depending on who you ask), and gogozelle (cucuzza, or goo-GOOTZ, in dialect; a long, sinuous light green squash) in the postage stamp of exposed soil behind our three rooms. A Sicilian immigrant, Mr. Spadaro, bought and renovated the house over the back fence. He commandeered neighbors’ terrain, and his backyard looked like a rural garden, complete with a grape trellis and fig trees he had to prune and wrap in tar paper to over-winter. He encouraged my “farming," and would often water my plants through the chain-link fence. I was the farmiol (farm-eye-OHL, as it sounded to me in dialect). Mrs. Spadaro shared some of her husband’s tomato preserves with us each year. It didn’t hurt that Mom was extremely good to her. The cover photo captures Mom chatting over the back fence with Lucia (Lucy) Spadaro about grandkids. I am thankful I did not become bipolar living in the linear gradient traced from 86th Street madness, through our store, and home to the Spadaro rural Sicilian plot.
So, Georgette and Arthur’s home was a parcel of the “rural residue” of Bensonhurst. Though their house was large, its footprint was less than half of their lot; so, they could grow tomatoes, basilicó (basil—bah-zilly-GO in dialect), peppers, etcetera. They even had a chicken—an escapee from a neighbor child’s Easter present. The chick crawled through the fence, and Arthur built a roost for her. Over the last few of her eleven years, she just nestled in with the curled-up dog on the back porch.
Georgette sings to my mother many mornings, and prays for her soul and the health of my daughter as well. Mom used to bring her aunts, “the sisters,” the Sunday editions of the Daily News and New York Post and then stay for morning coffee and breakfast, dropping by Georgette’s on the way home. I loved that Florie and Georgette got to know each other through their own mothers. I never knew those ladies, but I think that they were part of a vanguard of womanhood looking for expression and fulfillment beyond the familial.
Georgette is a smart cookie, but she is so good that she sometimes crumbles when she should hold fast, at least in my opinion. When I’m tempted to sound off on my professional accomplishments to Georgette and Arthur, I am chastened by the evidence of their strong intellects. For example, Georgette is a master of Sudoku, and Arthur, a master mechanic. Not that they brag—the evidence is all over the house, and Georgette and Arthur are heroes to their three children-in-law. The Italian lineage is now yet another ingredient in the protean Brooklyn minestrone, and their grandkids impart flavors of Haiti, Georgia (the ex-Soviet Republic), and other locales, and it’s all good, tasty, and sustaining. Mom was absolutely delirious over Georgette’s grandson Quinn.
Georgette also appreciated genius in others. Once, when sewing kitchen curtains,
Vina asked if she could do it for me. I thanked her and told her that I wanted to do it myself as a project. I was okay with straight seams, but when I needed to make the pleats for the hooks, I couldn’t get it right. Sooooo, I waited for Vina to come by, which she always did when on 86th Street, and she proceeded to teach me how to do the pleats—so easy when shown by a master. She supervised me while I did them on my machine, and left it to me to finish.
Georgette then needed to place trim on the kitchen window over the sink to match the curtains.
Well, after trying several times to get it right, I was ready to throw the whole thing out. Again Vina, without hesitation, came to my rescue. She took the curtain home, and next day delivered to me the finished curtain complete with the matching trim. They have been on my window ever since. I don’t change them, just wash them and put them back up. I love them. It’s funny how at the time something like that could seem so insignificant, but now when I look at them, they remind me of her. They remind me how very blessed I was to have Vina in my life.
Mom’s creations made it out of the neighborhood, to Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Follow the winding plot: Leonard Sillman, Broadway producer/show biz entrepreneur, had “discovered” my brother Michael when he was working on a Pietro D’Agostino & Sons demolition project. After hearing Michael sing and play guitar, he featured Bro' as one of his “New Faces of 1971” in the February 20 issue of Cue magazine, page 9:
MICHAEL POLACCO. I first saw this multifaceted talent on the corner of my street, where a building was being demolished. This young Italian-American was part of the demolition squad. Each day, when work finished at three, this steel-helmeted young man got into his 1956 T-bird and roared down Fifth Avenue. My curiosity got the best of me, and I asked him what he was all about. He worked in demolition during summers to make enough money to finish at Visual Arts, and he didn’t know whether to be a camera man, a movie director, or a performer. Then, one day he played the guitar and sang for me. I immediately recognized a potential star. Michael is a brilliant lyricist-composer, and he has warmth and charm which, when he performs, light up any room. He has that marvelous thing called communication. Michael has just finished his first record album, and is looking for the right distributor. His songs are of today, tomorrow, and sometimes yesteryear.
In the early seventies, Michael helped girlfriend Theo get a job as one of Leonard’s assistants. Theo wore some of Mom’s creations around the office—cape, shawl, scarf, etcetera—and they caught Leonard’s eye. When told they were designed and made by Vina, Michael's mom, Leonard realized he had already complimented Michael on a couple of his shirts, also made by Mom.
Leonard showed some of Vina's creations to his dear friend Elinor S. Gimbel, a scion of the Gimbel family. At the time, Macy’s and Gimbel’s were the two department store behemoths/leviathans. I use these two descriptors because both are borrowed from the Hebrew: Macy/Gimbel—de “oy” mit da “vey.” Leonard and Elinor were practically neighbors, both living in the upper 70s near 5th Avenue. So, Elinor was excited as well, and Michael, Leonard, and Elinor conspired to open some type of boutique in Manhattan. They had gone as far as having brochures and business cards printed. Michael recalls, “They were very fancy and done in pink!” Mom, humble as usual, simply couldn’t understand why they’d want her clothes, especially when there were so many other designers in New York City. But indeed they did, and their money talked. It said “Designs by Vina” were just as elegant and beautiful as any, even the designs coming out of France.
To get to the end of this winding story, Mom, meeting fierce resistance at home, gave up this dream. Realistically, this is a “tale of two cities.” The Silk Stocking District of the Upper East Side is not Bensonhurst. For Mom to open a store in Manhattan, when she lived behind our family’s store in Bensonhurst, well, this was a twain not joined, not back in the day anyway (early seventies). But, I can imagine Mom’s morale must have sunk when she then reported to the neighborhood “sweat shop” to sew someone else’s more pedestrian designs.
Mom met Leonard twice, but never met Elinor. Perhaps if she had—one strong woman of means inspiring a woman of talent and immense inner strength—the outcome may have been different. But we will never know.
Mom’s pain over this incident was evident in her sharing it. Georgette remembers:
Your mom told me of the time she was offered to go to work in Manhattan. Louie put up a fuss. That’s all I know. I don’t know any details of the story except that she was sorry she did not go, because who knows what that would have led to. She was creative and talented beyond being just good and great. She was superb—a marvel in clothing design.
Toni Caggiano, daughter of Large Mary, has a similar take.
Another anecdote, this from near the end of Mom’s life, comes from the artist, Sol Schwartz—a graduate of The High School of Music and Art (now Fiorello LaGuardia High) in New York City and a buddy of my cousins, Rosalie and Jim Mangano. Sol had a bunch of woven woolen “swatches,” which his wife was going to make into a sweater for their fifth great-grandchild. Sadly, his wife passed, and the project was passed down, but whoever was in charge was baffled. So, Jim and Rosalie recommended Mom, who put them together into a beautiful little outfit. Sol was gracious enough to write to me. I include his hastily written message for two reasons. First, it is a great example of New York vernacular. Secondly, Sol passed on Christmas day, 2015, five days before Julie’s passing, and so, the following is even more precious to me:
She did a wonderful thing by putting together