1
250
25
-
https://omeka.madisonpubliclibrary.org/files/original/18a2f67e6e38645157ddbc74fac19bf8.MP3
a70162ab15ea33e24e0d32b6b80259fd
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Recollection Wisconsin
Sound
A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Sound recordings
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<p><span>INDEX:</span></p>
<p><span>5:17 – SICILIAN MARRIAGE TRADITIONS</span></p>
<p><span>7:37 – DI SALVO’S SPAGHETTI HOUSE & SEAFOOD</span></p>
<p><span>11:00 – MAFIA IN MADISON</span></p>
<p><span>15:45 – GREENBUSH NEIGHBORHOOD</span></p>
<p><span>24:27 – CONVOYS ON PARK STREET</span></p>
<p><span>27:00 – FOOD TRADITIONS</span></p>
<p><em>[NOTE: TRANSCRIPT HAS BEEN EDITED BY NARRATOR FOR CLARITY. DIFFERS FROM AUDIO IN PLACES.]<br /><br /></em><em>start of interview</em></p>
<p><span><strong>INTERVIEWER:</strong> This is Laura Damon-Moore. I am here at the Madison Public Library on Monday, November 13, in the afternoon. We’re talking today with Benedict Di Salvo about his family history in Madison and growing up in the Greenbush neighborhood.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>BENEDICT J. DI SALVO [BJD]:</strong> Hello.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>INTERVIEWER:</strong> Hello.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>BJD:</strong> How are you today?</span></p>
<p><span><strong>INTERVIEWER:</strong> I’m fine.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>BJD:</strong> Did you grow up in the Greenbush neighborhood?</span></p>
<p><span><strong>INTERVIEWER:</strong> I did not, no. That’s why we’re talking to you.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>BJD:</strong> Oh, okay. (laughs) Okay, what do you want me to do?</span></p>
<p><span><strong>INTERVIEWER:</strong> I would love [for] you to give us a rundown of your family’s history and how they and you ended up in Madison, Wisconsin.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>BJD:</strong> Okay. I think the place to start would be, first of all<span>—</span>generally speaking<span>—</span>my father is from Sicily. So I’m first generation. My mother, born and raised in Madison—she is Albanian. Sicilians and Albanians are not supposed to get together, okay. It’s cause for<span> </span>talk in the neighborhood. Gossip.</span></p>
<p><span>My father was born in Bagheria, Sicily. His mother, Vincenza, and his dad, Benedetto—Mr. Ben, they later called him<span>—</span>they lived there. And then [<span>Benedetto</span>] decided to go to Milwaukee to be<span>—</span>to start a new life, you know? Everybody thought in Sicily that the streets were paved with gold, so he was going to go scrape up some of that. So he left when my dad was three.</span></p>
<p><span>[BJD’s father’s] mom, Vincenza, they moved not that far away to Santa Flavia, where her family was from. And they loved it. And she, my grandmother, called [my father] Cosimo. So it was C-o-s-i-m-o. And the first chapter of the book [ed. note: </span><a href="https://www.linkcat.info/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?biblionumber=1334490"><em>Sicilian Loves</em></a><span>, 2017] talks about his life in Sicily. And it was wonderful. He had uncles that loved him, and he loved them. They taught him all kinds of things. It was great.</span></p>
<p><span>Well, what happened is one day, his mom got a cable or something from his dad, saying, "Okay, time for you to leave Sicily. Come to Milwaukee. I’m ready for you." Guess what? They didn’t want to go. In the book there begins some of the friction or the conflict. So the first chapter—every chapter by the way is one day<span>—</span>so the first chapter describes his life on that day in Sicily, and the next chapter is in Milwaukee.</span></p>
<p><span>So my dad is about sixteen or seventeen, maybe eighteen. My grandfather is </span><span>mafioso.</span><span> So my mother—excuse me, </span><span>his </span><span>mother said, “No, I want you to be the </span><span>Cosimo </span><span>that grew up in Santa Flavia, among love and relatives. A good soul.” And his dad, Mr. Ben, says, "No—he’s following in my footsteps. </span><em>Cosmo </em><span>is following." And she said, "</span>Cosimo<span> is going to be like I am." So,</span><span> </span><span>Cosmo/Cosimo<span>—</span><span></span>there’s another bit of friction. On purpose—she wanted to irritate the hell out of him.</span></p>
<p><span>Okay, so, I’m not going to tell you the book, but so what happened is Vincenza, his mother, died—I’m not going to tell you how, you’ll have to read the book, okay? So then they move to </span><span>Madison</span><span> because my grandfather became<span>—</span>well, he was a don. He came to Madison, he’s a don. People kissed his ring on the street and all that crap. Anyway.</span></p>
<p><span>So in Madison is where my mom and dad met. My dad and my grandfather had lots of different businesses. He had brothers, too, but at the time they had a </span><span>bakery</span><span>, and my dad would deliver bread to my mom’s dad—Maisano, is her [family] name, Angelo is his first name, so he would deliver bread to Angelo Maisano because Angelo had a </span><span>grocery store</span><span>. Same building, still standing, and that’s where I grew up—but I get ahead of the story.</span></p>
<p><span>So, one day my dad delivers the bread and he [says], “Oh, hey, who’s that?” And [Mr. Maisano] says, “Nevermind who’s that. That’s my daughter. You leave her alone. No.” So the next day, somebody else had to deliver the bread. So my mom and dad—in the middle of the night they would exchange notes—not kisses—notes, back and forth. So, that’s how they met.</span></p>
<p><span>Then, of course, they get married, and the third chapter, therein is the seed, if you will, or the precursor to the </span><span>restaurant</span><span>, because—well, it’s [sarcastically] hilarious, the horrible things women had to go through, to endure. The trousseau display<span>—</span> “Oh yes, this is my white underpants, this is my pink underpants”—everything was on the table. But the women would come through, and they’re snooty as hell, you know, like they're looking at an art exhibit, back and forth. And they’d sip anise, and eat cookies, and stick some in their pocket. Anyway. But the eighth day, after their marriage—women had to stay indoors for eight days—</span></p>
<p><span><strong>INTERVIEWER:</strong> So, this was all<span>—</span>I’m sorry to interrupt<span>—</span>this is all part of their wedding celebrations.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>BJD:</strong> Sicilian wedding traditions.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>INTERVIEWER:</strong> Gotcha.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>BJD:</strong> They get married, they have a dinner, which we can talk about someday—Mafia influenced, by the way. Then, she goes home, closes the blinds, turns off the lights, cannot have visitors. A couple of her friends snuck in. My dad, the groom, is free to run around town, drink with his buddies, go out, go to strip—well, I don’t know if they had strip joints back then—he—it was horrible [for his wife Mary].</span></p>
<p><span>Then, on the eighth day, when the week was over, my mom and my dad dressed up, and they had to go through the neighborhood, and people who gave them gifts, they’d give a picture of their wedding to them. And that was pretty tedious. And embarrassing, you know. My mom’s, you know, like this [pretends to shield eyes] for the last week. Anyway.</span></p>
<p><span>So that’s how they met. They served their friends dinner after the seventh day was over. And it was like a precursor to the restaurant, because they both loved to cook. [They both had] different methods—well, not methods. Different seasonings and styles. They were not that far apart<span>—</span>but, again, Sicilian and Albanian.</span></p>
<p><span>So that’s how they met and the restaurant started, and my sister came along—no actually she was born before the restaurant. And I came along, and we both worked in the restaurant, she as a<span>—</span>cleaning shrimp. It was famous for French fried shrimp.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>INTERVIEWER:</strong> What was the restaurant called?</span></p>
<p><span><strong>BJD:</strong> </span><span>Di Salvo’s [ed. note: Di Salvo's Spaghetti House and Seafood, 810 Regent Street].</span></p>
<p><span><strong>INTERVIEWER:</strong> Okay.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>BJD:</strong> It was<span>—</span>(pages rustle) Yeah, here’s an article: French-Fried Shrimp, new dish in the Di Salvo menu. I got the picture of it right here. So my grandfather actually decided to do the restaurant (pages turning) but it was<span><span>—</span></span>yeah, that’s the sign, okay.</span></p>
<p><span>So they did the restaurant, they started it, but then World War II came around and my four uncles went to service<span><span>—</span></span>went into the service, not outside of the country. So it was my dad, my grandfather, and then my uncle Ralph, who was too young to go in. H<span><span></span></span>e was only seventeen. He took over the bar and then my dad and my grandfather<span><span>—</span></span>well, my dad ran things, my grandfather [gestures, makes a noise reminiscent of Marlon Brando in <em>The Godfather</em>] agreed or disagreed.</span></p>
<p><span>So finally the war—oh, by the way, this is important. </span><span>Truax Field</span><span> airmen, they frequented the restaurant. My mom was a great hostess, they loved my dad too. So what they did is, they filled in. They would come in, they would serve guests, they would bus the dishes, they would wash the dishes. We had a couple of cooks so they didn’t do that. But Jerry Vail, I don’t know if you ever heard of him. (blows raspberry) I shouldn’t make noises. He’s a singer, pop singer, he was one of the guys from Truax Field. So without Truax Field, and those airmen, those dear friends, it would have folded. They just couldn’t run it without help.</span></p>
<p><span>And that’s the connection: my sister cleaned the shrimp and [was] really good at it. In fact they served hundreds of pounds of shrimp on weekends. Huge business. I went over there just to be a pain in the butt brother. [mimes getting in the way] I was just a little kid. You know, you give me a sharp knife, and you’re supposed to split them down the middle<span><span>. W</span></span>ell, if I was lucky I’d split half of it down the middle, and the other half was<span><span>—</span></span>well, <span><span></span></span>anyway.</span></p>
<p><span>So you see the relationship between my mom and dad and my sister and me, in the fourth chapter which is the restaurant. Chapter five is their 57th wedding anniversary and celebrated in the hospital, my dad’s hospital room. It was pretty exciting. We go from Sicily to Milwaukee, with my dad. We come to Madison, my mom is here. He marries into the Maisano family, or, the Maisano marries into the Di Salvo family. I gotta tell you a Mafia story.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>INTERVIEWER:</strong> Please.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>BJD:</strong> At the head table [at my parents’ wedding] is, my mom and dad, my grandfather<span><span>—</span></span>he’s got a new wife, by the way. He’s sitting up there, and [asking], "Where’s Mrs. Maisano, and where’s the Maisano family?" Well, Angelo, her father, had died, but there are no Maisanos up there.</span></p>
<p><span>The Mafia dons, from Chicago, Milwaukee, Rockford, are all sitting at the head table.</span></p>
<p><span>Is my mother going to say something? No. But the reason is that, in the trousseau, they were tearing it down—my mom, my grandmother, and her two sisters were tearing things down. And Mrs. Maisano says, “What’s this?” And she sees an envelope (paper rustles) and she opens it up and there’s a hundred dollar bill in there. “Oh my god!”</span></p>
<p><span>And now they’re going through the underwear and the slips<span><span>—</span></span>and strategically placed, hidden, were these—I don’t know how many envelopes there were, but there were a lot. And each one had a hundred dollar bill, from the Mafia. Yeah, okay. That’s nice. You got a plus, and you got a minus.</span></p>
<p><span>My aunt Rose, this is [my mother’s] sister—she was born in Albania. They were living in Madison and went back to Albania to visit. So she is the oldest of the three daughters in the family: Rose, Anne, and Mary. My mom is the youngest and then there was a brother, Joe. Mr. Maisano ran the grocery store.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>INTERVIEWER:</strong> What was the name of the grocery store?</span></p>
<p><span><strong>BJD:</strong> Uh<span><span>—</span></span>damned if I know, I think was </span><span>Maisano’s</span><span>.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>INTERVIEWER:</strong> Maisano’s? Okay.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>BJD:</strong> In fact I found a coin, like a chip of some kind, and it said Maisano’s, good for two cents or something. I’m sure it was Maisano’s. Anyway, it was a grocery store.</span></p>
<p><span>A Mafia guy comes in from Chicago and says, “Hey, who’s that?”<span><span>—</span></span>sound familiar?</span></p>
<p><span>“Hey, that’s my daughter.”</span></p>
<p><span>He says, “I want to marry her.” She’s fourteen years old.</span></p>
<p><span>“I don’t care, I’m going to marry her and bring her back to Chicago.”</span></p>
<p><span>So he [Angelo Maisano] goes to my grandfather, Ben<span><span>—</span></span>again, mafioso<span><span>—</span></span>and [Angelo] says, “Hey, this family<span><span><span>—</span></span></span>” Told him the story. My grandfather goes, “I can’t do a thing. It’s too powerful a family.” And my grandfather, Angelo Maisano, says, “Okay.”</span></p>
<p><span>Well, guess what happened. [Angelo] goes to Joe (unintelligible) and says, “Joe. You like [Rose]?”</span></p>
<p><span>“Yeah, she’s all right.”</span></p>
<p><span>“Good. You think she’s cute, pretty?”</span></p>
<p><span>“Yeah, she’s a nice girl.” Joe’s in his twenties—she’s fourteen.</span></p>
<p><span>And then he goes to Rose, he says, “Hey, you know Joe, right? You like him?”</span></p>
<p><span>And she says “Yeah, he’s nice but he’s kinda old.”</span></p>
<p><span>“Nevermind. You’re going to get married. Now.”</span></p>
<p><span>“What do you mean—“</span></p>
<p><span>“If you don’t, it could result not only in the store being bombed, but in the death of some of us.”</span></p>
<p><span>So, she married him, within two weeks. The guy came in after, from Chicago, he says, “Okay, I’m here to claim my bride” or something, whatever the hell he said.</span></p>
<p><span>And [Angelo] said, “I’m sorry.”</span></p>
<p><span>“What do you mean, you’re sorry?”</span></p>
<p><span>“She’s already married.”</span></p>
<p><span>So when he went back to tell his family [in Chicago], they were not upset. They applauded Mr. Maisano for his ingenuity, for his thinking, you know. He resolved the situation without violence. Okay? Want to hear more, you gotta read the book. (laughs) No, there isn’t that much more.</span></p>
<p><span>Okay, have I answered your question—did I give you enough background, as to how they came together, where they came from and how they came about?</span></p>
<p><span><strong>INTERVIEWER:</strong> I think so. Okay, so let’s dig into some neighborhood-specific things, if you can do that. So our first question for you—you’ve answered this a little bit, but I’d love to hear your response is: What is your association with the </span><span>Greenbush</span><span> neighborhood?</span></p>
<p><span><strong>BJD:</strong> I grew up in the house that my grandfather Maisano, Angelo, built. My mom and dad, when they were married, moved into that. Now, there still was a storefront, but there was an apartment behind and an apartment above. So when my sister was born in ’32, they lived downstairs. And when I was born in (pause) ’84 (interviewer laughs) no, ’39, we lived there.</span></p>
<p><span>So I grew up there, as did my sister. I went to </span><span>St. Joseph’s</span><span> for grade school. I rang the bells at the church. And I was an altar boy. And I would get these Mars Bars—well, not Mars Bars, some kind of a candy bar, looked like a cow pie, from the priest. No, none of them ever made advances, okay? None. Never, okay. And then from grade school, then I went to high school at </span><span>Edgewood</span><span>, but always lived [at </span><span>912 Regent Street</span><span>].</span></p>
<p><span>And that was my anchor. I mean, that was my safe house. I went to the university, graduated, blah-blah. I went out, I lived in eleven states but I could always come back home between jobs, between romances, between whatever. They were always there. So it has been “home” up until my mother—my dad died and my mother had to leave because the house was falling apart. And so she sold it and she goes into a nursing home.</span></p>
<p><span>Anyway, so the association was there. The house was closer to the ‘Bush—I don’t mean distance, I mean emotional connection, was greater than mine. Because when I left, I kind of left everything behind.</span></p>
<p><span>And I never really got back into the [Italian] culture, because I thought the culture as they were portraying it was second-rate. This may offend somebody, but the first Italian Fest that they had, they had some pizza, Domino’s or you know, some pizza—come on, guys. Be authentic or don’t do it at all. And they got better and better, and I had other things to attend to—I didn’t keep track of what was going on.</span></p>
<p><span>However, I was there when the city decided—ah, let’s back up. There was a vote: should we destroy the 'Bush, and relocate everybody and build it up, or should we keep it as it is? Neck and neck—in fact, retaining the 'Bush was probably a bit ahead. And then </span><span>Eagle Heights</span><span> came in. Where are these people from? Not from Madison. [mocking] Oh, we’re liberals, we think we should—</span></p>
<p><span>So, it lost. And then they decided to level everything. Everything was lost. And some of those houses<span><span>—</span></span>it wasn’t a ghetto. Some of those houses were old, but on the inside they were immaculate, nice floors—I mean, complete opposite of what it </span><span>might</span><span> have looked like on the outside.</span></p>
<p><span>So not only did they destroy peoples’ lives and connections with each other, they destroyed ethnic businesses. Now, Di Salvo’s was not part of that, but across the street they tore down grocery stores, gas stations, houses, a Jewish bakery, you know. Unfair.</span></p>
<p><span>What happens? They didn’t put up a parking lot. They tore down the hill—</span><span>Park Street</span><span> used to be a hill—go up, there was Meriter, er, </span><span>Madison General</span><span> [Hospital], there was </span><span>Schwartz’s</span><span> grocery store—or no, not grocery store—p</span><span>harmacy</span><span>, and then you went back down the hill. They leveled the hill, they leveled everything and now it’s not a parking lot<span><span>—</span></span>it’s student housing, it’s clinics, hospital enlargements, everything but a neighborhood. Some of the houses are still standing, on the 800 block, and a couple of buildings on the 900 block—the </span><span>Italian Workmen’s Club</span><span>. Never been there for dinner, but they say it’s terrific.</span></p>
<p><span>My association<span><span>—</span></span>I have memories, memorabilia, stories that I never let go of. So in a lot of ways I think I’ve held on to it closer because I wasn’t there. I’d left, I don’t want to lose this [indicates ephemera], as evidenced by—if you buy a book, there are different categories. The first one, (sound of handwriting) you get my signature. The second one, you get a thank you note on “surprise stationery”—remember I talked about authenticity? (paper rustles) You don’t have to describe what it is.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>INTERVIEWER:</strong> [looking at stationary] Oh, wow.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>BJD:</strong> Yeah, this is right from the forties and fifties.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>INTERVIEWER:</strong> Yeah.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>BJD:</strong> Now I know why I hung on to it. And it depends on how much you want to pay—there are bibs that say “Di Salvo’s” on it, and they were used for pasta, for lobster, yeah. (paper rustling) Now lobster—how much do you think lobster tails would cost back then?</span></p>
<p><span><strong>INTERVIEWER:</strong> Ooh, um<span><span>—</span></span></span></p>
<p><span><strong>BJD:</strong> Well, let me explain. Lobster tail broiled with drawn butter.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>INTERVIEWER:</strong> Oh.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>BJD:</strong> Or deep fried—it’s up to you. Or with oregano sauce. $3.75.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>INTERVIEWER:</strong> Pretty good deal.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>BJD:</strong> Pretty good. Walleye pike fillets, French fried, with French fries, bread? Excuse me, French or broiled </span><span>and</span><span> bread. Be $2.50. Anyway. This is authentic. And that saying, you can’t tell a book by its cover? It’s not true—[indicates cover of book] that’s in the story, that is, you just saw it—parents, relatives from Sicily. A 45-caliber bullet, which, if you pay a thousand bucks, you get the last one. Pretty funny.</span></p>
<p><span>If you go online, it’s kind of zany, you know. I say something about, “You get all the stuff above, plus you get the remaining 45 flat-nose bullet. And the pistol is probably in the bottom of Lake Mendota, floating with the fishes." Or living with the fishes. Anyway. Wow.</span></p>
<p><span>So, all of that I kept. Because I’m not a hoarder, but I don’t like to let go of things. The bibs, the surprise stationery, water glasses that say Di Salvo’s on them. So those<span><span>—</span></span>a friend of mine bought twenty-four, a guy that I know to give to his associates. I tell him, “I think about going to Amazon, to sell more.” He says, “Don’t do it. You are personalizing it, plus, you’re giving people a part of your history, your heritage. You can’t do that through Amazon. You could sell—what do you want, to sell five thousand books and make a buck and a half a book, or do you want to give part of your heritage and your life to other people?"</span></p>
