the change, Tony is not a sad old man. He prides himself on being a “motivated person.” As he says, he loves to “interact with people.” And the pizzeria and restaurant Europa helps him stay in touch with both the Italian people and the fading culture of the neighborhood. Once uniquely known for its authentic Italian pastries, Europa is now celebrated locally for its classic pizza baked in a wood-burning oven. But today, Tony is on a diet: “No pizza, no pasta, no carbs, no sugar,” he says through bites of his Caesar salad with grilled chicken. He’s lost twenty pounds in six months. Looking good, Tony.

He tells me he started at the NYPD taking mug shots at central booking and then moved on to photographing police and city events. (He once pissed off President Obama for using the flash on his camera too much. To prove it, Tony shows me the photo on his phone of an angry-faced Barry. Not the look you want to get from the leader of the free world.) Tony went on about his love for Europa, a holdout from the old days with an owner he has known for twenty-five years.

We’re Italian. We like simplicity. If you start to put on other stuff, yeah, it tastes good. No question about it. But, the traditional pizza is the Margherita.

Being a police photographer, the excitement was to meet all these people: Kissinger, the prime minister of England, the president of Chile. It’s not something that anybody of us does. If you’re an office person, you’re not going to meet the president or these other figures.

It’s an interesting job. You cover everything, like when the Pope came, the vice president, the 9/11 memorial, when Obama comes. You say to yourself, “I never believed to be here.”

The Asian people started to move in, and they’re totally different from Italian people.

I like to interact with people. I like to talk with people.

Bensonhurst has changed. The Asian people started to move in and buy property, and they’re totally different from Italian people. They’re very hard workers, and you never see them. The interaction between the people, what we had before, we basically lost.

Obviously, any neighborhood after ten years tends to change. What do you do? You move out or you stay.

It’s sad that you start to lose the Italian community, your culture, where you basically grew up. You can’t run. If you run to Staten Island, in ten years, what do you do? You have to run again if it starts changing over there? I love Brooklyn. This is my place, and this is where I’m staying.

Interaction is important to me because it keeps me alive. It keeps me vibrant. I’m a person who has to move. I have to do things. I like to talk to people. I like to share ideas.

I see many people my age just sitting down, not doing anything. I’m the opposite.

Europa is a place that’s still around where we can meet, where I can bring somebody and enjoy a nice pie of pizza.

Any neighborhood after ten years tends to change.

It’s the people, the atmosphere, the owner that I know, the pizza; that’s why I’m a regular.

September 3, 2015

(Photos by Nicole Disser)