in an elegant dress she made herself, carrying her own libretto. She had to be the only person, ever, to bring to the Teatro Real a libretto from the New Utrecht branch of the Brooklyn Public Library. She was thrilled by the performance, but not by the crowd, which she considered boorish (not the word she used). And, back in Bensonhurst, she dutifully returned the libretto, and on time.
Opera in Bensonhurst could be a selection of arias at the confraternity hall of the neighborhood St. Mary’s parish, a street duet with Healthy, old recordings of revered Neapolitan soprano Enrico Caruso, PBS TV/radio shows, or even a very well-planned surprise party in the ’hood. Mom planned Stepdad’s seventy-fifth surprise birthday party for years, scrimping and saving, doing seamstress jobs at home, etcetera. She pulled it off. It was at Scarola, a Bensonhurst restaurant where waiters/waitresses were aspiring opera singers. One was the owner’s son.
What a night! Stepdad was cranky at the beginning. “Why do I have to take pictures for my niece’s wedding shower?” he moaned in the back seat of our car on the way to the restaurant. But, after the initial shock, he had a fantastic time. I still have visions of him dancing in all his finery—yes, he always dressed to the nines, even as a party photographer. The operatic pieces by the service staff were beautiful and poignant. I wished I could sign them to contracts on the spot. The party? Well, we were all there. Don’t know how Mom did it—the finances, the secrecy, the arrangements, the pretexts for our all being in Brooklyn at that time. While Stepdad had a grand time, he did tease his Vina about being “sneaky.”
I suppose Mom’s musicality was handed down to kid bro’ Michael. We both loved Elvis and Johnny Cash, even before their “coming out” on The Ed Sullivan Show. Michael very much took to country and western. He perfected his twang, and he learned the Elvis hip swivels. Amazing to me, he taught himself the guitar. And, I am not sure that he ever learned to read music—he composes to someone who writes it down. Indeed, there was a cowboy yearning for expression inside this ragamuffin Italian street kid. And today Michael (Polacco, Grandi, Grandé—your choice) performs out in Arizona where he and his wife Diane own a horse ranch: Amber Hills Arabians, featuring Revelry, Top Ten Stallion and stand Arabian Sire of Significance. But, the locals dig his Brooklyn sagas, and some of them are true. In Michael’s musical prime he shared long tours with John Lee Hooker, Canned Heat, and Bedford-Stuyvesant native, Richie Havens. He had shorter stints with others.
So, back to Bensonhurst—as the human caravans of our youth trudged along 86th Street, they sometimes had to part into separate currents around Michael, with his guitar, hip gyrations, and Scotch tape-enhanced Elvis sneer. Understand, 86th Street was the Wall Street of Bensonhurst mercantilism, but nothing was really awry.
So, Vina, your kid is out front making a spectacle of himself. Her face said that he was doing what he loved, near home, not hanging at the waterfront with the likes of “Rampers” Jimmy Emma or Sammy “the Bull” Gravano.
In the old days, 86th Street did quiet down on Sunday evenings—it never does now—when some a capella groups would take advantage of the unique acoustics of the West End El and its steel support girders. The El structure, however, was not so much a capella (chapel), but more of a cattedrale (cathedral ). I wonder if Dion and the Belmonts sang under an El in the Bronx. Whatever, Michael and I were each a “West End El Niño.”
I picture those 86th Street scenes, and music arises, alla mode di Dino De Laurentiis: Vide’o mare quant’è bello; spira tantu sentimentooooooo (Look at the sea, oh how beautiful; it inspires so many emotions). These Neapolitan dialect lyrics are from “Torna a Surriento,” or “Return to Sorrento,” by Ernesto De Curtis, and Stepdad often spouted them whilst sitting in front of the store, his back to Gravesend Bay. “Torna a Surriento” was part of his medley. And, as mentioned above, another important component was “Mala Femmina," popularized by Jimmy Roselli. Stepdad could never understand why Jimmy did not supplant Frank Sinatra. Roselli died in 2011, at age eighty-five. Mannaggia (dammit), time goes on. I see a parallel between the Sinatra-Roselli and Enrico Caruso-Mario Lanza axes. Roselli was born in Hoboken, NJ, five doors down from Sinatra, who was ten years his senior. According to the Mario Lanza Institute and Museum: “The greatest of all tenors, Enrico Caruso, passed away on August 2, 1921, and on January 31, 1921 in the heart of South Philadelphia, Alfredo Arnold Cocozza (Mario Lanza), the son of Italian immigrants, was born at 636 Christian Street.” So, Lanza was not born on the day that Caruso died, as I was always told, but close enough—same year, at least.