<p><span><strong>INTERVIEWER:</strong> Nice. Well, I would love to hear one of these stories you just referenced—about a person, or a place related to the Greenbush neighborhood history that we should know. Something that<span><span>—</span></span>something that we should know.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>BJD:</strong> (sighs) You know, I thought a lot about that. And everybody has a story about their own family. And family—this family could care less about this family. So, what would be </span><span>meaningful</span><span> for a lot of people? I asked my sister, but she’s too far gone.</span></p>
<p><span>The only thing I could come up with, is, when Park Street was flat<span><span>—</span></span><span><span></span></span>no, excuse me it </span><span>had </span><span>the hill, so you’d get convoys coming up Park Street and down Park Street, turning onto Regent right past our house. And that’s where they would put it into second gear. So, convoy after convoy would come by and you know, World War II was going on.</span></p>
<p><span>And I remember as a little kid, staring at them and they scared the bejesus out of me. And what we used to do<span><span>—</span></span>and I looked it up and found the spelling of it<span><span>—</span></span> but we would [eat] semenzies and gigidis. <br /><br />Semenzies are pumpkin seeds, and you can get recipes—oh, yeah, you’d sprinkle salt—no, these were </span><span>encrusted</span><span> with salt. The pumpkin seed was about this thick [indicates with fingers], these were about that thick with the salt [widens fingers]. And if you’re really good, if you had beaver teeth like I do, or did, you could stick one in your mouth, break it in half, use your tongue to maneuver the seed out of it and then you’d spit it.</span></p>
<p><span>Gigidis are just chickpeas that are roasted, you know, give it flavor. So we would sit there, and eat gigidis and semenzies and spit the pumpkin seeds out as far as we could at the convoys going by. Other than that, yeah, personal things—I got hit in the eye by a rake, or right below the eye—but who cares? Everybody, every kid<span><span>—</span></span>I’m sorry Laura, that’s the only thing I could come up with. Because a lot of people lived in that part of Park Street, and saw those convoys going right through the ‘Bush.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>INTERVIEWER:</strong> No, thank you. Yeah, that’s—</span></p>
<p><span><strong>BJD:</strong> I’m sorry, I wish I could do more than that.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>INTERVIEWER:</strong> No, that’s great. So I guess, why don’t we take a look at number four: share a story about a Greenbush neighborhood community tradition, and if you know of any and if they are still observed by the community or by your family.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>BJD:</strong> Yeah, there is—and I have not been to it, literally, in years—Italian Fest, Festa Italia. That’s improved since its beginning. And some of the families used to practice Feast of St. Joseph and then there was the feast of Saint—what the hell’s the name—oh, referring to a saint as “hell," sorry! Santa Lucia. You couldn’t eat bread, but you could eat gigidis and honey.</span></p>
<p><span>Well, my parents used to do that. And we did make the cuccidati, and the pignolati, and all these wonderful desserts during the holidays and not eat bread for one day. My wife says, "You look at life, or this refrigerator, this kitchen—if you’re out of bread, you’re out of food." (unintelligible) But when I moved away, I lost some of these traditions. My parents got old, and I was gone for twenty-something, twenty-five years, maybe.</span></p>
<p><span>And so I lost—but I still use strained tomatoes. Everybody uses these hotshot pulverizers or whatever<span>—</span>it mixes it up and strains it and gets all the seeds out. Yeah, well, it tastes better if you do it by hand. So it’s a big pan. It’s like you’re sifting for gold, you know, gold nuggets. It’s got lots and lots of teeny holes, big enough for liquid, obviously, but not for seeds. Sit there, and you do it. [grinds palm on table]</span></p>
<p><span>If you have serviceable peasant’s hands<span><span>—[</span></span>shows palm] look at that palm compared to my finger<span><span>—</span></span>and you keep doing it, mushing it together, until it’s dry. When it’s dry and you can’t squeeze another drop out of it, then you start with another scoop.</span></p>
<p><span>The last batch I made last year<span>—</span>the best I’ve ever made. We had organic—we always have organic these days. You’ve gotta have really good tomatoes. You know, they’re plum tomatoes, they’re very very good, and the garlic, and it was terrific. It’s five-star. I really believe that it tastes better if you use your hands whenever possible.</span></p>
<p><span>When I make cookies (noises of grinding with a handle), the nuts (taps, chops on tabletop) just—There’s a line in here [indicates book] about tradition, and I call my dad a “purist." But a purist is not set in its ways—he or she is not set in their way, but they understand the value, the internal satisfaction you get from doing it yourself. And chopping, straining, I mean there are all kinds of things you can refer to. I do not make my own pasta—spaghetti. I mean spaghetti. You can buy better stuff.</span></p>
<p><span>The only traditions are food, which would be butterflying and french-frying the shrimp, making pignolati, little balls of dough—they’re piled up and then you pour, they’re deep fat fried, you know, French fried—and then you pour honey on top of them, and little jimmies and thingies, and then you get to eat them. Anyway. So food remains, but holiday celebrations, ah [indicates casting aside]. But I give food away for Christmas. I don’t give presents. I give food.</span></p>
<p><span>So does that help?</span></p>
<p><span><strong>INTERVIEWER:</strong> It does, yeah. Absolutely, absolutely. Well, thank you so much for sharing your stories.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>BJD:</strong> [old Sicilian man's voice] What, you don’t think I got anything else to say?</span></p>
<p><span><strong>INTERVIEWER:</strong> (laughs) I think we’re out of time!</span></p>
<p><em>end of interview<br /></em></p>
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
31:47
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Oral history interview with Benedict J. Di Salvo
Subject
The topic of the resource
Madison (Wis.)
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright 2017, Benedict J. Di Salvo and Madison Public Library. All rights reserved. For more information, contact Madison Public Library.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Di Salvo, Benedict J.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Damon-Moore, Laura C.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-11-13
Description
An account of the resource
Oral history interview with Benedict J. Di Salvo by Laura Damon-Moore for Madison Public Library's Living History project. Mr. Di Salvo grew up in the Greenbush neighborhood in the 1940s and 1950s, where his father, a Sicilian immigrant, and his mother, whose family is Albanian, owned and ran Di Salvo's Spaghetti House and Seafood on Regent Street. Mr. Di Salvo tells family stories, including his grandfather Benedetto "Ben" Di Salvo's Mafia ties, and reflects on neighborhood traditions.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Wisconsin
Dane County, Wisconsin
Madison, Wisconsin
Language
A language of the resource
en
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Madison Public Library
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
gree-001
gree
gree-001
-
https://omeka.madisonpubliclibrary.org/files/original/d9b547cedefcd8e02fa64cc2f86c4736.jpg
09e3cdbf184d7f23777a885c313b3f61
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Recollection Wisconsin
Still Image
A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Photographs
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Photo of Di Salvo Family
Subject
The topic of the resource
Di Salvo Family
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright ca. 1950, Bill Black. For more information, contact Madison Public Library.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Black, Bill
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
ca. 1950
Description
An account of the resource
Photograph of the Di Salvo family, ca. 1950. Family members pictured left to right:
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Wisconsin
Dane County, Wisconsin
Madison, Wisconsin
gree
gree-001
-
https://omeka.madisonpubliclibrary.org/files/original/a608b7246dbcd58d8d60888b850c82bd.jpg
ba7a3bab9e87b63620a9cd361242b7b0
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Recollection Wisconsin
Still Image
A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Photographs
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Photo of Benedict J. Di Salvo
Subject
The topic of the resource
Benedict J. Di Salvo
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright 2017, Diane Di Salvo. For more information, contact Madison Public Library.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Di Salvo, Diane
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-12-18
Description
An account of the resource
Photograph of Benedict J. Di Salvo, narrator for the Living History project on the Greenbush neighborhood. Benedict is pictured from the waist up, looking at the camera.
gree
gree-001
-
https://omeka.madisonpubliclibrary.org/files/original/ad160c0f4e7abc60edc4ed94b12066dc.jpeg
7bd0132beffe011d544e0a8260fc0c8e
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Recollection Wisconsin
Still Image
A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Photographs
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Photo of Di Salvo's Spaghetti House and Seafood
Subject
The topic of the resource
Restaurants
Di Salvo's Restaurant
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright ca. 1945, Benedict Di Salvo. For more information, contact Madison Public Library.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
ca. 1945
Description
An account of the resource
Photograph of Di Salvo's Spaghetti House and Seafood, located at 810 Regent Street in Madison, Wisconsin. The exterior of the building is pictured, with "Di Salvo's" printed on window awnings to left and right of front entrance.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Wisconsin
Dane County, Wisconsin
Madison, Wisconsin
43.067647, -89.399727
gree
gree-001
-
https://omeka.madisonpubliclibrary.org/files/original/8b1ae14ac4061dea0001943b758b1451.mp3
3121b4cbb4889ce6c488b7b331a37ba4
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Recollection Wisconsin
Sound
A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Sound recordings
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
12:04
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<p><em>INDEX:<br /><br />0:28- GROWING UP IN GREENBUSH NEIGHBORHOOD (AFRICAN AMERICAN AND ITALIAN)<br /><br />3:53- WASHINGTON ELEMENTARY SCHOOL<br /><br />6:06- COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS WITH GRANDMOTHER (FRATERNITY HOUSE; NAACP; MARY BETHUNE CLUB<br /><br />7:58- GREENBUSH BAKERY; JOSIE'S ITALIAN RESTAURANT; MADISON GENERAL HOSPITAL<br /><br />10:35- CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL<br /><br />[START OF RECORDING]</em></p>
<p><strong>INTERVIEWER</strong>: Hello, my name is Laura Damon-Moore. I’m here at the Goodman Community Center. It is January twenty-fourth, and I am speaking with our narrator today. I’m going to have her introduce herself.</p>
<p><strong>EDITH HILLIARD [EH]</strong>: My name is Edith Lawrence Hilliard.<br /><br /></p>
<p><strong>INTERVIEWER</strong>: Hi Edith, it’s so nice to speak with you today. I’m going to open by asking you to tell us a little bit about your and your family’s history in Madison, and where you lived.</p>
<p><strong>EH</strong>: Well, my family has been in Madison for over 108 years. And, um, we lived in the area called Greenbush, on Conklin Court and Mound Street. I remember the address on Conklin Court was 607 Conklin Court. And it was just probably like a three-block area, for Conklin Court. But right on the other side of us there was a grocery store called Frank’s Grocery Store.</p>
<p>Of course it’s no longer there, but I can remember as a child running across the little alley and going over to Frank’s Grocery Store and putting groceries on a charge account, if you will. And then my grandparents would pay on that charge account. So that’s one of the fond memories that I had.</p>
<p>I lived with my grandmother on Conklin Court; I did not live with my parents. So it was my grandparents that I lived with.</p>
<p>The Greenbush area was just a phenomenal area because in that area there were a lot of African-Americans there, and a lot of Italians. And what was very interesting to me is that it was like one big, happy family. The Italian kids and the African-American kids, we just all really kind of blended together as a family.</p>
<p>I can remember, you know, just going outside and playing in the neighborhood, and being at other folks’ homes. And it was never a problem whose house we were at. But the rule was, for all of us, that when the streetlights came on, we had to be at home. And so that was our timeframe. We could be anywhere we wanted in the neighborhood. We could be in anyone’s home in the neighborhood. But when the streetlights came on, we had to be in our house.</p>
<p>And, you know, that’s so different from today, because now I look at my grandchildren and I want to know exactly whose home they’re going to; and not only that, I want to know the people, you know. It’s just a different world now.</p>
<p>When I think about living there, in Greenbush, it was so open and caring and loving. Like I said, it was like one big, happy family because everybody just blended together. If I got in trouble and I was at one of the Italian homes, then that’s where I was reprimanded. And then they would tell my grandmother and then I would be reprimanded again. And in today’s world you can’t even do that, you know, because people are afraid to. So looking back on those times—just absolutely incredible, beautiful memories of blended families, you know, if you will. The whole community was like one big, happy family.</p>
<p><strong>INTERVIEWER:</strong> Thank you. I guess you kind of addressed this already but do you have anything else to add about your association with the Greenbush neighborhood, maybe—?</p>
<p><strong>EH</strong>: Yeah, and still—and I will be seventy years old this year, but I still have friends from way back then from my childhood that we still communicate with each other, do things together, because again, it was like a family, so it was still like a family unit, getting together and doing things.</p>
<p><strong>INTERVIEWER</strong>: Yeah. Can you share a particular story about a person or place related to the Greenbush history that we should know?</p>
<p><strong>EH:</strong> Washington Elementary School. Right now, it’s the Madison Metropolitan School District Building, over on Dayton Street. But when I was growing up, it was an elementary school. And it was my elementary school.</p>
<p>One of the fond memories that I have was—first of all, my grandmother worked on campus. She was the cook at Chi Phi fraternity house. So, I was at Washington Elementary School, and I had decided that I was going to be president of our class. And I was in sixth grade, and so the guys at my grandmother’s fraternity house made up all kinds of posters and slogans and everything for my campaign.</p>
<p>And one of my campaign promises to the kids was that I would get them chocolate milk. (laughs) And I’ve gotta laugh. I didn’t say I would get them chocolate milk for the whole year; I just said “chocolate milk”, so we only had to do that for one time <em>if</em> I won the election.</p>
<p>I also remember that the guys at the fraternity house made up a campaign slogan for me. And my campaign slogan was, “Edie-weedy sure is speedy, vote for Edie, yes indeed-y.”</p>
<p>And I did win the campaign. What’s even funnier—I did, I did—so what's even funnier than that is that now—like I said I’m seventy years old—I sometimes run into some of my old friends and they’ll say, “Hey, Edie-weedy sure is speedy, vote for Edie, yes indeed-y.” (laughs)</p>
<p>I had to laugh because I remember that. And it was just a real fond memory, and it was just a really fun time. And like I said we had the whole school decorated up. It was like a real political campaign, you know, for a sixth grader in elementary school.</p>
<p><strong>INTERVIEWER</strong>: Did they get the chocolate milk?</p>
<p><strong>EH</strong>: They did: one day. One day for the chocolate milk. My grandmother was a little upset that I made that promise, but it was only for a day so she went along with that.</p>
<p><strong>INTERVIEWER:</strong> So you may have addressed this already, too, but the Living History Project is being developed as a way to preserve the day-to-day activities that seem sort of ordinary in the moment, but become extraordinary as time passes and things change. Can you share an ordinary day-to-day story that will show the neighborhood’s extraordinary qualities?</p>
<p><strong>EH:</strong> Well, I guess when I think about that—just getting up in the morning, as a child, and going to school. And then after school, for me, would be going to the fraternity house, because that’s where my grandmother worked. And sitting at the big tables in the fraternity house, doing my homework, and being helped with [homework] by the guys in the fraternity house, which was really nice, and again, a fond memory for me.</p>
<p>As I grew up older, my grandmother was very involved in the African-American community. She was involved in the NAACP. At the time there wasn’t an Urban League, but she was involved with another club called the Mary Bethune Club. And like I say, very actively involved in the community. Those organizations are still going on, and I can remember being able to go to the meetings they were having, as a teenager.</p>
<p>And just really sparked my interest in things that were going on in the Madison community and in the world. And like I say, again, those organizations are still going on. So I just really felt, as a teenager, being a part of what was going on in my own city, in my own little area, by being a part of these organizations with my grandmother.</p>
<p><strong>INTERVIEWER</strong>: What was your grandmother’s name?</p>
<p><strong>EH:</strong> Grace Lawrence.</p>
<p><strong>INTERVIEWER</strong>: I would love to hear, and I know the Greenbush is a little unique in that it was a very close-knit neighborhood, and now it has dispersed because of the urban renewal process in the sixties. Can you share a story about a Greenbush neighborhood community tradition, and if they are still observed by the community or your family today?</p>
<p><strong>EH:</strong> The Greenbush Bakery, which is on Regent Street. It was a tradition to go to that bakery, for the kids—and not just the kids, for the adults also—to go by the Greenbush Bakery, and to go at a time when they were just making the donuts, when they were just coming out nice and fresh.</p>
<p>That was one of the traditions that continues to go on today, because every time I’m in the neighborhood I stop at the Greenbush Bakery and I’ll get a couple of donuts. Because I can remember as a child and as a teenager—my whole life, going to the Greenbush Bakery and getting some donuts.</p>
<p><strong>INTERVIEWER:</strong> Thanks. So are there any other businesses, or institutions, or public gathering places that we should be aware of? These could be things that still exist today, or do not exist.</p>
<p><strong>EH</strong>: Josie’s Italian Restaurant. Just a couple of years ago, it’s been gone. But that was a place that I know we would go and have supper there. It was just a great place to go, and for many years. Just a couple of years ago it went out of business. But that was kind of a neighborhood place where the Italians and the African-Americans would go for a nice family dinner, just to sit down and chat with each other. Gone.</p>
<p>But you know, there’s so many places that were there at the time in the Greenbush area that are all gone now. I’m grateful that the Bakery is still there. But most of the places are gone. I can remember Madison General Hospital being there, and now it’s Meriter Hospital. I remember the design, where you could drive into the circle there, but all of that is gone.</p>
<p><strong>INTERVIEWER:</strong> What else should we know?</p>
<p><strong>EH</strong>: That it was just really a great time. Madison was a real community. There weren’t a lot of African-Americans in the city at the time. And even when I went to high school, Central High School. Now Central High School—right now it’s the Madison College building. I remember going to high school there. It was downtown, and that was a really fun thing to be in a high school that was downtown. So that was a great place, it's gone also.</p>
<p>But that was one of the high schools and all of us went to school together there, so that was a nice comraderie. We still have class reunions and still the same people are coming back to the class reunions, the Italians and the African-Americans. Like I say, I’m seventy years old. I just had my fiftieth class reunion for high school, and [I'm] still interacting with some of those people. I think that’s really rare. Because in a lot of communities people leave, and they just don’t come back. But there’s so many people that stayed here. And so we still get together for the different class reunions and everything, which is really nice. So Central High School was a highlight, yeah, it truly was. So you most definitely should know about that.</p>
<p><em>[END OF RECORDING]</em></p>
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Oral history interview with Edith Lawrence Hilliard
Subject
The topic of the resource
Madison (Wis.)
