Dear Readers,
My August assortment of Italian Connections continues: Aviation Italian Connections I mentioned recently can be updated “grazie” to Signor Ted Gallo, a reader who wrote: “I enjoyed reading your aviation article in the July 24 issue of L’Italo-Americano.
I thought it might interest you to know that a small group (8) of MacDonnell-Douglas engineers, including myself, worked with Aeritalia in Torino, Italy from 1974 to 1977 to help their engineers complete the design of the European Spacelab Module that flew aboard the Shuttle some years ago. Aeritalia was responsible for the design and manufacture of the structure and thermal control portion of the module. This was Italy’s first venture into manned space.
This work resulted in the development of the Columbus Module that was launched in January 2008 and is now part of the International Space Station. Note that Aeritalia became Alenia Aeronautica and is now part of a new company, Alcatel, which continues to work on space programs.
Also note that MacDonnell-Douglas has become part of the Boeing Company. As a first generation Italian American I was proud to temporarily move my family to Italy to be a part of this effort.” Thank you very much for sharing this information with our readers. I know the members of Unico who worked hard to create the annual Marconi Awards to publicize and recognize the scientific achievements of Italians and Italian Americans will be especially proud to learn that the Columbus Module launched in January 2008 had many Italian Connections.
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Bernal Heights, a hilltop district tucked away in the southern part of San Francisco is the subject of a recent Arcadia, Images of America Series Book (www.arcadiapublishing.com). Reader Patricia Paton Cavagnaro told me about the book when we met at a third Wednesday of the month Spaghetti Feed Lunch at Immaculate Conception Church (3255 Folsom St. – info. 415-824-1762).
The Bernal History Project resulted in this book which is not the work of a single author but a collaborative effort, a history project with neighborly cooperation, family stories and photographs from dozens of longtime Bernal Heights residents, including photographs from Patricia Paton Cavagnaro family photo album. Bernal Heights, unlike some of the Italians of… Arcadia titles, is not full Italian Connections.
The diverse Bernal Heights community was formed by immigrants from Ireland, Germany, Scandinavia, Latin America, as well as those from Italy, but if your family or friends once lived near or attended the nearby Immaculate Conception School or Church, this book will bring back many happy memories.
Some Bernal Heights Italian Connections gleaned from old Italian family photograph albums include photos of old shacks, sold in 1907 for $100, by the Relief Corporation after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake refugee camps began to close. It was the great earthquake and fire of 1906 that put Bernal Heights on the city map. Nearly all of San Francisco was destroyed in a huge firestorm that followed the early morning quake in April, 1906. But Bernal Heights, with its open hills, unpaved streets and cow pastures, was both inexpensive and available. Within a year of the disaster, 600 new homes were built on Bernal Heights.
In 1907, the Caruso family moved into a house at 3220 Folsom Street. Matriarch Rose Tarantino Caruso (front) was born in Palermo in 1856; her children Joseph, Julia, Jake, Henry, and Jennie were born in New Orleans. The Carusos came to San Francisco via New Orleans, where they sold fruit and vegetables.
The ground floor of the house was converted to the family’s grocery store before World War I. Like many Italian families in Bernal, the Carusos made their own wine and traded some with their neighbors. The Caruso grocery store sold basic staples alongside fresh pasta, bread and vegetables. Jennie Caruso and her children John, Joseph, and Salvatore helped Nana Rose Caruso run the grocery store after her daughter Jennie’s husband, Antonio died in 1925.
They made tomato paste by drying tomatoes in the backyard. The store had a chicken coop out front and Nana Rose would wring the chicken’s necks for customers. (Photo courtesy of Petrina Caruso Paton and Patricia Paton Cavagnaro.) A block away on Folsom Street, the Immaculate Conception Church was constructed in 1912 as an Italian national church to serve Italians living in the community, many of whom moved to Bernal Heights after the 1906 earthquake and fire.
A special mass was held in 1934 at Immaculate Conception Church to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Italian Catholic Federation (I.C.F.). After St. Mary’s College, founded in 1863, moved away, the land was leased to local farmers who grew vegetables that they sold in the area. Neighbors called the terraced farm the Italian Gardens. St. Mary’s College began in 1863 as a diocesan college for boys established by Joseph Sadoc Alemany, Archbishop of San Francisco.
It was handed over to the De La Salle Christian Brothers in 1868. In 1889, the college moved east to Oakland, and then to Moraga in 1928. To purchase “San Francisco’s Bernal Heights” contact toll-free 1-888-313-2665 or visit Arcadia Publishing via internet at www.arcadiapublishing.com
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Construction began in August 1173 on a new 185-foot bell tower in Pisa. Due to an engineering mistake the Leaning Tower of Pisa’s name is instantly recognized worldwide and has become one of the world’s most popular tourist attractions. The Leaning Tower on Campo dei Miracoli is one of the world’s most famous buildings because of its amazing tilt (about a 4-meter discrepancy between top and bottom).
Originally intended as the duomo’s bell tower, the structure is smaller than most visitors expect. The highest point barely clears the top of the duomo and baptistery. Work began on the tower in 1173, but the soil under the site began to shift by the time the third tier had been built. The original architect, Bonanno Pisano, fled the city fearing for his life, and a slew of frustrated architects attempted to correct the tilting over the next two centuries, with little success.
Galileo, a professor at the University of Pisa, utilized the angle and conducted his famous gravitation experiments and also did a bit of stargazing. Galileo Galilei conducted his experiments from the Leaning Tower and endorsed Copernicus’ controversial theory that the planets revolve around the sun and he wound up in jail when he refused to renounce Copernicus’ theory which was contrary to Church teachings.
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Dearly Departed in August: Enrico Caruso, born 1873, died August 2, 1921. The Italian operatic tenor was born in Naples, made his debut in Naples (1875) and died in Naples. Enrico Caruso first sang at the New York Metropolitan Opera House in 1903 and continued in that Company until his death. Caruso was the first recording star to be recognized worldwide by just one name, Caruso.
He made his first recordings for the Gramophone and Typewriter Company in Milan in 1902. In 1904 he signed an exclusive contract with the Victor Talking Machine Company in New York. The world’s greatest tenor of his day, he included nearly 50 operas in his repertory. His wonderfully rich, resonant voice is retained on records to this day.
Rocky Marciano, born 1923 Rocco Francis Marchegiano, died August 31, 1969, one day before his 46th birthday. He was born in Brockton, Massachusetts, but did most of his fighting in Providence, Rhode Island. One of the greatest heavyweight champions in boxing history, he never lost a professional fight. Undefeated, fighting the likes of Ezzard Charles, Roland LaStarza, Joe Louis, Archie Moore, Jersey Joe Walcott and the best of his era, Marciano’s record (49-0-0 with 43 knockouts) beat everyone placed in front of him.
Whom he fought, he beat. Here is a unique twist on the bragging at the beauty parlor bit: In the mid-1950s two proud parents, Mrs. Liotta and Mrs. Marchegiano first met. One lady proudly says to the other that she is the mother of a world champion. Not knowing each other, the other lady in return says that she too is the proud parent of a world champion. Each unaware of who the other son is (Tony De Marco and Rocky Marciano). The beginning of a lasting friendship between the two Signoras….
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