Neither Roselli nor Lanza reached the heights of his respective idol.
This chapter is closing out like the fadeout of the Beatles’ “Hey Jude.” Let it be said here that Mom had a great voice, and that she could never understand why I sang like a bullfrog. Also, for the record: My own Nonna Nunziatina, Mom’s mom, was virtually deaf, but she could hear those scratchy recordings of fellow Napoletano, Caruso.
Polaroid Photo courtesy Polacco family archives
Brother Michael serenading Nonna Nunziatina in the kitchen in the back of our store, early 1960s. A Nonna may have humored Michael on occasion.
4. Large Mary and the Little Butterfly
She was larger than life. She was also large, and I apologize to her beautiful daughters for the sobriquet “Mary Fat,” but they knew. Mary asked my two-year-old daughter, “Do you know who I am?” and the wide-eyed innocent answer, “You’re Mary Fat,” was both embarrassing and disarming. Mary, you see, loved children—all children. Her grandkids, nieces and nephews, and neighborhood kids all knew they had to pay with a pint of cheek blood, because Mary had to pinch them. “Come here, so I can eat you alive!” Mary regaled them all with love, but the treats were the real payoff.
On the south side of 86th Street, on the block bordered by 21st Avenue and Bay 26th Street (for the GPS-enabled), lived a concentration of incredible ladies—Large Mary Napolitano, Jeanie (Gruff but Gracious) Gallo, Georgette Seminara Adams, and her aunts, Rose and Mary Seminara. Some time after the passing of Large Mary, these ladies formed a Bible study group that also included Mary’s daughter Toni, Florie Ehrlich, and Mom. Many Mary stories are epic, if not biblical, and they are legion and were often exchanged at the Bible Study.
Mary had show biz in her blood. Her face was angelic, and I was told she was a beauty in her youth. Indeed, to me, she radiated beauty. Her uncle, her father’s brother, was the famous-for-his-time “Farfariello.” The Little Butterfly, Eduardo Migliaccio was a mainstay of immigrant Italian theatre. Yes, in addition to the Yiddish theatre, there was a not-as-well-known Italian one, and doubtless others in the Lower East Side. Bob Hope honored Farfariello. Farfariello based some of his skits on real-life Migliaccio family escapades. The Little Butterfly’s comedy was slapstick, and he had to project his voice, often in a falsetto, over the whole raucous audience. Mary also had a booming voice, and she was an extra in some of her uncle’s skits. I remember her narrating to Mom and me a funeral story, a true story, in which the black-clad professional mourners would wail, “Who’s going to cook the fish?!” They wailed, and Mary boomed the retelling. I won’t even try to write the lines in the dialect Mary used.
Mary loved Broadway. But, of course, it was in her blood. Mom told me at least three times about their taking a car service to see a show. The driver shows up and sees three ladies. Two are petite Mom and diminutive Carrie, the mother-in-law of Mary’s daughter Armida. Carrie lived with Mary. The third lady is Large Mary, and the driver is horrified. He tries to drive away, but they convince him to make the trip. I would wager he avoided the old cobblestoned West Side Highway. Après-theater, they try to hail a cab, to no avail. Finally, Mary hides, they grab a cab, and then Mary appears. Same scenario. But Mary, sitting in the front seat, charms the cabbie and, after landing safely in Bensonhurst, Mom gets out and Mary and Carrie invite the driver for a frappe at Hinsch’s Greek Diner. Yes, I know, Hinsch’s is not a Greek name, but in Brooklyn most diners are/were Greek-owned. Now, mind you, Hinsch’s is on 5th Avenue just off 86th Street, fully seventeen big blocks from Mary’s house, and Mary’s husband Jimmy has no idea of