High school buildings
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright 2018, Edith Lawrence Hilliard and Madison Public Library. For more information, contact Madison Public Library.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Hlliard, Edith Lawrence
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Damon-Moore, Laura C.
Fry, Lynn
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-01-24
Description
An account of the resource
Oral history interview for the Living History Project with Edith Hilliard. Edith speaks to her childhood memories of growing up in the historic Greenbush neighborhood, on Mound Street and Conklin Court. She attended Washington Elementary School and recounts winning an election for sixth grade class president. Edith recalls the close-knit nature of the Greenbush neighborhood and the fact that she still spends time with many former neighbors and Central High School classmates.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Wisconsin
Dane County, Wisconsin
Madison, Wisconsin
Language
A language of the resource
en
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Madison Public Library
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
gree-002
gree
gree-002
-
https://omeka.madisonpubliclibrary.org/files/original/4f42435c64efd097bc95e5eab04d2109.jpg
dd009a53fb7cfe6e93ed398d55ce50fb
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Recollection Wisconsin
Still Image
A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Photographs
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Photo of Edith Hilliard and Nimrod Hilliard III
Subject
The topic of the resource
Edith Hilliard
Nimrod Hilliard III
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright 2018, Tammy Hilliard. For more information, contact Madison Public Library.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-03-02
Description
An account of the resource
Living History Project narrator Edith Hilliard is pictured with her son, Nimrod Hilliard III. A Family History quilt, made by Edith, hangs in the background.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Wisconsin
Dane County, Wisconsin
Madison, Wisconsin
gree
gree-002
-
https://omeka.madisonpubliclibrary.org/files/original/71654085136378f7417e5514365b03f9.jpg
9ad4cc2d32d5a7a72bbbf3f91e38be97
Still Image
A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Photographs
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Photo of Madison Central High School
Subject
The topic of the resource
High school buildings
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright Wisconsin Historical Society. All rights reserved. For more information, contact Wisconsin Historical Society.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Newhouse, John
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1955
Description
An account of the resource
Exterior view of Central High School with cars parked in front.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
gree-002b
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Wisconsin
Dane County, Wisconsin
Madison, Wisconsin
gree
gree-002
gree-002-image
-
https://omeka.madisonpubliclibrary.org/files/original/cd84403abfe25cc597e983f1e7263a7e.mp3
00f171bd3f75ef76990612c683a4214a
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Recollection Wisconsin
Sound
A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Sound recordings
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
1:06:17
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<p><span>INDEX:</span></p>
<p><span>10:00 – MRS. COLLETTI’S PORCH</span></p>
<p><span>14:30 - PROHIBITION </span></p>
<p><span>26:00 - NEIGHBORHOOD DIVERSITY</span></p>
<p><span>33:00 - GRANDMA’S COOKIES</span></p>
<p><span>38:15 - ITALIAN WORKMEN’S CLUB</span></p>
<p><span>41:00 - JOHN ICKE</span></p>
<p><span>48:00 - URBAN RENEWAL IN GREENBUSH</span></p>
<p><span>51:30 - RESPONSE TO URBAN RENEWAL</span></p>
<p><span>1:00:02 - WHERE DID YOU GO ON A DATE?<br /><br /></span></p>
<p><em>[START OF RECORDING]</em></p>
<p><em>[SOUND OF PEOPLE TALKING]</em></p>
<p><strong>FRANK ALFANO (FA):</strong><span> Living History of the Madison Public Library is a pilot effort to work with community members and organizations to gather and preserve Madison history. The community history panel tonight, these distinguished people, sets off an ongoing set of events that will range from one on one interviews to group story sharing and events. Living History is not possible without community members who are willing to share their stories. The first set of events for Living History are place-based, meaning focused on a particular neighborhood; in tonight’s case, the historic Greenbush Neighborhood.</span></p>
<p><span>As you can imagine, once I started looking around, the first place that came to mind is the Greenbush. That’s why we’re here tonight. Upcoming efforts will focus on the East Dayton Neighborhood and South Madison. If you can speak to the history of either of these neighborhoods or know folks who can, please follow up with the people from the library and the City here tonight after we’re done.</span></p>
<p><span>To introduce the panel; we have Nick Baldarotta, from the Italian Workman’s Club; John Caliva, with the Workman’s Club; Katie Stassi-West, with the Italian-American Women’s Club; Sam Moss, a member of the Jewish community, is from the Bush era; and Tony Bruno, who is with the Italian Workman’s Club.</span></p>
<p><span>To introduce two people; Laura Damon-Moore, who is with the Madison Public Library; and Amy Scanlon, who is with the City of Madison Planning Department. They’re the two who contacted us original. With our president back there, Dave Rizzo, it’s sort of comical, they had this whole program worked out [about] why we should get involved with this. We’d be in the Italian Workman’s Club. Probably about five minutes into their presentation, we said, “Give us a date. When do you want to do it?” I think it ruined their whole program, and they’re still wondering what’s going on. <br /><br />(laughter)</span></p>
<p><span>I’ll ask a question and then direct it to each of these people for an answer. We’ve done this before, and some of the answers can be rather interesting.</span></p>
<p><span>First question: what is your association with the Greenbush Neighborhood? Nick?</span></p>
<p><strong>NICK BALDAROTTA (NB):</strong><span> I was born in the Greenbush. I was born right across the street on Park Street. I lived in the neighborhood until I was 21. I know a lot about the Greenbush and the Italian neighborhood that we had and the things that we did. It was a great neighborhood. I don’t think any of us had any keys—didn’t have to lock your doors at night because nobody was going to bother you.</span></p>
<p><span>The biggest thing is that everybody had a porch. In the summertime, there was no air conditioning, everybody’s outside. When you walk through the neighborhood, you have to say hello to everybody, so everybody knows you. So when I was a kid, if I did something wrong—and we never had a telephone—when I got home, my mother would be here like this (laughter), and I was about this far off the ground. So it was a unique neighborhood.</span></p>
<p><strong>FA:</strong><span> You never did anything wrong, though, right?</span></p>
<p><strong>NB: </strong><span>I never did anything right! I kept pleading my case, but my mom just didn’t believe me.</span></p>
<p><strong>FA:</strong><span> All right. John?</span></p>
<p><strong>JOHN CALIVA (JC): </strong><span>I’m John Caliva. I grew up in the Bush—717 Mound Street. I’m a proud Sicilian. My grandmother and grandfather Caliva came over here in 1911 on the</span><span> Italia</span><span>. They came through Louisiana, worked their way up to Madison. My mother’s parents came through Ellis Island, 1913. They all settled in the Bush, one of the best neighborhoods, ever, in all of Dane County, possibly the state, until they had some idiot with a urban renewal project—</span></p>
<p><strong>FA: </strong><span>We’ll get to that later.</span></p>
<p><span>(laughter)</span></p>
<p><strong>JC: </strong><span>Okay. Alright. Fine! Like I said, I’m proud to be here, keep our heritage alive, and hope you people will understand our feelings as we go along. Thanks, Frank.</span></p>
<p><strong>FA:</strong><span> Thank you. Tony? Tony?</span></p>
<p><strong>TONY BRUNO (TB):</strong><span> My turn?</span></p>
<p><strong>FA:</strong><span> Yeah, you’re Tony.</span></p>
<p><strong>TB:</strong><span> I’m Tony Bruno. I grew—the house I lived in was right where Dean Clinic is right across the street here. I lived here in my grandfather’s house. Later on we moved to the end of Regent Street. Tantillo’s Grocery was on the corner of Regent and West Wash. Paley’s junkyard was next to that, and our three-flat was next to that. When I was in sixth grade, we moved to a foreign country—corner of Orchard and Bowen Court down in the Saint James Neighborhood with all the Germans. But managed to hang around here in the Bush. Went to St. Joseph’s Grade School, which is no longer, on the corner there, and St. Joseph’s Church.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>FA:</strong> </span><span>Sammy?</span></p>
<p><strong>SAM MOSS (SM): </strong><span>I was born in 1939 and I was born in Madison here. I’ve lived here most of my life. We had the Milwaukee Bakery, which I’ll talk about later. I moved back to Madison after a corporate career out of the country, in 1972, I think. I’ve been here since then.</span></p>
<p><strong>FA:</strong><span> Thank you. Katie?</span></p>
<p><strong>KATIE STASSI-WEST (KSW):</strong><span> Katie Stassi-West. I grew up mostly on the 800 block of Regent Street in the middle of it, and there were all Italians and Albanians on that block. Actually there were only two Italian families in that whole block all that time. Let’s see—I’m a third generation member of our club. I’ve been a member of our club for 70-some years—can’t believe it. I joined when I was 18 years old. Because you had to be a member—you had to be 18 years old in order to get into the club, and I have a lot of friends right in this whole place right here. My grandfather was one of about five brothers that came over to this country at the same time, and he was a Parisi. All those Parisis had a lot of Parisi children. And on top of that, he had two sisters who were—one married a Cuccia and one married a Cerniglia. So if you had one drop of Parisi blood, and you were related to everybody in that neighborhood. I miss it a lot. I come by here and I just cannot believe what these buildings are doing to our—when we played, the streets were—Regent Street was very narrow at that time. We played in the streets at night, but I’ll tell you about that later, too.</span></p>
<p><strong>TB:</strong><span> My mother’s name was Stassi, so Katie and I are cousins.</span></p>
<p><span>(laughter)</span></p>
<p><strong>FA:</strong><span> They often say anybody in the Bush, they were all cousins, one way or another. (laughter)</span></p>
<p><strong>JC:</strong><span> All </span><span>cuginos</span><span>.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>TB:</strong> </span><span>Everybody were cousins.</span></p>
<p><strong>FA:</strong><span> Parisis and Stassis, and, you know. Okay. Next is: share a story about a person or a place related to Greenbush history that you want people to know. Nick?</span></p>
<p><strong>NB:</strong><span> White Front Grocery Store.</span></p>
<p><strong>JC:</strong><span> All right!</span></p>
<p><strong>NB: </strong><span>White Front Grocery Store was on the corner of Mound Street and South Lake Street, and that was a gathering place for all of us kids. We’d go to the park almost every day, so we’d always meet there. Then we’d go out to Brittingham Park and play, and do other stuff, then come back. It was a gathering place for all the kids in the neighborhood. We had a lot of fun. It was a great place.</span></p>
<p><strong>FA:</strong><span> John?</span></p>
<p><strong>JC:</strong><span> He’s talking about White Front Grocery. That’s my uncle’s grocery store. They never knew his last name; they’d just call him Mr. Jim. White Front.</span></p>
<p><strong>NB:</strong><span> Hey, Mr. Jim, yeah.</span></p>
<p><strong>JC: </strong><span>Last name was Caruso. My favorite place was right down in the next block. Mrs. Coletti’s porch. In the evening, after supper, after everything was done—homework, everything—all of us young men would go to Mrs. Coletti’s porch. We stop either at Mr. Aiello’s, Mr. Jim’s, Mr. Cuccia’s, and get a nickel bag of "semenzies"</span><span>. For you who don’t know what </span><span>semenzies</span><span> are, they’re squash seeds. Salted squash seeds. For a nickel, you get a bag like this. We would sit there and crack </span><span>semenzies</span><span> until your lips parched. (laughter) Or until Mrs. Coletti says, “you’re going to sweep them up, and you’re not going to leave until they’re all gone.” And that was our gathering spot.</span></p>
<p><strong>FA: </strong><span>Okay. Thanks. Tony?</span></p>
<p><strong>TB:</strong><span> Down the street here, next to Buckingham’s Tavern, it used to be Di Salvo’s Grocery Store. Right across the street, Greenbush Monument is there. That used to be Sinaiko’s Junkyard in that area there, and my cousin Dominic and I would sneak in there on Sunday because there was nobody there; they weren’t open on Sunday. And we’d find the leftover batteries from the railroad lanterns—they were all battery operated at that time, and there was always some juice left in that battery. And we’d have a little crystal set, and we’d make a radio from however many batteries we could hook together, and connect it to that little crystal set. We could get—we used to get WGN in Chicago, and we thought that was the greatest thing we ever heard of, was to get all the way to Chicago and listen to the news from Chicago, which was not ever good, but, it was something.</span></p>
<p><strong>FA:</strong><span> Sam?</span></p>
<p><strong>SM:</strong><span> I made some notes on one story that I wanted to tell. It’s an interesting story told to me by my Uncle Simon, known as Buck, original name Moskowski, as all the males in our family were. Mine was changed in the 40s when I was still a minor, so it wasn’t my choice. I was named after my grandfather, who passed away in 1934. He was a baker, original baker, and I wasn’t born until 1938. The name was changed in the mid-40s. If it were up to me, I would not have changed my name because I respected him so much I would not have done that. It was a matter of convenience, I guess, for most of my uncles.</span></p>
<p><span>Anyway, what I wanted to talk about was—which is not really talked about very often—is the era of the prohibition in the Greenbush area, how it impacted here. And I only know it, because I wasn’t alive at that time, from my Uncle—I call him Shim, Simon Buck—what he told me about it. One such family was the Romano family that lived on the 800 block on Milton Street, which doesn’t exist anymore. At least four of the very stout Romano boys I knew—Tony, Frank—I knew him as Fluffy—Ben, and Paul. Paul, also known as Popeye, was a particularly good friend of my Uncle Shim. They were both on the—members of the 1940-1941 Central High School Big 8 championship football team.</span></p>
<p><span>During prohibition era, it was not uncommon for home brewing activity to occur in many Greenbush homes, including the Romanos’. I think the statute of limitations is over on that and they’re all passed away now, so—</span></p>
<p><strong>TB: </strong><span>They’re safe now.</span></p>
<p><span>(laughter)</span></p>
<p><strong>SM:</strong><span> Yeah! The revenuers are not out looking for anyone now. Anyway, the ingredients required to process brew included sugar. Sugar was restricted to the general population by the federal government, so you could only get so much of it; they didn’t want people making the brew. But it wasn’t restricted if you had a bakery. I remember in the old days in our storage area in the back of the bakery, there was 100 pound sacks of flour of various sorts, sugar, salt, and other ingredients that were used in the baking process. Our bakery was opened in 1924 and remained open until the early 50s, for 28 years I believe.</span></p>
<p><span>The philosophy in Greenbush was, you could say, was you scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours. That was the Greenbush store and home philosophy. Our Milwaukee Bakery was protected from vandalism, and sugar was dispersed by our bakery as needed.</span></p>
<p><span>(laughter)</span></p>
<p><span>Shim told me that it was not unusual for him to bring some French bread over to the Romano home for a spaghetti meal. During one such occasion, the Federal Revenuers knocked on the door, and the four big Romano boys blocked the door until they dispersed of the ingredients. (laughs)</span></p>
<p><span>(laughter)</span></p>
<p><span>I don’t know how Paul became known as Popeye—that’s what I always called him—but there was a cartoon in that era with the character named Popeye the One-Eyed Sailor. And I—do you remember that?</span></p>
<p><strong>KSW:</strong><span> Yep, Popeye the sailor man.</span></p>
<p><strong>SM:</strong><span> —who ate spinach and had a girlfriend named Olive Oil. I’m sure Paul ate more pasta than spinach, and I don’t know that he had a girlfriend named Olive Oil. He may have, but I didn’t know that. Both my Uncle Shim and he enlisted in the Navy, so they have that, you know, there was a draft back then, it was no volunteer enlistment then. You were either drafted or you enlisted. And they were in the Navy, both of them.</span></p>
<p><span>After returning, Popeye had tryouts with the Bears, and I remember seeing him play at Breese Stevens Field in 1948 for the, I think the Wausau Muskies, which was a semi-pro team, against a Detroit team that—</span></p>
<p><span>I think he passed away the same year as my mother in 1994. That’s why I remember it, because it’s the same month my mother passed away in—a fairly young man. He was considered by Central High School, Gus Pollock, the football coach, as one of the best of his Italian running backs, and the most versatile of them. There were others, but particularly him. After he returned and tried out for the Bears and played the semi-pro team, he—I think all the Romano brothers that I knew worked for the City of Madison in one capacity or another. Paul was an inspector for the Property Inspector when he passed away. That’s the story I wanted to— (unintelligible)</span></p>
<p><em>audio jumps</em></p>
<p><strong>KSW:</strong><span> Education was very important in our neighborhood. Our—all the parents really didn’t have a good one; they wanted their children to have one. Actually, we produced—we had a doctor, a dentist, a lot of nurses, a court reporter—that was me—(laughs) and they went—most of the kids on our block went to school, went to Central. I went to West because we happened to be living on the other side of Park Street at the time that my brother started school, so we got to go to—</span></p>
