My house on the 500 block of Queen Street was between Catharine (with an a for the queen of Sweden—the Swedes built Penn’s Landing and it used to be full of tiny buildings for long-ago people who were tiny, too) and Christian Streets.
Go up Christian Street and you run right into the Catholic school and the Bella Vista neighborhood. The parking lot for the school was our playground. And the little wooded area behind it was the worst place you can imagine kids to play—broken glass, discarded household items, weeds up to your hips.
A mess.
That’s exactly where we went and played.
My South Philly childhood is frozen in any number of pictures of a bunch of us kids on a neighborhood front stoop; we’re Italian, Black, Puerto Rican, Jewish; we’re big brothers with arms around little sisters; we’re little brothers in tube socks—is that Freddy Podogrosi? We’re swigging soda and we’re smiling with bright eyes straight at the camera while somebody’s mom/aunt/grandmother clicks the shutter.
There’s the House of Industry: a run-down building turned neighborhood kids’ club, and on their roof you could find all the balls we’d play with.
One day, my brother Michael and I had an idea:
“Let’s go on the roof and get all our balls.”
While climbing the fire escape on our way up the side of the building a piece breaks off.
And
I’m about to fall to my death
And
My brother catches me in midair while I am on my way down, down, down.
How?
He must have gotten me by the pants.
And
We talk about it all the time.
There’s John’s Water Ice—the f-ing best. (They had only four flavors!)
Guerrera’s butcher shop was on Eighth and Catharine. And over there, on Seventh and Fulton, is the house my father grew up in (and where Gigi the monkey lived, too!).
And travel farther up to Eighth Street and you’re entering the Italian Market. By the time you hit Ninth Street, BANG! It’s all right here.
Sarcone’s Bakery.
Ralph’s, “the oldest Italian restaurant.”
Ding Ho, where lo mein reminded us of spaghetti.
Palumbo’s-CR Room (celebrity room) and The Nostalgia Room.
Let’s take a moment of silence for Palumbo’s (it burnt down, twice!).
You see, growing up, Palumbo’s was the big thing if we ever went out to eat—and we hardly ever did, with food so good at home. And Frank Palumbo was a big deal.
He didn’t just have a restaurant, he ran a hostel for Italian immigrants who needed to get on their feet, and then he’d set them up with city jobs.
City of Brotherly Love kinda way.
I carry that with me in some way, I think. The things Frank Palumbo did for people.
Farther down, there is St. Mary Magdalen de Pazzi (the first Italian national parish in the United States) on narrow Montrose Street. Imagine my entire neighborhood lining up to get into church every Sunday or for the May Procession of Saints. Jammed.
In a New York kinda way.
The church is closed now, but they reopened it for my father’s funeral . . .
Montrose Street reminds me so much of the West Village. All these little streets; you learn how to drive a car in the ’70s and ’80s in South Philly, you can drive anywhere.
Turn a bit and hit:
The Friendly Lounge (a bar).
Napoli Pizza (uh . . . pizza).
And Schmockey’s (it was never spelled, so I can’t guarantee that’s right).
But the bartender, Frankie E., made a younger me feel so very proud to bring some older friends there when he left us a bottle on the bar to drink on the honor system.
The first thing out of his mouth when he saw me was, “Ain’t you Compi’s kid?”
After church, go to Ninth Street and head over to Di Bruno Bros. to get the cheese.
And there’s Villa di Roma . . .
And Dante & Luigi’s . . .
So many places steeped in old-world Italian-American traditions.
But for all the tradition, my mother was progressive (in a ’70s sort of way), and so while all the other kids were sent to Catholic school, she chose to send us to McCall public school. Morning walks down Seventh to school were always met with a lift from anybody with a cool mode of transport: horses, hearses, and fire trucks.
But, taking South Sixth Street on the walk home was the best route for someone to pick you up and bring you back to Queen Street.
We’re around the corner from my house now (and it’s so much like the West Village—look how narrow Kauffman Street is!). And here it comes into sight:
My house.
My window.
My mom-mom, two doors down.
That over there is a cherry tree. And the Podogrosi’s house—Freddy was just one of fourteen.
On my block was my uncle’s house, a mix of families from all walks of life, and a vacant house. And somewhere in between was the lady who had a hole in her face who everyone thought was a witch because she constantly yelled at us kids.
My row house had concrete steps.
But, if you had marble steps, you’d better have taken out your Ajax and a scrubby brush to keep them spic-and-span. We cared about each other and how clean you kept your steps.
Sometimes, now when I see South Philly, I don’t even recognize where I am.
“This was the gas station.”
“This was Goldstein’s.”
“There was an abandoned house here where we’d go and do ‘whatever.’”
They’re all developed now.
The only thing that remains is the pride of it once belonging to me.