<p><span>Summers you played with all of them. It was—the language was terrible, really, and I was right in the middle of them. But I went—after school started, I went to West, and I never swore once, not once all the time I was there, but—just a little cycle, but it was so right, it was so easy to do when you were with all these kids.</span></p>
<p><span>I just had—I just grew up in a great neighborhood. I didn’t realize it at the time how great it was.</span></p>
<p><span>But our people were—we had a lot, we had, I think, about four girls in the WACs, in the WAVES. Every boy, every family had a boy or son in the—that was drafted. But, no, I know—but they, we just—I think about them and I think what they’re doing and I just realize that I’m just older than any of them were at the time, but they were—they did a lot for our neighborhood. Italian boys were very popular, they were very good athletes. So they were very popular and very well respected, too. The girls, we didn't do a lot. We didn't get a chance to do a lot because you were supposed to stay home and learn how to sew and things like that, but i</span>t was a great neighborhood to grow up in. I have very many happy memories.</p>
<p><strong>FA:</strong><span> So the Italian boys were popular [because] they were good looking too?</span></p>
<p><strong>KSW:</strong><span> I know it! They were! (laughter) They are—everybody wanted them. All those American girls, as we called them. (laughter)</span></p>
<p><strong>TB:</strong><span> </span><span>Ameriganis</span><span>!</span><span> Ameriganis</span><span>!</span></p>
<p><strong>FA:</strong><span> All right now. Remember, this is being video-taped. (laughter) This program is being developed—next question—as a way to preserve the day-to-day activities that seem ordinary in the moment, but become extraordinary as time goes on and times change. Share an ordinary day-to-day story that will show the neighborhood’s extraordinary qualities. Katie, we’ll make you first this time.</span></p>
<p><span>KSW: </span><span>Oh great, oh, let’s see. Well, I’d have to go back to education; that’s what did it. We had boys that were going to study in subjects that no one even heard of, you know—would have done 30 years before that—they were very well—the Scaro boys, the Peckara girls—they all went into high—they all got college degrees, they—some have masters, some have PhDs. You probably don’t even know who they—people don’t even know who they are, but they—I remember all of them, and I always wanted to be like that, but I never was quite as smart as they were. My mother wanted me to be a secretary, you know, so I went to business school and got to be a secretary, and I never liked it. So I—that’s when I went into court reporting. I don’t think we have another court reporter in that neighborhood that I can think of, but I just—I got to do things that I never thought I’d be able to do. And I wish I could do them all over again, too.</span></p>
<p><strong>FA:</strong><span> Sam?</span></p>
<p><strong>SM:</strong><span> This is a one day story on—</span></p>
<p><strong>FA:</strong><span> Yeah.</span></p>
<p><strong>SM:</strong><span> —what happened in Greenbush? Well, from Longfellow School, Central High School, we had to walk from Murray Street to Central. One of my very good friends was Albert Smith, and we used to—get to there until I—my grandmother decided I should have a car. I got the—I don’t want to go into the details of the car business. And we used to get to Central—bunch of us—walking, and my cousin Suzy Pikus always wanted to know why she could not ride in the car with us. I don’t know the answer to that. Maybe it was the language we used or what (laughs). I don’t know, but she never did ride in the car with us. And she complained about it!</span></p>
<p><strong>FA: </strong><span>Boy, times sure do change. Tony?</span></p>
<p><strong>TB:</strong><span> My grandfather had a little garden in the backyard, probably as big as this area here—from the treat case to the tables here. He would grow tomatoes, cucumbers, and vegetables that would [be] put up for the winter so he had something to eat in the winter. But that wasn’t enough for him, so he went around to everybody in the neighborhood that had a spare lot next to their house and made a deal with them that, if they let him grow vegetables on that little lot, he’d split whatever he grew with the owner of that house.</span></p>
<p><span>When we moved down to Orchard Street, he tried to do that, and that was kind of a strange thing for that neighborhood. People just didn’t do that. But sooner or later, he talked them into it. After he got the first couple and they got some of his tomatoes, then the resistance went right down. (laughter) Everyone wanted their front yard, or their backyard, or their side yard in a garden where my grandfather could grow vegetables.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>FA:</strong> </span><span>These guys, they tell you the story about the—you know, the (unintelligible) tomato season when they were ready, they always carry the salt shaker in their pocket. (laughter) To do taste tests of the tomatoes in the neighborhood.</span></p>
<p><strong>TB:</strong><span> And apple season. Apple season.</span></p>
<p><strong>JC: </strong><span>What’s the question?</span></p>
<p><strong>FA:</strong><span> (unintelligible)—that seem ordinary in the moment, but become extraordinary as time passes and things change.</span></p>
<p><strong>JC: </strong><span>Me? Is this a test? (laughter) Well, first off, we never knew we were poor. We never knew we were poor. We didn’t know that we are/were of color, or different color. We never locked our houses. In fact, I did not find the key to our house until the bulldozer was in the backyard, and the house started shaking, and the key fell off the ledge. It was a skeleton key. You [could’ve] opened up any door in the Bush.</span></p>
<p><span>Talk about things—starting on one end of our block was the <span style="text-decoration:underline;">Briskelady??</span> club, next door to that was the Neighborhood House daycare center, which was run by Mrs—</span></p>
<p><span><strong>NB:</strong> G</span><span>riggs.</span></p>
<p><strong>JC: —</strong><span>and Ms. Braxton, which later was staffed by a Polish family, the Zmudzinskis. Next to that was the Carvellos, Laternos, us, Calivas, Caruso, Onheibers, Skedara, Mrs. Molesly, the weather lady, the Jewish synagogue across the street, Baptist church, black Baptist church, the Johnsons, Mr. Applebaum the hermit, Steves’ Butcher Shop, Trenal’s fine tomato garden, and the Vitalis, that owned the liquor—</span></p>
<p><strong>FA:</strong><span> What extraordinary qualities did all of that area show you?</span></p>
<p><strong>JC: </strong><span>That we were diversified.</span></p>
<p><strong>FA:</strong><span> OK. Thanks, John.</span></p>
<p><strong>JC:</strong><span> We didn’t know—we didn’t have any boundaries; racial boundaries, color boundaries. Ilana would make pasta on Saturday, feed half the Bush. Mrs. Smith, the black lady, made the best frying pan corn bread in the world with sorghum. We’d all go over there. Mrs. Onheiber would make some Jewish (unintelligible) something. That’s (unintelligible) diversification. That was good quality.</span></p>
<p><strong>FA:</strong><span> Don’t you wish the full circle that—could come back today? Nick?</span></p>
<p><strong>NB:</strong><span> I think the, the best part of the Bush was that everybody knew everybody, so you couldn’t go anyplace without knowing anybody. You knew everybody in the Bush. You got a lot of respect, they’d teach you respect. I never heard my father ever call his friends by just their last name. He called them Mr. Joe, Mr. Smith, Mr—I think, what I take from [that] is that they had a lot of respect for everybody. And that’s what I take away from it.</span></p>
<p><strong>FA: </strong><span>Thank you. Next, oh, this one should be good.</span></p>
<p><strong>TB:</strong><span> Frank. Frank. Frank. Simon, [Sam] Moss’ uncle, who we talked about, was asked one time about how it was to live in the Greenbush, and he said, “Well, we were all in the same boat. We got along because we were all in the same boat, and the name of the boat was poverty.” Best description I’ve ever heard.</span></p>
<p><strong>FA:</strong><span> Let’s see. Share a story about the Greenbush community traditions and if they are still observed by the community today or your family.</span></p>
<p><strong>NB:</strong><span> What was it again?</span></p>
<p><strong>FA:</strong><span> Traditions from when you were growing up to today. Are they still being used, like, in your family, or here at the club, or in general? An example would be like at Christmas, we always had big pasta dinners.</span></p>
<p><strong>NB: </strong><span>Yeah. Yeah. I think every Sunday was our thing. We had spaghetti and meatballs every Sunday, and my father was a great cook. He would cook all of our Saturday and Sunday meals and all of our holiday meals and my mom would cook in between. She was good at making pasta sauces and stuff, but my father would make this—get up early in the morning on Sunday and he’d make the sauce with the meatballs and sausage and some </span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">pambergeloni??</span><span> or whatever. </span></p>
<p><span>My mother would put—when we sat down we—and we ate at 12 o’clock right on the dot. Now, if you wanted to have somebody over for dinner, you could invite anybody you want for dinner, they had to be there at 12 o’clock sharp. We’d go and we’d invite somebody, and 12 o’clock comes and I said “Pa, you know, maybe they’re just getting out of church, maybe they’ll be here in about 10 minutes.” He said, “What time you tell them to be here?” “12 o’clock.” He says, “What time is it?” “12 o’clock.” He said, "12 o’clock? </span><span>Mangia</span><span>.”</span></p>
<p><span>So my ma—my dad wore a white shirt only once, and that was on Sundays. So my mother would put—what, not a dishrag, what do you call [them]?</span></p>
<p><strong>FA:</strong><span> Apron.</span></p>
<p><strong>JC:</strong><span> Yeah, a dishrag. The white one.</span></p>
<p><strong>NB: </strong><span>Yeah! A dishrag. Put two of them around his shirt so he wouldn’t get any sauce on his shirt, right? My dad would—he put a nickel by his plate, and whoever ate their pasta first would get the nickel. He never lost, never. So anyway, my—</span></p>
<p><strong>FA:</strong><span> </span><span>He</span><span> never lost.</span></p>
<p><strong>NB:</strong><span> —after we get through eating, he’d take that thing off like this [action]—had spots on it. My mother yelled at him for 52 Sundays every year. My father would go [action]. And that was that. (laughter)</span></p>
<p><strong>FA:</strong><span> Done? (laughter) I can relate one, and I’m from out east, okay. But back in the fifties, forties, Catholics—we couldn’t eat meat on Friday. And how many times did we have pasta with olive oil and garlic?</span></p>
<p><strong>JC:</strong><span> Oh yeah. Yeah. Like I said. Sunday, Sunday was pasta day.</span></p>
<p><strong>NB:</strong><span> Everybody ate pasta.</span></p>
<p><strong>TB:</strong><span> It was pasta day.</span></p>
<p><strong>JC:</strong><span> To go further, Christmastime. Nana Caruso would make </span><span>cuciadatis,</span><span> the hardest Italian cookie to make. I mean, it was complicated. From soaking the figs, the raisins, the fruit—the candied fruit—with a hand grinder. You clamped it on the table.</span></p>
<p><span>(speaking at the same time)</span></p>
<p><span>She knew to the cookie how many she made. She would lay them out in the spare bedroom on the bed with the white sheet. You trying to be sneaky, you’d fudge one in the middle, right? (laughter) Move the column over? Did not work. </span><span>Did</span><span> </span><span>not</span><span> work. (laughter) Grandma had a broom with about a 20 foot handle on it (laughter) because she never missed! </span><span>Never missed! </span><span>But boy, they were the best—it was worth it! (laughter)</span></p>
<p><strong>FA:</strong><span> It was worth the punishment?</span></p>
<p><strong>JC:</strong><span> It was worth the punishment, man! It was worth the punishment!</span></p>
<p><span><strong>FA:</strong> </span><span>You were a lot of trouble when you were growing up.</span></p>
<p><strong>JC:</strong><span> Yes I was!</span></p>
<p><strong>FA: </strong><span>Katie?</span></p>
<p><strong>KSW: </strong><span>They had a lot of—their traditions were connected with holidays. There was one Mardi Gras one they did—I think—I have—I don’t even know, did we have Mardi Gras? But they had—where they would come in—they had—they would go over to each other’s homes or here at the club house, and they would sit around—they would have the chairs in the big circle, and somebody would go around trying to make that person laugh. And he would go through everything, and once they laughed, he would—the game was called <span style="text-decoration:underline;">moshkada??</span>, and they—he would mark their face with coal. And by the time they finished, they were just all a riot in black. (laughs)</span></p>
<p><span>Their Christmas parties were another tradition here for the children. And I re—Sam—John Raymond was Santa Claus. We sat there and waited for this Santa to come for [an] hour, singing songs, and he would come in—was a couple of years before I found out who he was—but they gave you a bag of candy, and some—maybe an apple or something, and we sang songs for quite a while until this Santa came.</span></p>
<p><span>They were always with hol—the holiday ones were the best that I can remember. But they danced a lot. They would come in here, and they would dance up there. We didn’t have babysitters then, so I got—they dragged us along. And right back here, there was a pool table, and we played around there. When it got late, we were tired, they’d put us on the pool table to sleep. (laughter) And they would have their party. Mr. Salerno would play the accordion, and Mr. Joe Stassi, who was the—did all the taps for all the military things. There were about seven of them. Only two could read music, Mr. Salerno and Mr. Joe Stassi, who was a, had a shoe stop on Main Street about five blocks this side of the Capitol Square.</span></p>
<p><span>He [Stassi] played, of course he did that for years and years, but they were the only two that could, but the others tried, I mean they—I thought they were good, you know, I say. I got to sing “O Sole Mio”, you got to learn all the Italian songs, and they danced a lot, and just had such a good time.</span></p>
<p><strong>FA:</strong><span> Sam?</span></p>
<p><strong>SM:</strong><span> A story about a holiday festival? Is that it? No.</span></p>
<p><strong>FA: </strong><span>Well, a community tradition.</span></p>
<p><strong>SM:</strong><span> Okay. For Halloween, one of my mother’s very good friends was Georgia Cerniglia. We’d always go over to—she would take me over to the Cerniglia’s house before Halloween. Skinny Pete and Buffo (laughs)—they all had nicknames because it was two different families with the same first names, you know, would—first of all, we would get our pumpkins from—my favorite grocery store was the White Front Grocery. We always get, we would get our pumpkin there. That was my very most favorite grocery store.</span></p>
<p><span>Anyway, we would go over to the—Georgia’s house, and many times when we went over there, Buffo and Skinny Pete were— (laughs) they didn’t have a bathroom upstairs, so they had a kind of a tub, you know, in (laughs) the area there that they would be bathing in while we were there. (laughs) Nobody really looked at them and that; they were young, they were kids, you know, and so forth.</span></p>
<p><strong>FA: </strong><span>Remember. This is being recorded!</span></p>
<p><span>(laughter)</span></p>
<p><strong>SM:</strong><span> Anyway, there was a bathroom downstairs on the next floor, or something, I never was down there, so I didn’t know, but Buffo always used to tell me that (laughs) they were in there taking a bath while we were talking, in the—right in the same room, but not where they were, you know?</span></p>
<p><span>Anyway, we would go around to the neighborhood there, and in those days, we didn’t say “trick or treat.” It was “soap or grub.”</span></p>
<p><strong>TB:</strong><span> Soap or grub.</span></p>
<p><strong>SM:</strong><span> Soap or grub. We had a bar of soap, you know, and we would mark the windows, or whatever if we didn’t get—I don’t remember ever doing that myself.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>JC:</strong> </span><span>(throat clearing) Oh, excuse me.</span></p>
<p><strong>SM:</strong><span> Since I’m on camera, I won’t say I did.</span></p>
<p><span>(laughter)</span></p>
<p><strong>TB: </strong><span>Statute of limitations.</span></p>
<p><strong>FA: </strong><span>Statute of limitations might be over. We’ll check. Tony?</span></p>
<p><span>(laughter)</span></p>
<p><strong>SM: </strong><span>I’ve consulted a lawyer on all this, you know? Anyway, we used to have a great time going around to the neighbors and get treats and so forth.</span></p>
<p><strong>FA:</strong><span> Tony?</span></p>
<p><strong>TB:</strong><span> One of the lasting traditions, you’re sitting in right now. This building. This was the cultural center of the neighborhood. Everything happened here—dances. Up until a few years ago, where the bar is now was a stage. And so, there were stage presentations. Funerals were held here, weddings, wedding receptions. The men used to be able to come in here—everybody that was a member had a key, and the only way you could get in the door was with a key. If you didn’t have a key, you didn’t get in. They would come in and play cards, and they would lock the door. And so, the mothers, their wives, would send the kids over to get the father, and have to bang on the door outside until somebody came. (laughs) There wasn’t a phone in here until the 1950’s. They didn’t even have a phone. That’s how—they had—this was their inner sanctum. This was a place where they were able to play cards and be themselves.</span></p>
<p><span>This place has now spawned a lot of other activities that you’re probably familiar with. Festa Italia, we have a golf outing, we have a presentation at the international day, we’re involved in the community, in events like this—talking about the old neighborhood, and a lot of fundraising things.</span></p>
<p><span>One of the traditions of the neighborhood—this is one of the last buildings in the neighborhood. This building, Di Salvo’s old grocery, which is now Buckingham’s. Two houses, one next to Fraboni’s and one on the other side of that parking lot are the last buildings left from the old Greenbush. So, this is a tradition that’s still here.</span></p>
<p><strong>SM:</strong><span> The story I want to tell about somebody who’s been a good friend of mine. We were both at Longfellow Grade School—fella’s name is Tony Fiori. Who—he and I got in a rumble on the hospital—Madison General Hospital hill there. It didn’t last long, and there was no winner or loser, (laughs) but we remained good friends. He became a football and basketball coach. He doesn’t live in the city anymore, but I see him on occasion. And so we made good friends.</span></p>
<p><strong>FA:</strong><span> Did you roll down the hill together?</span></p>
<p><span>(laughter)</span></p>
<p><strong>SM:</strong><span> Yes. Pretty much!</span></p>
<p><span><strong>JC:</strong> </span><span>That was a long hill, man! Remember?</span></p>
<p><strong>FA: </strong><span>Katie?</span></p>
<p><span><strong>KSW:</strong> </span><span>I’m not sure I— (unintelligible) the subject—when this building was planned, they—it was done by—all labor was done by the members of the club. But John Icke, who was a city engineer at that time, took an interest in these men. He hired them every year because they were so loyal and so good, and when they went to build the building, he provided all the equipment they needed—trucks—they—whatever they needed. The only thing that they didn’t do was they had to put the frame or something in. That had to be done professionally. But otherwise, the men did that all by themselves. I remember the outside was—they had—cement sidewalk, stairs going up. The street was very narrow at that time, so it went out for—you came in right about here, at the top of the stairs—yeah, came in here.</span></p>
<p><span>It's amazing how these men, who had never done it before, but they were so—I know my father worked for him for a long time—and they were so loyal that he would hire only these Italian men. And that he—and I know who—I know the John Icke family, but they were very loyal to this club. That’s it.</span></p>
<p><strong>FA:</strong><span> I can tell you from working to maintain this, they built it pretty solid, too. This building was built in 1921, and the major addition in the mid-thirties, and that would be the front as you’re coming in the steps—or coming off the sidewalk, not the steps—indoor plumbing. Other than that, it was out to the back!</span></p>
<p><strong>TB:</strong><span> The </span><span>bacouz</span><span>!</span></p>
<p><span>(laughter)</span></p>
<p><strong>FA:</strong><span> The </span><span>bacouz</span><span>. Sam, like you—if you would, if you wanted to—about changing the name.</span></p>
<p><strong>SM:</strong><span> Yeah.</span></p>
<p><strong>FA: </strong><span>Why you, you know, changing the name, what the benefits of—<br /><br /></span><strong>SM: </strong><span>Well, I think a lot of Italian families as well changed their name to shorten it. But the male members of our family all changed it to Moss. I didn’t have any choice in the matter, and I would not have done it because, as I said, my—I was named after my grandfather—it was Samuel Moskowski, not Moss. His name was never Moss. That’s as best I can explain that.</span></p>
<p><strong>FA:</strong><span> What’s also, Sam, you know, relate to it a little bit. Back when they had the bakery, people wouldn’t buy from a bakery with a Jewish name. So they basically shortened it to Moss.</span></p>
<p><strong>SM:</strong><span> No, the bakery was the Milwaukee Bakery.</span></p>
<p><strong>FA:</strong><span> Milwaukee Bakery they made it, yeah. So, back in those days, it was interesting.</span></p>
<p><em>audio jumps</em></p>
<p><strong>FA:</strong><span> As Halloween approaches, are there any Greenbush ghost stories (laughter) or odd or spooky urban legends? Nick?</span></p>
<p><span><strong>NB:</strong> </span><span>I don’t know of any.</span></p>
<p><strong>TB: </strong><span>We were spooky enough. </span></p>
<p><strong>FA:</strong><span> OK, Yeah. (laughs)</span></p>
<p><strong>JC:</strong><span> Yeah! The yard next to Reverend Peroni’s church was the graveyard for the—oh god darn it—he had the Italian Methodist Church. Reverend Peroni!</span></p>
<p><strong>AUDIENCE MEMBER 2:</strong><span> Are you looking at me?</span></p>
<p><strong>JC:</strong><span> No, no, no!</span></p>
<p><strong>AUDIENCE MEMBER 2:</strong><span> I went to St. Joseph’s!</span></p>
<p><span><strong>JC:</strong> </span><span>I know you were! Yeah. I think there was ghosts in his side yard. Because we were not allowed to go trick or treating to their house. Because Reverend Peroni would not come to the door.</span></p>
<p><strong>NB: </strong><span>Really?</span></p>
<p><strong>JC:</strong><span> Yeah. I think that was ours. Other than that—oh, and were weren’t allowed to go past the boundaries of the Bush, you know. But, other than that. Maybe there were some in Gehrke’s Junkyard, I don’t know.</span></p>
<p><span>(laughter)</span></p>
<p><strong>FA:</strong><span> Katie?</span></p>
<p><strong>KSW:</strong><span> I never went trick or treating.</span></p>
<p><strong>AUDIENCE MEMBER:</strong><span> Someone had to stay and hand out the candy, huh?</span></p>
<p><span><strong>KSW:</strong> </span><span>I know! I never went. I don’t—the boys went, I think, but I was not allowed to go out to go trick or treating, so I never knew what it was about. I never got all that candy. I never got any of that. Very deprived.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>FA:</strong> </span><span>Sam?</span></p>
<p><strong>TB:</strong><span> My grandfather threatened to make me a ghost a couple times, but I never saw any.</span></p>
<p><strong>SM:</strong><span> I don’t—</span></p>
<p><strong>FA:</strong><span> Okay.</span></p>
<p><strong>AUDIENCE MEMBER 1:</strong><span> Wait!</span></p>
<p><strong>FA:</strong><span> Yeah.</span></p>
<p><strong>AUDIENCE MEMBER 1:</strong><span> For those of you who are first generation, your parents (unintelligible) were always born in Sicily, correct?</span></p>
<p><strong>JC: </strong><span>No. My parents [were] born here. My grandparents [were] born in Sicily.</span></p>
<p><strong>AUDIENCE MEMBER 1:</strong><span> Your grandparents—</span></p>
<p><strong>JC:</strong><span> My parents, here.</span></p>
<p><strong>FA: </strong><span>Okay.</span></p>
<p><strong>AUDIENCE MEMBER 1:</strong><span> Do you remember (unintelligible) how they connected the celebration November 2</span><span>nd—</span><span>the feast of— (unintelligible)</span></p>
<p><strong>FA:</strong><span> Do you have any special, you know, festivities around Halloween?</span></p>
<p><span>(cross-conversation)</span></p>
<p><strong>NB:</strong><span> I don’t remember any—</span></p>
<p><strong>AUDIENCE MEMBER 1:</strong><span> Did they tell anything about how—</span></p>
<p><strong>NB:</strong><span> Yes, I under—yeah, I know what it is—</span></p>
<p><strong>AUDIENCE MEMBER 1:</strong><span> November 2</span><span>nd</span><span> was celebrated in Sicily, where the children receive presents from their dead relatives that were surprise—</span></p>
<p><span>(speaking at the same time)</span></p>
<p><span><strong>NB:</strong> </span><span> I don’t recall; maybe I’m too old to remember.</span></p>
<p><strong>AUDIENCE MEMBER 1:</strong><span> Pardon?</span></p>
<p><strong>AUDIENCE MEMBER 2: </strong><span>All Saint’s Day and Halloween.</span></p>
<p><strong>AUDIENCE MEMBER 1: </strong><span>November 2</span><span>nd</span><span> in Sicily. They probably, you know—the first generation, but also were born here, and their parents were (unintelligible) Sicilian. And that’s when, in Sicily, you received—when children expect presents—their home—their dead relatives, especially grandparents, uncles, et cetera. Better if you have a grandparent, the more present given (unintelligible) of course, so—</span></p>
<p><strong>FA:</strong><span> Interesting.</span></p>
<p><strong>AUDIENCE MEMBER 1:</strong><span> They really—it was almost like Halloween. It is like Halloween because the night of all saints, they were all expecting—</span></p>
<p><strong>FA: </strong><span>Now, see, American kids, we get all candy. Much easier.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>AUDIENCE MEMBER 2:</strong> </span><span>Oh! I just looked it up on Google. November 2</span><span>nd</span><span> is the day of the dead. Also celebrated on November 2</span><span>nd</span><span>. All Soul’s Day—considered the day of the dead.</span></p>
<p><strong>FA: </strong><span>Well, you go down to New Orleans, it’s still celebrated that way. Okay. Moving right along—</span></p>
<p><span>(laughter)</span></p>
<p><span>If we don’t move along, we might be here at Christmas. Who knows? Okay. This is the question that I know is in everybody’s mind. Describe some of the businesses, cultural landmarks, and/or physical attributes that were lost to the development in the 60s.</span></p>
<p><strong>JC: </strong><span>Jewish clothing store, Italian meat market, Jewish meat market—</span></p>
<p><strong>FA:</strong><span> Church.</span></p>
<p><strong>JC:</strong><span> Jewish grocery store, black church, Italian Methodist church, Catholic Church, the Key Club, Schwartz’s Pharmacy, Gehrke’s Junkyard, Paley’s Junkyard, Heifetz—anything else?</span></p>
<p><strong>TB: </strong><span>Sinaiko’s.</span></p>
<p><strong>SM: </strong><span>The Neighborhood House.</span></p>
<p><strong>AUDIENCE MEMBER 2: </strong><span>Buccio’s Tavern. Buccio’s Tavern on West Wash—</span></p>
<p>(speaking at the same time)</p>
<p><strong>JC: </strong><span>The Neighborhood House, Buccio’s Tavern, Di Salvo’s, Three Sisters.</span></p>
<p><strong>FA:</strong><span> Okay. Those are all businesses. What about homes? Neighborhoods.</span></p>
<p><span>(cross-conversation)</span></p>
<p><strong>JC: </strong><span>They’re all gone. Mound Street is gone. Milton’s gone.</span></p>
<p><strong>FA:</strong><span> For those of you who don’t know, this is the map that Tony Guastella did of the Bush from the early 60s, late 50s. All the places these guys are talking about you’ll find in this area here. For example, we are up here now, at the Workman’s Club, okay? This is the area—what is it, South Park? Right in through here– the Triangle, it was called, that was taken down in urban renewal, late 50s, early 60s.</span></p>
<p><strong>AUDIENCE MEMBER 2:</strong><span> My dad’s paint store, that he built. Clinton Paint Store got moved down Regent Street when they redeveloped it. Yup.</span></p>
<p><strong>FA:</strong><span> So, anything— any other comments about that development from anybody? Or redevelopment?</span></p>
<p><strong>JC:</strong><span> It’s gone.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>KSW:</strong> </span><span>The Clubhouse wasn’t included in that because they were on the other side of the street there.</span></p>
<p><strong>FA:</strong><span> Who wasn’t?</span></p>
<p><strong>KSW: </strong><span>This Clubhouse.</span></p>
<p><strong>FA:</strong><span> Right. We were on the wrong side of the street. Yeah, fortunately.</span></p>
<p><strong>KSW:</strong><span> But this club was going to be, at one time was gonna be rebuilt. And it would’ve been on the lot where St. Joseph’s Church is on the Beltline. That’s where their plans were headed.</span></p>
<p><strong>JC:</strong><span> Caliva’s Tire and Battery Shop.</span></p>
<p><strong>NB:</strong><span> Initially this Clubhouse.</span></p>
<p><strong>TB:</strong><span> If the question is, what [of] those do we miss, we miss [them] all.</span></p>
<p><strong>FA: </strong><span>Why?</span></p>
<p><strong>SM:</strong><span> Brittingham Park.</span></p>
<p><strong>AUDIENCE MEMBER 2: </strong><span>It’s still there!</span></p>
<p><strong>SM: </strong><span>It’s still there, but it’s not like it was.</span></p>
<p><strong>KSW:</strong><span> It’s not a city park like we had.</span></p>
<p><strong>AUDIENCE MEMBER 3:</strong><span> Losing your identity. The whole Italian identity.</span></p>
<p><strong>AUDIENCE MEMBER 4: </strong><span>No sense of family. The whole area was family.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>AUDIENCE MEMBER 2:</strong> </span><span>Even Southshore Beach, where a lot of Italians were on the south side. West Lakeside.</span></p>
<p><strong>FA: </strong><span>I think one of the things you been hearing about, you know, here in this whole presentation, has been family, neighborhood, you know, everybody’s close, knowing each other. And obviously, when you come in and tear it down, you know, you lose that. I came here in ‘61, and talking to these guys and stuff, you know, you’re never going to regain it, unfortunately. You know, they did things back there during that redevelopment—there is no way you could even think of doing that today. You imagine trying to tear down churches and synagogues and schools for housing? Not in Madison!</span></p>
<p><strong>TB:</strong><span> Try tearing down Williamson Street. See how far you get. (laughs)</span></p>
<p><strong>FA: </strong><span>Yeah! So, okay. Now we’re going to—yeah, Mark?</span></p>
<p><strong>MARK:</strong><span> Could I just probe this slightly there—do you remember the strong expression of emotion from back at that time—with renewal—of somebody who was really angry, or somebody who was really sad? Is there a day that you’re just remembering moving out of your house, and finding—yeah? Tell us about it. What was the anger?</span></p>
<p><strong>JC:</strong><span> Angry? Angry? Huh? First off, the city raped them with no concern of where they were gonna go. I would say that 75% of the elders died of a broken heart. They lost all of their </span><span>compades</span><span>, they lost all their friends. They didn’t know where to go shopping because everything was in walking distance. Get a plate of pasta, clothes, communion, all in the [neighborhood]. Wedding receptions here, get married across the street, have a reception here. They put [them] out—psssh. That’s it. We’re renewing you guys, that’s it!</span></p>
<p><span>My grandmother was one of the last houses to get tore down on Mound Street. She was sitting on the porch, front porch—her black dress on that they wore because she lost her husband. She had a rosary. We had to convince the guy with the bulldozer to work from the backyard up. When her front door of her house hit the porch, she knew it was over.</span></p>
<p><span>Tell me they weren’t mad? Psssh. How—no, really! How would you guys feel? Today. They say, okay, we’re taking your house. Here’s a check for nothing. Goodbye.</span></p>
<p><strong>NB:</strong><span> The biggest thing is, most of these people—because—</span></p>
<p><strong>AUDIENCE MEMBER 2: </strong><span>My grandmother had—she lived on Milton Street, and had to move into the low income housing, remember—what was that called?</span></p>
<p><span><strong>JC:</strong> </span><span>Bayview.</span></p>
<p><strong>AUDIENCE MEMBER 2: </strong><span>Bayview. They did move a number of the elderlies, mostly widowed ladies, into that project over there, my grandmother—</span></p>
<p><strong>JC:</strong><span> Ours went on—my grandmother went on—the one on Lakeside Street.</span></p>
<p><strong>FA:</strong><span> Okay, just a minute—ready?</span></p>
<p><span><strong>AUDIENCE MEMBER 5:</strong> </span><span>Did they get to keep all their stuff?</span></p>
<p><strong>TB:</strong><span> Yes.</span></p>
<p><strong>JC: </strong><span>Yes.</span></p>
<p><strong>FA: </strong><span>Did they get to keep all their stuff?</span></p>
<p><strong>NB:</strong><span> The biggest problem was that, in our neighborhood, everybody spoke Italian. I mean, our parents and everybody spoke Italian. So when they move these people out, they’re in their 70s and 80s, all they spoke is Italian. They went into a neighborhood where they didn’t know their neighbors—who never spoke the word. The only way they could [communicate] was by telephone. That was a really big problem for them. And they—a couple of them—of the ladies almost had a nervous breakdown because they were all by themselves.</span></p>
<p><strong>FA:</strong><span> Sam. Question. We’ve heard about the Italian community. How about the Jewish community? How did they—</span></p>
<p><strong>SM: </strong><span>Well, what happened was, there were two orthodox synagogues: one across the street from our bakery on Murray Street, Adas Jeshurun, and the original one. That was built in 1938, and then the original shul was on the corner of—the southeast corner of Park and Mound Street. And that was Adas Jeshurun, and that’s where I went to Hebrew school, and so forth. That moved out to Randall Street, where it is now—to Randall and Mound. That’s Beth Israel Center now. It’s no longer Orthodox, it’s conservative now.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>AUDIENCE MEMBER 2:</strong> </span><span>Oh, it’s conservative now? My mother catered there. I mean was—Jewish. (laughs) My mother came from the Italian (unintelligible) to become a Jewish caterer in Madison.</span></p>
<p><strong>FA:</strong><span> How about the Jewish families?</span></p>
<p><strong>SM:</strong><span> Well, they dispersed. They dispersed. The kids that I knew went to Central High School, and Central was downgrade. My family moved out in 1957. My mother and I went out to California, where I got my bachelor’s degree. The rest of them moved west, on the west side of Madison. The ones that were left—of my family that was left in Madison.</span></p>
<p><strong>KSW: </strong><span>Saul (unintelligible) is still there, though.</span></p>
<p><strong>SM: </strong><span>Oh yeah, I see him regularly.</span></p>
<p><strong>FA:</strong><span> Okay, now we’re going to open it up to questions and answers. Dave has the microphone; please use that. Phyllis?</span></p>
<p><span><strong>PHYLLIS:</strong> </span><span>Approximately how many residents were there in the Bush? How many people lived there?</span></p>
<p><strong>FA</strong><span><strong>:</strong> Anybody know a number? Roughly?</span></p>
<p><strong>NB:</strong><span> I have no idea.</span></p>
<p><strong>AUDIENCE MEMBER 2:</strong><span> If Buffo was here, he’d know it.</span></p>
<p><strong>TB:</strong><span> Several hundred.</span></p>
<p><strong>FA:</strong><span> I’d say several hundred to a thousand.</span></p>
<p><strong>SM: </strong><span>All families.</span></p>
<p><strong>FA: </strong><span>It also depends on what you’d call the Bush. If everybody lived in the Bush that said they lived in the Bush, you know, it’d be 10,000 people.</span></p>
<p><strong>TB:</strong><span> We’d be in Milwaukee.</span></p>
<p><strong>FA:</strong><span> But 700 to a thousand is what I’ve heard from these guys. Mark?</span></p>
<p><strong>MARK:</strong><span> So, when you said the city raped the Greenbush, are you referring to what they—</span></p>
<p><strong>JC:</strong><span> Money!</span></p>
<p><strong>MARK: </strong><span>That they didn’t—give enough money for the property?</span></p>
<p><strong>NB: </strong><span>Eminent domain.</span></p>
<p><span>(unintelligible)</span></p>
<p><strong>JC:</strong><span> Money! Yeah, if that.</span></p>
<p><strong>MARK:</strong><span> So, do you remember, any of the houses were, your own experience, or your family, of knowing what the property was worth and then knowing how they—</span></p>
<p><strong>JC: </strong><span>Well, the city said my grandmother’s house was worth $3875. Was a two-flat, with a four-stall garage, a garden, porch, upper and lower. Three bedrooms. You know. She got a check for about four grand or something like that. This is in 1964.</span></p>
<p><strong>FA:</strong><span> Supposedly, in the State Historical Society records and stuff like that, the person who was in charge of the Redevelopment Authority, he bought a lot of the houses like this and sold them back to the city, so there was that type of stuff. Also, these guys have told stories about—if you could speak English, you got a certain amount. If you couldn’t speak English, you got a lower amount. So—</span></p>
<p><strong>JC: </strong><span>And they had no guidance, they had no legal—</span></p>
<p><strong>TB:</strong><span> Nowhere.</span></p>
<p><strong>JC: </strong><span>They were elderly. And by that time my mother and father, they had already moved out, and they ended up by Vilas Park by Cerniglias and Parisi, (unintelligible) so the little Italian community like that—they didn’t know. All of sudden, here’s your check, Mrs. Caruso. Per se. She didn’t know. Her husband had passed. It’s condemned. If you didn’t [take the money] they were going to condemn it, let’s put it this way, they’d find something wrong with it.</span></p>
<p><strong>AUDIENCE MEMBER:</strong><span> I remember standing on Park Street with my father, who never cried. And he cried over what was happening. And he talked a lot to me about what this meant, to lose the Bush, that he grew up in. And the stories he’d tell me, I would be jealous that I hadn’t been old enough to experience making the paste on the boards out there, all the responsibilities everybody had—</span></p>
<p><span><strong>TB:</strong> </span><span>Crushing the grapes.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>AUDIENCE MEMBER:</strong> </span><span>Making the sauce, and all of these things, and no locking of the doors. And my father, he explained how, no matter what, you were safe. And no matter what you could turn to anybody, </span><span>anybody</span><span> in the Bush, and they would help you. Anybody. And so I never understood. I kept asking my dad, because I was young, I was less than ten when this happened. And the City would say, oh, it’s just a slum, and the houses and this and that. I would have loved them to have gone in my grandmother’s house.</span></p>
<p><strong>JC: </strong><span>Yes.</span></p>
<p><strong>AUDIENCE MEMBER:</strong><span> You could eat off the floor. It was beautiful.</span></p>
<p><strong>JC: </strong><span>Yes.</span></p>
<p><strong>AUDIENCE MEMBER: </strong><span>We had many relatives, the sons who had families that transitioned through the apartment. It was a fabulous house. It was all about what [the City] wanted to do, and they did it. That’s exactly what my father called it—they raped them. Pennies on the dollar. They considered us nothing but garbage.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>JC:</strong> </span><span>That’s right.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>AUDIENCE MEMBER:</strong> </span><span>And it’s a disgrace.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>JC:</strong> </span><span>They didn’t realize that we </span><span>built</span><span> the Bush on garbage.</span></p>
<p><span>(laughs)</span></p>
<p><strong>FA:</strong><span> Bobby?</span></p>
<p><strong>BOBBY:</strong><span> You know when you talk about what they would pay, my uncle Vito Scurio, they offered him (unintelligible) for his house. He turned it down, so they condemned his house, and gave him the lowest price they could give him. Then they turned around, they sold it to Vince Corona, and moved it over on Mills Street. So the house was condemned, but they sold it.</span></p>
<p><strong>JC: </strong><span>Yes.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>SM:</strong> </span><span>And they moved it. Yeah.</span></p>
<p><strong>FA: </strong><span>Okay. Anything else? Mark?</span></p>
<p><strong>MARK:</strong><span> I can remember my father George and I were walking one day, and he and the other Italian kids would play Tarzan. Tarzan was really popular in those Saturday matinees at the time. And right over by the Park Street viaduct was a house that had two of those trees that grow the big long seed pods. He and the other boys used to pull those down and say they were bananas, and this old Italian lady would come out on her porch and go, “You boys leave that tree alone, you’re gonna kill that tree!” And one day my dad and I were walking along, he said, “Look at that. The whole neighborhood’s gone. All the houses are gone." Businesses—the old Italian lady’s and those trees are still there. And they were up—until they did the bike path and they finally took those out.</span></p>
<p><strong>FA:</strong><span> Interesting. To leave this on a high note, I have a question for the panel members. And I’ll give them a couple of minutes to think about this. I know what [John’s] answer is going to be. Where did you go on a date?</span></p>
<p><span>(laughter)</span></p>
<p><strong>JC: </strong><span>Where did you go on a date?</span></p>
<p><strong>FA: </strong><span>OK, don’t tell a story about you getting stuck in a car!</span></p>
<p><span><strong>NB:</strong> </span><span>With whom?</span></p>
<p><strong>JC:</strong><span> No, I’m not going to—No, no, no.</span></p>
<p><strong>AUDIENCE MEMBER 2: </strong><span>Is this—they’re teenagers?</span></p>
<p><span><strong>FA:</strong> </span><span>As a teenager.</span></p>
<p><strong>JC:</strong><span> Well, the Loft was the meeting—</span></p>
<p><strong>AUDIENCE MEMBER 2:</strong><span> The Loft! On Doty Street?</span></p>
<p><strong>JC:</strong><span> The Loft, or the Neighborhood House. If you were lucky enough to convince the parents of an Italian girl—</span></p>
<p><strong>AUDIENCE MEMBER 2:</strong><span> Good luck with that.</span></p>
<p><span>(laughter)</span></p>
<p><span><strong>JC:</strong> </span><span>If you were good enough to take her out. And she will be home by 9 o’clock.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>AUDIENCE MEMBER:</strong> </span><span>God, I wish I could do that still today.</span></p>
<p><strong>FA:</strong><span> Nick?</span></p>
<p><strong>NB:</strong><span> I’m just trying to think of—</span></p>
<p><strong>JC:</strong><span> Or a movie.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>NB:</strong> </span><span>Yeah.</span></p>
<p><strong>AUDIENCE MEMBER:</strong><span> My mother used to take us down to the Majestic Theater, and the downtown Orpheum. The movies were like twenty-five cents. Saturday morning, they had Flash Gordon, Hopalong Cassidy, Roy Rogers. A lot of people in those days, because I grew up right next to Jimmy’s Spaghetti House, that my parents started. I grew up there, and I was there. I’d get done with school, and she’d pick me up at school, bring me to the restaurant, and I used to work at the restaurant. (speaking at same time) A lot of people used to come to that restaurant, I mean, for dates. A lot of young people. That was the—excuse me, I’m biased, but that was </span><span>the </span><span>restaurant on Regent and Park there. Jimmy’s Spaghetti House. They came from all over, the pictures that my mother had—I can’t find them—Anheuser Busch, you know. Liberace came there, Bob Hope, [Bing] Crosby.</span></p>
<p><strong>FA: </strong><span>Tony? Where’d you take Mary on a date?<br /><br /><strong>TB: </strong>I didn't know Mary then. She was still up in Lodi then.<br /></span></p>
<p><b>FA: </b>Okay.</p>
<p><strong>KSW: </strong><span>We mostly went to the dances at Blessed Sacrament, the Loft. There were a couple other places, but we went there, but we were all together—my cousin John, I don’t know if you remember my cousin John Cuccia, he was my (unintelligible), and he was always right there so I couldn’t do anything wrong. And nobody else around me could. But we went to those dances every Saturday night. No, it was Friday night—Friday night.</span></p>
<p><strong>FA: </strong><span>Friday night dances.</span></p>
<p><strong>JC: </strong><span>Yep.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>KSW:</strong></span><span> Yep.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>TB</strong>:</span><span> Well, we never had any money, so you, we would go down to Vilas Park, go to the zoo. Go to Brittingham. Go swimming. Things that didn’t cost any money, because we didn’t have any money.</span></p>
<p><strong>FA:</strong><span> Well, you’ve told—I’ve heard you [Tony] talk about it—asking a young lady out and going to her house to pick her up—</span></p>
<p><strong>TB:</strong><span> (laughs) Oh, I was there with some friends of mine, and we went to this girl’s house, and the father asked me what my name was. And I told him, and he said, “Is that Italian?” I said “Yes.” He said, “Get out.”</span></p>
<p><span>(laughter)</span></p>
<p><strong>TB:</strong><span> That was in Nakoma.</span></p>
<p><strong>AUDIENCE MEMBER 2:</strong><span> In Nakoma, oh, of course. WASP-y.</span></p>
<p><strong>FA: </strong><span>Sam? You have any trouble with women?</span></p>
<p><strong>SM:</strong><span> (laughs) Ah—</span></p>
<p><strong>FA:</strong><span> Statute of limitations are up on that, too.</span></p>
<p><strong>SM:</strong><span> I remember, my first official date was when I was in high school. And my good friend Harvey Baruch, orthopedic surgeon, retired now, he and I and our dates went to Lombardino's.</span></p>
<p><strong>AUDIENCE MEMBER 2:</strong><span> Lombardino's. Yep.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>KSW:</strong> </span><span>Oh, yeah.</span></p>
<p><strong>SM:</strong><span> But we went to the Loft, at other times, and so forth.</span></p>
<p><em>sound fades</em></p>
<p><em>[END RECORDING]</em></p>
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Community panel on the Greenbush neighborhood
Subject
The topic of the resource
Neighborhoods
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright 2017, Madison Public Library. All rights reserved. For more information, contact Madison Public Library.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Bruno, Tony
Stassi-West, Katie
Moss, Sam
Caliva, John
Baldarotta, Nick
Alfano, Frank
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Clark, Nate
Fry, Lynn
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-10-24
Description
An account of the resource
Sound recording of a community panel discussion on growing up in the Greenbush Neighborhood. Panelists Tony Bruno, Katie Stassi-West, Sam Moss, John Caliva, and Nick Baldarotta speak to their varying experiences as children and teenagers in the historic Greenbush neighborhood. Community traditions and important gathering places, like White Front Grocery, The Loft, Central High School, and numerous family residences are discussed. The panel also speaks to the urban renewal project in the 1960s which razed the neighborhood and the effect this had on the social fabric of the community of Italian, Albanian, Jewish, and African-American families that largely made up the Greenbush. Frank Alfano is panel moderator.
Language
A language of the resource
en
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
gree-003
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Wisconsin
Dane County, Wisconsin
Madison, Wisconsin
gree
gree-003
-
https://omeka.madisonpubliclibrary.org/files/original/e5f6161a57a63bfe46e00227080e32c6.jpg
95bdfe105f46718043db09c3dd312c20
Still Image
A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Photographs
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Photo of White Front Grocery
Subject
The topic of the resource
Grocery trade
Storefronts
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright Wisconsin Historical Society. All rights reserved. For more information, contact Wisconsin Historical Society.
Description
An account of the resource
Front exterior view of the White Front Grocery at 610-612 Mound Street, in the Greenbush neighborhood.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
gree-003a
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Wisconsin
Dane County, Wisconsin
Madison, Wisconsin
gree
gree-003
-
https://omeka.madisonpubliclibrary.org/files/original/51164c4f2c427fa5a032aab12728e1e4.jpg
49879a39cde61cb2263aa6f138d2aa28
Still Image
A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Photographs
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Photo of Joe's Liquor Store
Subject
The topic of the resource
Liquor stores
Storefronts
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright Wisconsin Historical Society. All rights reserved. For more information, contact Wisconsin Historical Society.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1960
Description
An account of the resource
Front exterior view of Joe's Liquor Store at 702 West Washington Avenue in the Greenbush neighborhood.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
gree-003b
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Wisconsin
Dane County, Wisconsin
Madison, Wisconsin
gree
gree-003
-
https://omeka.madisonpubliclibrary.org/files/original/c23d24b20fe6a900a5cbdae6aa7584c4.jpg
90ac37e4f2d2d8e2e32b007f8c6b24a0
Still Image
A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Photographs
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Aerial View of Madison General Hospital
Subject
The topic of the resource
Aerial photographs
Neighborhoods
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright Wisconsin Historical Society. All rights reserved. For more information, contact Wisconsin Historical Society.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Vinje, Arthur M.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1952
Description
An account of the resource
Aerial view of Madison General Hospital, the surrounding Greenbush and Vilas neighborhoods, and Camp Randall in the background.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
gree-003c
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Wisconsin
Dane County, Wisconsin
Madison, Wisconsin
gree
gree-003
-
https://omeka.madisonpubliclibrary.org/files/original/4904edf48a3ebb5636dd031643be8e2e.jpg
49308697df9869d9350b75f919d97f48
Still Image
A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Photographs
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Photo of Neighborhood House
Subject
The topic of the resource
Community centers--Wisconsin
Community centers
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright Wisconsin Historical Society. All rights reserved. For more information, contact Wisconsin Historical Society.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1940
Description
An account of the resource
Exterior view of the Neighborhood House at 766 West Washington Avenue.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
gree-003d
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Wisconsin
Dane County, Wisconsin
Madison, Wisconsin
gree
gree-003
-
https://omeka.madisonpubliclibrary.org/files/original/e49be51fe51da5c5f1b0a05fc6fae003.jpg
8c062b08ac3ac61892b8e1469e9dfcf4
Still Image
A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Photographs
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Photo of Holiday decorating at the Loft
Subject
The topic of the resource
Community centers
Youth
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright Wisconsin Historical Society. All rights reserved. For more information, contact Wisconsin Historical Society.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Vinje, Arthur M.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1951
Description
An account of the resource
Two teenage girls place garland on an artificial Christmas tree in front of a graphic depicting Santa in a sleigh holding a bag of presents. They are Carolyn Ames and Sharon Thompson and they are decorating at the Loft, a teen center.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
gree-003e
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Wisconsin
Dane County, Wisconsin
Madison, Wisconsin
gree
gree-003
-
https://omeka.madisonpubliclibrary.org/files/original/8bb8a7aaf73a0271d0a71b4a6f6cce11.jpg
deb74431f7481e28c1f954aa92e5ec9d
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Recollection Wisconsin
Still Image
A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Photographs
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Photo of St. Joseph's Catholic Church
Subject
The topic of the resource
Church buildings
Catholic church buildings
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright unknown. For more information, contact Madison Public Library.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Stassi, Rosario (Nick)
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
ca. 1960
Description
An account of the resource
Exterior view of St. Joseph's Catholic Church at 10 South Park Street in the Greenbush neighborhood.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
gree-003f
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Wisconsin
Dane County, Wisconsin
Madison, Wisconsin
gree
gree-003
-
https://omeka.madisonpubliclibrary.org/files/original/abe6f9c3856035cabd51cadaf8bbd2c3.jpg
5fce609c27cb3fc894c3bc50935387bf
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Recollection Wisconsin
Still Image
A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Maps
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Hand-drawn map of Greenbush neighborhood
Subject
The topic of the resource
Map drawing
Maps
Neighborhoods
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright Tony Guastella. All rights reserved. For more information, contact Madison Public Library.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Guastella, Tony
Description
An account of the resource
Hand-drawn map of the historic Greenbush / Triangle neighborhood in Madison, Wisconsin.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
gree-003g
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Wisconsin
Dane County, Wisconsin
Madison, Wisconsin
gree
gree-003
-
https://omeka.madisonpubliclibrary.org/files/original/9da49b72188ef410a7ce9fb9419e2a97.jpg
2b539dae34551a98891c2ef3e328d626
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Recollection Wisconsin
Still Image
A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Photographs
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Photo of Merle Sweet
Subject
The topic of the resource
Madison (Wis.)
Merle Sweet
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright Merle Sweet. For more information, contact Madison Public Library.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Sweet, Merle
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015
Description
An account of the resource
Photograph of Merle Sweet. Merle is pictured from the waist up, looking at the camera.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
gree-004a
gree
gree-004
-
https://omeka.madisonpubliclibrary.org/files/original/1bbda9d4bd11f2d4d75870e925767dc3.MP3
7605625022b564efc4e5224420d9b169
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Recollection Wisconsin
Sound
A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Sound recordings
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
01:01:00
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
INDEX:<br />3:50 - THE OLD COUNTRY<br />5:00 - A CITY WITHIN A CITY<br />11:00 - MAX SHAPIRO<br />21:05 - FOURTH OF JULY AT VILAS PARK<br />27:20 - MAX AT UW CHEMISTRY BUILDING<br />32:15 - SCHOOLS & PLAYGROUNDS<br />44:00 - ERRANDS IN THE ‘BUSH<br />51:30 - COMMUNITY CELEBRATIONS<br />1:00:00 - SCHWARTZ PHARMACY WARTIME LETTERS<span><br /></span><br /><em>[START OF RECORDING]</em><br /><span><br /></span><strong>INTERVIEWER:</strong> Good morning, my name is Laura Damon-Moore, I’m here at the Meadowridge Library. It is Monday March 19th, at about eleven o'clock in the morning. I’m here conducting a Living History interview, and I’ll have our narrator introduce himself in just a moment. If you would like to say your name.<br /><span><br /></span><strong>MERLE SWEET [MS]:</strong> Sure. My name is Merle Sweet.<br /><span><br /></span><strong>INTERVIEWER:</strong> Thank you, Mr. Sweet, it’s so nice to talk to you this morning. I will just start off by asking you to tell us a little bit about yourself, and your family’s history here in Madison, where you grew up, and just kind of give us an overview of that.<br /><br /><strong>MS:</strong> Okay. The answer to this question might very well carry over into some of the other questions, but let’s just start—I’m a native Madisonian. I was born at Madison General Hospital. And my parents were also native Madisonians. Born also at Madison General Hospital. My brother and sister, the same. When I was born my parents lived in the Greenbush, which of course we just called “the ‘Bush”. We lived on Milton Street, the first house off of Park Street facing north. <br /><br />And for people, for listeners, if people were listening to this, Milton at one [end], starts out on the far west at Randall Avenue, or Randall Street I guess it is, and continues behind—goes the one block toward Orchard and another block to Charter, which is right behind St. James, another block to Mills, another block to Brooks, and now it’s blocked by the hospital property. But at one time then Mills continued, straight through there to Park, and then all the way through the Greenbush to West Washington Avenue. So that was the widest part of the ‘Bush, the part along, just parallel to Regent Street. <br /><br />So that’s where I lived, but I must tell you that I probably only lived there for four years, before we escaped. That’s maybe not the best choice of words. But, we ultimately did move, but not very far. But going back to that neighborhood, and my family’s history there, my parents as children grew up with their backyards adjacent to one another, one living on Park Street, on the Park and Chandler corner, with the backyard reachable from the other house on Chandler Street, the back yard there. So they grew up, they were kids—they were three years apart, but they knew each other and my mother was the oldest of five, and my father had three brothers and two sisters and he was—he wasn’t the youngest but he was, I think he was third from the youngest, if I’m not mistaken. <span><br /></span><br />So their parents all came from what we always called the “Old Country.” And in our case, there were two “Old Countries”. Three of the four grandparents, both of my dad’s parents and my mother’s mother, my maternal grandmother, came from Russia, but it was just outside of where Kiev is today. And the fourth, my maternal grandfather, who I was closest to of all the grandparents, came from Romania. And they all came as children. I’m not—I never met my paternal grandfather. He passed away before I met him, but I was named after him. Not my first name. What we have in Judaism, you have a Jewish name in addition to your English name, and so I’m named after him. <span><br /></span><br />What else can I tell you about that neighborhood—well, that neighborhood was more than just a neighborhood. It was our city. You didn’t really have many reasons to go outside of it, because everything you needed was within it. In our case, that meant there was a drugstore, that was technically not in it—Schwartz Pharmacy was on the corner of Mound and Park, which would technically be just across the street, you know, would have been on the west side—it was actually on the northwest corner of Mound and Park. And today I suspect that would mean it would be in the parking ramp of UnityPoint Hospital or something like that. As that monster grew north, it’s hard to picture some of the places. So we had the drugstore. <br /><br />We had a grocery store, which is actually a grocery store-delicatessen, which was—you’ve probably heard people talk about it, G and S, it stood for Greenwald & Shackter, these were the two co-owner families. And so you could go there and you would have, you could eat a sandwich there, a deli sandwich, or you could get your groceries there. <span><br /></span><br />And we had, I clearly recall, two kosher butcher shops in the community. And one for sure, now getting to two bakeries, one bakery for sure—the Milwaukee Bakery, the Moskowski family owned the Milwaukee Bakery, and I think that might have been it for bakeries. And then we had two synagogues. <br /><br />And we also had, what was common for everyone in the neighborhood, and that was what was called the Neighborhood House. And this was a community center, but for the kids, what it really meant, this was your preschool, your nursery school experience. And so everyone knew Mrs. Griggs, who was an institution, for how many years, who knows, but she was the nursery school teacher and she had all the kids and she knew everyone. <span><br /></span><br />So I think that pretty well summarizes about the family history in the neighborhood. I obviously regret that my children never had that experience, and you can’t get that anywhere in Madison anymore. I mean, everybody—we were poor, there was no doubt about it, but we didn’t know it. We didn’t think that way at all. Life went on, and that was the Greenbush.<span><br /></span><br /><strong>INTERVIEWER:</strong> Can I just probe that word—<br /><br /><strong>MS:</strong> Sure.<br /><br /><strong>INTERVIEWER:</strong> The word “experience”—so you mentioned that it was sort of a city unto itself, that there were all those businesses right there, is there anything else about that experience—when you say you wish your children had had that experience.<br /><br /><strong>MS:</strong> Yeah, what I’m getting at, more than anything, which probably would address another question later on, but I’ll respond to it now—because the community was almost exclusively Blacks, Jews, and Italians, we didn’t need a Human Relations curriculum in school to learn about similarities and differences between groups of people. We lived it. <span><br /></span><br />The best examples that I can recall came from what I would call “special” or “landmark” days: weddings <i>(</i>fingertips drum on table<i>), </i>funerals, bar mitzvahs, holidays, confirmations, anything that was, so to speak, a one-of-a-kind that would happen now and then. And all you really had to do if you lived there and lived there long enough, all you had to do was to use your eyes and your nose and you knew whose holiday or whose special event it was. And, you just knew something was different on that day and you just accepted that's what was going on. It’s a Black funeral today. It’s an Italian confirmation. But I mentioned earlier that my parents, who were from Russia and Romania, I would say of my many Italian friends, that grew up in the neighborhood, the greater proportion of their ancestors came from Sicily. Yeah, I would say Sicily would be the majority of folks that were Italians. I think that pretty well summarizes it.<span><br /></span><br /><strong>INTERVIEWER: </strong>Thank you. <span><br /></span><br /><strong>MS:</strong> You’re welcome.<br /><br /><strong>INTERVIEWER:</strong> I think one of the next questions is, share a story about a person or place related to the Greenbush history that we should know.<br /><br /><strong>MS: </strong>Sure. Well, I mentioned earlier that my closest grandparent was my maternal grandfather. His name was Max Shapiro. S-h-a-p-i-r-o. And of course he wasn’t a native Madisonian, because he came from Romania. But he might as well have been, because he came here as a elementary aged kid with probably, at the most, a second-grade education. That was it. He married my grandmother here. <br /><br />He had no skills, no education, so he had no skills, so he became a newspaper seller on the street. So you could, you know—people that knew him before I was born, knew him as the guy who was up and down State Street and around the Square hawking newspapers at all hours of the day. So that became the beginning of his life. Ultimately he married, he had five children, my mother was the oldest. Again they lived in the Greenbush, and he continued earning a living by being a hawker, if you will, a person who sold things on the street. <span><br /></span><br />He had a Sunday morning news corner—no, that came later, let me go back to it. He actually had a daily news corner, one of these green wooden stands right where the Park Hotel is today, the Park Motor Inn on the Square. He was on that corner for many, many years. He had newspapers, he had comic books, magazines—and I can’t recall, I think that came before the next corner which was just two blocks east of there where King and Pinckney meet. I have no idea, I haven’t been on the Square in so long, but on that corner he had a green box and he had a room that he rented in that building that he would take his things to when the day was done. And so selling newspapers was in his blood. And that’s really how he made a living. <br /><br />Eventually, when the corners died and there were—you know, all of a sudden in those days you had the drugstores, which in Madison meant Rennebohm’s before the Walgreens brand took over—all the Rennebohm’s then had the same newspapers and other printed material. So, he then—but he did have a Sunday morning corner and that was in front of, I think it’s now probably the YWCA, it was the old Belmont Hotel on Pinckney where it meets Mifflin, yeah, where it meets East Mifflin. <br /><br />And so he would line up his papers there, and I would frequently meet him there, as a little kid, he would go up there at five or five-thirty in the morning. He didn’t drive. He had a glass eye, I don’t know the history behind that, so he had only one eye, and he would take a cab everywhere. That’s how he would do it. Ultimately, and I’m getting ahead of myself but probably one of my greater thrills was when I turned sixteen and got a driver’s license and I could haul him to various places. <br /><br />But I would go up there with him on Sunday mornings frequently, and what those corners were all about is that there were several churches up there. And so people would go to either Mass or Sunday morning service and then either on their way home or between or whatnot, they would stop and buy. And I can name, I know to this day exactly the papers that he sold because I then, eventually, had a corner when I turned sixteen, right by Holy Redeemer on Johnson Street, fifty yards off of State Street. It was right across the street from the Caramel Crisp Shop, and just down from MATC and Central High School. But the <em>Wisconsin State Journal</em>, <em>Milwaukee Journal</em>, the <em>Milwaukee Sentinel</em>. The <em>Journal </em>and <em>Sentinel</em> were two different papers. There were three Chicago papers- the <em>Chicago Tribune</em>, the <em>Chicago Sun-Times</em>, they both still exist, but there was also the <em>Chicago American</em>, which was the third Chicago paper then, and then the <em>Minneapolis Tribune</em> would still exist, and the <em>St Paul Pioneer Press</em>. <span><br /></span><br />And those papers would be delivered in the middle of the night, and they would be in bundles and they would be wired up, and my grandfather would take his handy-dandy wire cutters and open the bundles and line everything up and if it was a windy day, and it often was, he would put bricks on top of the piles. And, of course, in those days, just like when I had my corner, Johnson Street was a busy thoroughfare, and people would often, if they weren’t necessarily going to church, they might drive by, going somewhere through town. And so we would then just, the person would pull up to the curb and you’d hand them a paper.<br /><br />(Interviewer laughs)<br /><br />And of course, Christmas time, was something just like all news carriers today look forward to tips, that was a big time, the winter holidays, getting something extra to take home. But I recall, when I had my corner, when I was sixteen, if I—I can’t recall how many papers I would sell on a Sunday morning, but we’d finish, I’d get up there to my corner at about five-thirty and leave at about, be checked out by about one, and if I took home eight dollars in profit it was a great day. It was a great day.<span><br /></span><br /><strong>INTERVIEWER:</strong> Wow.<br /><br /><strong>MS:</strong> So that was a big thing for us. And of course just like anyone else, he [my grandfather] took advantage of his skills of hawking. I don’t know when it all happened, but he got into the helium balloon business. He was the only helium balloon, gas balloons— “Hey, we got gas balloons here!” And he sold helium balloons at the entrance to Vilas Park all summer long. So he wasn’t in the park, he was right at the entrance. <br /><br />And he would go there on Sundays from his Sunday corner, he would actually get—the cab would take him home, and he would, they would load up his gas tanks and he would have his satchels full of balloons and string and other assorted things that he sold, and take them right down to Vilas. And then he’d stay down there ‘til like five or six and get a cab ride home. So, and then with those balloons, he then also sold them—we had several parades a year on the Square. I don’t know how many there are now, one or two? Is there a Thanksgiving parade, I think, something like that?<span><br /></span><br /><strong>INTERVIEWER:</strong> St. Patrick’s Day, just happened.<br /><br /><strong>MS:</strong> There was a Memorial Day parade, there probably was a Labor Day parade, high school bands marched, I can’t necessarily recall floats, there may have been floats, but there were clowns and convertible cars and things like that. This was the focus, this is what Madison turned out to do, to go to. And so between his two sons, my two uncles, and me and a couple of my cousins, and sometimes he’d hire other kids, and he’d set up his place on the Square, maybe on the inside of the Square, right across from State Street, and then he would sell from there, but he would also then hand out twenty to my cousin to take and walk around and sell, and then my cousin would come back and grab another twenty.<span><br /></span><br /><strong>INTERVIEWER: </strong>How much did one balloon cost?<br /><br /><strong>MS:</strong> Twenty cents. I think twenty cents. And oh, I have such memories of those days and of course, that really just went to supplement- I guess I’ll say supplement, his income. But it was necessary. We would go home after and on the dining room table, all of us would empty our pockets. Our hands would be filthy from touching all this, all these crunched up dollar bills and change, and we'd put them on the table, and I’m not sure what my grandmother might have brought out to make it a festive time for us to snack on. We’d separate, get all the coins organized and eventually put them in wrappers, and that was, those were the balloon days.<br /><br />And the other piece of the balloon days, was-well, two other pieces. July 4th. Now you know July 4th as Warner Park. Not us. We knew July 4th as Vilas Park. What we called the “Monkey Island”; the island between the big part of the park and the warming house, there’s actually an island there, there’s a bridge to get—I’m sure it’s still there. And so that’s where they set up those base demonstrations. But again, my grandfather set up at the entrance to Vilas Park; couldn’t go in it, either couldn’t or wouldn’t, I think probably couldn’t. And that was a big selling night as well. <span><br /></span><br />And the final one, which I have just the fondest memories of, I'm probably going to give some advertisements but they’re all gone anyway now. New Year’s Eve. New Year’s Eve, for the—I’m trying to think of an appropriate word without being rude and without being condescending either. People would go out and celebrate New Year’s Eve. And one way that people would celebrate would be to go to planned festive occasions. The Madison Club, which is still in its place, uptown just by the City-County Building. Rohde’s Steak House, which has been gone for years and years and years, Rohde’s Steak House was, I think, on West Main Street, just off of Bedford. Oh my goodness, how could I forget- the Edgewater Hotel. The Edgewater Hotel had a festive—see, these were places that had dinners, and then bands and whatnot. And so they would decorate; they would have a balloon tied on to each chair. And there was a place on East Washington Avenue, I think it was the Ace of Clubs, or the Ace of Spades- it was sort of a nightclub kind of thing, it was a little different than the Madison Club and the Edgewater. <span><br /></span><br />But every year, we would start at about one in the afternoon. And of course the person who got the latest delivery-I shouldn’t say delivery, the latest work done- had their balloons last longer, because helium doesn’t last forever. But we would make sure that we, you know—there was a technique to blowing them up, on this tank, and there was a gauge that was attached to it, and you put the balloon on there and you’d squeeze the gauge and the balloon would fill. You couldn’t fill it too much, if you filled it too much it’d pop right in front of you, and if you didn’t fill it enough it was just a loser. (laughs)<span><br /></span><br />(Interviewer laughs)<br /><br />And then once they were filled, you would spin it, so that at the end, that helped cut off any leakage. And then once you spun it, then you would take—he [my grandfather] would have his twine pre-cut, and we’d just take one piece and wrap it around, tie it. Go home with raw hands. But, I remember that very, very clearly. There were usually a cousin or two, and my grandfather and I would be the one that would blow up those balloons. So that’s what it was, it was the balloon stuff and then, eventually he expanded his repertoire a step further and that was selling pennants and souvenirs at Wisconsin football games. <span><br /></span><br />So today of course there’s—I don’t even know if anybody sells anything like pennants, you know, now it’s all t-shirts and hats, it’s all sportswear. But then you had the pins (indicating pin on chest), you had the Northwestern pin and the Purdue pin. And we would work for hours cutting ribbon, and you’d have the pin and you’d set the maroon and gold ribbons for Minnesota Gophers and then put the little pin in the back, and sometimes these things had trinkets, like a little football, a gold football that’d be attached to it. So there was some, there was getting ready for the big day. And he’d build these boards, display boards, because he would hire then kids, teenagers to set up corners in different places outside the stadium. <br /><br />So, I spent a lot of hours with him, and when I went off to college, well, backtracking again, back to when I got that driver’s license, and particularly when I had my corner, we had this routine on Sundays. My dad would let me take the family car on Sunday morning, and I’d drop him [my grandfather] off at his corner on Pinckney Street and go to my corner and then when I was checked out I’d go pick him up, we’d go back to the house and if it was the summer, we’d get his tanks and load them in, down to Vilas Park. And New Year’s Eve, same kind of thing, well, I shouldn’t say same kind of thing for New Year’s Eve, we’d load up the tanks, and make sure everything was marked- this was for the Edgewater, this is for Rohde’s.<span><br /></span><br /><strong>INTERVIEWER:</strong> Would you put the filled balloons in the car, then?<span><br /></span><br /><strong>MS:</strong> No no, we would blow them up there [at the hotels].<br /><br /><strong>INTERVIEWER:</strong> Gotcha, I’m picturing a Cadillac or something packed full of-<br /><br /><strong>MS: </strong>Hah, right, right. Yeah, no, everything was blown up on the spot.<span><br /></span><br /><strong>INTERVIEWER:</strong> On-site.<br /><br /><strong>MS:</strong> And so like when we blew up at Edgewater, we might blow up—we’d be in a little room, and we’d blow them up, and then we might then take them out to the ballroom, and they would have their employees then tie them on chairs out there. <br /><br />And at Vilas he would maybe have twenty blown up and he might tie, might take the strings of all twenty and tie them to something so that if someone came along and bought two he could easily, and he’d- [indicating a bunch of balloons] “Pick ‘em out, pick ‘em out, you want a pink one? Balloons here- we’ve got helium balloons!” He was, people knew him because he was out in public all the time. <span><br /></span><br />And then, you know, as the economy continued to progress, he had to search for more income and he ultimately became a custodian at the university. He was assigned to the old chemistry building on University Avenue. I’m not sure what that building is now, but when the explosion took place at the physics building, I think in 196— no, he was already gone by that time. But, he was real close to where the Sterling Hall bombing took place. I remember then, too, when he worked—and we just lived at 23 North Mills. We had escaped the Greenbush, but we were out of it by two blocks. Two blocks west from the Regent/Park corner, over to Mills Street, and then about four houses north. It was a two-flat. My parents lived on second floor, and my grandparents lived on first floor. And my grandfather had all his stuff down in the basement, all his goods. <span><br /></span><br />But he would, where he would then walk when he had his—I would say his “day job” but it was really, like from four until midnight. That was his shift at the chemistry building. But of course, having the work ethic that he had, he wouldn’t arrive at four. He’d leave the house at about quarter to two, for a five-block walk. But he would, I can picture him sitting there in his big chair, listening to the noon news on the radio, dozing. And then once that was over it was time to get ready to go to work. <br /><br />His first stop was Rennebohm’s. He went out of his way to go to the Rennebohm’s on the corner of—it's where the Business School is today, so it was on the corner of Park and University, there was an old Rennebohm’s there. He would go in there and have a cup of coffee, and then he would cross the street and get on the north side of University Avenue, and then walk down University to the chemistry building, which had its far end on Orchard Street. And then he would go into his, the custodian, I guess, supply room and the people who were going to be coming on would get in there, and they would meet with the people who were just leaving. <br /><br />And I accompanied him many times but mostly where I accompanied him was in the summer, when I could stay up later, I would walk up, not often alone, so often with my sister or brother, we would walk up to either Dayton or Johnson and meet him as he would come down from work down Mills Street. <br /><br />The other thing that he would do, we would sometimes meet him during his dinner hour and across the street from the chemistry building was McArdle Lab. This, I think McArdle Lab still might be—that’s the old University Hospital. And they had all kinds of animals for research, and so it was like our private zoo. We’d go in there and you’d hear these animals squawking and whatnot and he’d show us what was there, and then off we’d go, this might have been about seven o’clock at night, when they would have their dinner hour break, that's what it would be. <span><br /></span><br />So needless to say I have my fondest memories of him. He was honest. Caring. He was a real role model. He had to support his family. I guess I probably thought of him as a provider, not only providing for his family but providing some income for other young kids to make some extra, not a living, of course, but to earn something on the side. So that’s a major memory. <br /><br />And I don’t think I mentioned it, but of course anybody who grew up in the ‘Bush, not only did we go to Mrs. Griggs for the nursery school, but then we went on to Longfellow Elementary School, where my parents went, my brother and sister as well, and anyone who lived there. Of course now it’s gone through several ownerships and it’s privately owned as a condo, I believe. Condo and/or apartments, I’m not sure. <span><br /></span><br />But in those days it was Longfellow, and we not only were there during school hours, but in the summer we’d go to that playground and we would play as young, as twelve and thirteen year olds we would play what we endearingly called “tennis-baseball”. Could just be two kids, that’s all it took. We often went to Washington School, which is where the Board of Education building is today. So that was going a little bit out of our neighborhood, but not far, not far, because you can see how close it from Regent Street up to the Kohl Center and the Kohl Center is right across the street from what was the Washington School. And so all it took was a bat, and some tennis balls, and you could play one-on-one against one another and we spent many hours on the playgrounds, doing those kinds of things, as well as the summer recreation- what I call “green boxes”. There was a Tot Lot on Mills Street, on the west side of Mills Street in the middle of the block, between Dayton and Johnson. So they had like, what we called “gimp”. Do you know what gimp is?<span><br /></span><br /><strong>INTERVIEWER:</strong> I’ve heard of it.<br /><br /><strong>MS:</strong> You could make bracelets, and necklaces and keychains, there must be a- a more formal word, but we called it gimp, and they’d sell it by the yard and it came in all colors, and they’d teach you—do you want to do a lazy daisy design, or round, or square. It was quite intricate, and people, kids would learn it as first, second, third graders, and would spend hours doing that.<br /><br /><strong>INTERVIEWER:</strong> Huh, I’ll have to look in to that.<br /><br /><strong>MS:</strong> Yeah, I have no idea if anybody still does gimp. But we all knew gimp. <br /><br />Also on those playgrounds, we, you did horseshoes, and washers. Washers and horseshoes, of course, were very similar. Washers, there was a hole that you would try to get it in, horseshoes there was a big peg that you would try to get your horseshoe around. And then of course all the group games of soccer—kickball, is what we would call it. It wasn’t actually soccer like people play today, it was more like a baseball with a rubber ball kind of thing. <br /><br />Then after Longfellow we all went to Central Junior High and Central Senior High. I think the boundaries—the west boundary I know was Randall Avenue, or Randall Street I guess it is called, and so if you lived west of that you went on to West [High School]. And I’m not sure exactly where the east boundary was-there were just three high schools, Central, East, and West. There were two other high schools, but they were not public high schools. Edgewood was around then, very low-enrollment school but it was there. And then Wisconsin High. Wisconsin High was like a university-owned and -run high school. Often kids of university faculty went to that school, not exclusively, but that was the mindset, I think, that those of us who weren’t there, thought did go there. They used student teachers from the School of Education to get their training on the high school level there. So those were the schools. But again I don’t know anyone from the ‘Bush that ever went to—I think probably there were some people from the ‘Bush that did go to Edgewood, I wouldn’t be surprised. But the majority went to Central. <span><br /></span><br />And that was life as we knew it. I can’t recall if I mentioned to you on the phone or not, but as I grew up then, at 23 North Mills, kids in those days thrived on bikes. Whether it was bikes to school or bikes to friends’ houses or to explore or whatnot. So then the city got a little larger. Now I’m probably beyond the scope of this interview, but instead of just being the Greenbush itself, I would say for me personally my northern boundary became the shore of Lake Mendota, like maybe from Picnic Point running east to the Union, you know, we would bike up that way. And then running south to Lake Wingra. And what we called Murphy’s Creek, which is Wingra Creek, and which runs from Vilas Park all the way right out into Lake Monona. And then on the east, as far as Brittingham Park, and then on the west, just up to Monroe Street. <br /><br />We never crossed Monroe Street. People who lived on— we were always sort of warned, if you lived on the other side of Monroe Street—they weren’t our class of people, they were beyond us. So that was our—Brittingham Park, to Monroe Street. Vilas Park back up to Lake Mendota. That’s where we were. Hours and hours at school playgrounds, at Vilas Park playing ball, in the street. <span><br /></span><br />I have a memory from that neighborhood, just outside the ‘Bush that we lived in, 21 and 23 North Mills. Buses came regularly, city buses came right by— I think they still do. Our house, as several of them were there, two- or three-flats. They all had like a series of steps leading from the sidewalk up to the porch level, and then there might be two doors, one to get in the first floor, one to go up the stairs to the second floor, and if there’s a third floor, you continue walking up. <br /><br />Most of those homes had big porches so it was not unusual, first of all, on summer nights, to see Blacks, Jews, and Italians gathering on somebody’s porch. And there might have been, someone might have brought some fruit, or something to chew on, something crunchy. And people would sit, and they would gab, and the kids would play catch on the street or play kick the can or chase or hide and seek. <br /><br />We didn’t need the people on the porch to do those things, we would be out there doing those things whether they were there or not, (background noise) and then when big rains would come, and the buses, the streets would—I do recall, it was both Park Street under the viaduct, do you know where the via—is it still there? Yeah, it’s still there. They rebuilt it though, it was rebuilt in recent years. But for years you’d always see a picture the day after a flood, you’d always see a picture in the newspaper of kids in their swimming suits, walking in waist-high water under the viaduct.<span><br /></span><br /><strong>INTERVIEWER:</strong> Oh.<br /><br /><strong>MS:</strong> We never, I can’t recall that we ever walked, it never got that high on Mills, but when the buses would come down, we’d always have contests to see how high up (indicating on chest) the water would come on the steps. We often got water in the basement. This wasn’t an everyday occurrence, of course. But I have those memories, I’m sure anybody who lived there during that time has those same memories of buses and water, being spread all over.<br /><br />(Fingers drum on table)<br /><br />I mentioned some of those places earlier, this goes to “share a story about a person or a place”, related, and again it goes back to my grandfather. <br /><br />Once we had—the first move actually out of the Greenbush was to the 1100 block of Spring Street. I don’t know if you know Spring- Spring Street is parallel to Regent, and it is the first street—it’s in the block that is just due south of the university heating plant. And there was a three-flat, and we lived in that three-flat for not very long, before we then moved back again, closer toward the ‘Bush at 23 North Mills. And there were homes just like ours on both sides of the streets, but as a kid I recall them demolishing several of the homes across from us, and they made a big parking lot out of it. The drum and bugle corps, the Madison drum and bugle corps used to use that parking lot on summer evenings for practices, and so there was some good I guess that came out of it, you had some entertainment. But I’m sure it’s still a parking lot today, I’m quite sure. <span><br /></span><br />But back to my grandfather, again, living at 23 North Mills, even though we were there, the ‘Bush hadn’t gone through the closure yet. So everything that we needed was still in there. And so we would set out, my grandmother would give him [my grandfather] errands, and the errands would always be morning errands because he was working, he had to take his nap at noon and he had to get up to his custodial job. So in the mornings we would go into the ‘Bush, hand-in-hand as the story goes, and—<br /><br />I don’t know how we pulled this off, without a cart or backpacks or anything of the sort. But we would go to G and S and get whatever groceries were needed. And, of course, those weren’t big shopping days compared to what families go through today. But we would make the stops: G and S, the butcher shop, the bakery. And I have to make one comment about the butcher shop. In those days the butcher shop, I believe there were two, and the one that we went to, and I think probably all butcher shops in those days, the butcher would put sawdust or wood shavings on the floor, to absorb blood. And so the story was, that as soon as my grandfather opened that door, to the butcher shop, I’d walk in there and do my best baseball slide across the floor on those shavings.<br /><br />(Interviewer laughs)<br /><br />What else is a seven year old going to do? I can’t recall getting any blood on me or anything like that. But I recall being on the floor in those butcher shops. Finally we’d get those groceries and one of the stops we would get, we would buy bagels, freshly, I’m sure at the Milwaukee Bakery, and then we would stop at an Italian store, it was either on Murray or Frances, could’ve been Di Salvo’s, I’m not sure. It was on the corner of where either Murray or Frances meet Regent. And we would go in and get a—I’m not sure what those containers are called, but it's the containers that you see Chinese food coming in today. <span><br /></span><br /><strong>INTERVIEWER:</strong> Like a takeout?<span><br /></span><br /><strong>MS: </strong>Yeah, a takeout, yeah yeah, but we’d get black olives. So there’d we be, carrying the groceries down Regent Street, and ripping open a bagel, sharing a bagel, and reaching in and having black olives. That was like, having a fine steak. That was neat. That was neat. So those are my memories. My grandfather, I wasn’t with him when he passed away, I went off to college, eventually, after high school. Then my grandmother died, I think, my senior year of high school and then he died the following year. <span><br /></span><br />I didn’t say much about my grandmother, but I was very close to her, too. My maternal grandmother. Because they lived on first floor. Because my brother, was allergic to everything, and so my grandparents had three bedrooms on first floor. They always rented out the front bedroom to a university student, to a grad student. And then they had the back bedroom, and then there was a middle room empty. So some time, I guess I probably was in high school, and it was decided that I was going to be sleeping downstairs. So, of course, my grandmother spoiled me big-time.<br /><span><br /></span>(Interviewer laughs)<br /><br /><strong>MS:</strong> And I would get home late from school, might have been after basketball practice, or whatever it was, I would get home late from school, and of course everybody’d already eaten upstairs and my grandmother would make me my own special meal. And as long as I was down there, why would I go up to my, my bedroom was there, why would I go upstairs? And we’d sit and watch television. And I remember Burns and Allen [sp], lot of comedies that my grandparents would watch—my grandfather wasn’t around to see much of that, he listened to the radio a lot. And I recall laying there—my grandmother sitting on one end of the couch and I’d be laying on the other and I’d just be so tickled I would push my toes into her upper legs, I’m sure it hurt her, but I have that recollection of doing that. <span><br /></span><br />So that's my grandparents. The reason I didn’t dwell on much on my dad’s side, is because for whatever, even my dad and his three brothers and two sisters grew up in Madison, after they finished high school at Central, all of them went to Central, the three brothers and one sister and my grandmother moved to Milwaukee. I have no idea what that was. So all my Sweet first—there are a lot of Sweets in Madison, but they weren’t first cousins or immediate family. My first cousin Sweets all grew up in Milwaukee, and for anybody who listens to this, the Sherman Park area in Milwaukee, the Sherman Park neighborhood where Milwaukee Washington High School, that’s where all those cousins attended, that’s where they lived. So we would go into Milwaukee, to visit cousins, and they would come to us as well. But I wasn’t nearly as close to my grandmother Sweet as I was to my grandparents, the Shapiros here in Madison.<span><br /></span><br />Um, I mentioned running the errands, I mentioned human relations, I mentioned Central—<span><br /></span><br />Oh, you know a drawing compass? What a drawing compass is—you probably were introduced to it in geometry. So the real scope of our lives, if you had a giant compass and put the pointer down right in the middle of the intersection of Regent and Park, and stretched the rest of it wide so you could draw a circle, if that circle could reach the Monona shore—I’m blanking on the, where people ice-fish all the time—<span><br /></span><br /><strong>INTERVIEWER:</strong> Monona Bay. <br /><br /><strong>MS:</strong> Monona Bay. Thank you. If it could reach Monona Bay, wherever it would land out, that really was our city. We didn’t have any reason to go to the east side, or the north side, or the far west side, whatever the far west side was. We had no reason to go there. So that’s the neighborhood. There’s the question about community traditions and, or, family traditions. The community doesn’t exist anymore. <span><br /></span><br />The Italian community still has an annual—Italia, Italian Fest I believe it’s called. It’s grown, wow. I’ve gone to it, over the years, because friends of mine have—bring their children to it as well. But, Jews have not had anything quite like that. Actually, in many ways, only in recent years, Blacks in Madison started a tradition at Penn Park, I’m trying to think of the name of it—they would get this thing going right before, it would be a gathering, a big festival gathering right before the school year would begin. It was usually in August- I shouldn’t say was, I believe it still is, in August and I’m blanking on what that’s called. I’ve gone to that, on several occasions. But there really isn’t—well, there is, the Madison Jewish Federation, several years ago, bought what they called the Goodman Campus- it’s way out PD past the university golf course, and that’s where Camp Shalom is in the summer. And a lot of other activities. They have a couple of large group gatherings out there. But these aren’t the Greenbush families. These are people who moved to Madison in more recent years. <span><br /></span><br />I would say therereally isn’t a community gathering particularly of the Jews from those days. But family gatherings of course, naturally go on for holidays and things like that. The Passover holiday is coming up in a week and a half now, and we’ll be spending some of those days with—we have three children, two children, I said three—two children, two sons, and we’ll be spending time with one of them and his family for the Passover holiday. But I think, I think, Laura, I probably covered most of the things on here if you want to probe any further on anything that I maybe started and didn’t finish.<br /><br /><strong>INTERVIEWER:</strong> Yeah, I think the one question that frequently comes up when we talk about that neighborhood, is the impact of the urban renewal activities that happened there, and I just wonder if you have any impressions of that [time].<span><br /></span><br /><strong>MS: </strong> We had already moved out, although our ties were still strong. I think anyone you interview about this would likely say the same thing. There were promises made, that it was going to get torn down. And rebuilt. Better. Better quality. And people would be, hopefully, would come back. I don’t know if I should say that they would be invited back, or encouraged to come back- but it never happened. <span><br /></span><br />Now, on the north end, Bayview, the Bayview community was built. And I believe the initial occupants were Southeast Asians that came as immigrants. Eventually I came back to Madison to first teach and then became a school principal in Madison, so when I was principal at Randall School we had many of the children from the Bayview neighborhood that would, that were in attendance. But the Triangle never drew back the people that left.<br /><br />I guess my memory, in my mind, I say that the Black families that left went just a little bit further south, on both sides of Park Street, on the Penn Park side and where Lincoln School is now, in the Magnolia Lane area just off of Badger Road. <span><br /></span><br />The Italian families, I think, initially went south also but I think it was almost exclusively between Fish Hatchery and Park, so behind what was then the Burr Oaks bowling alley—that area was known as Burr Oaks at one time, there was even a golf course there in the Burr Oaks Golf Course. Right now Lincoln Elementary School is the center of that neighborhood. <span><br /></span><br />And the Jews moved just a little bit further west, and so by 1948 or '49, Beth Israel Center, the synagogue was built that replaced—there were two synagogues in the Greenbush, and they were replaced by Beth Israel Center, and so the people wanted to be within walking distance. So people often were in what I call the “presidents’ streets”: Madison, Monroe, Harrison, Jefferson, the streets just off Monroe Street. And streets just beyond Monroe as well; West Lawn, Keyes, in that area. Things changed later on, when people went further west yet. But that’s, when it closed down, and the bulldozers came in, that’s where people went. I don’t know the history of, what was the term you used, I blanking again on the term you used, renewal.<span><br /></span><br /><strong>INTERVIEWER:</strong> Urban renewal.<span><br /></span><br /><strong>MS:</strong> Yeah, urban renewal. I mean, urban renewal was going on everywhere in the country at that time. And what I’m wondering is if people ever did come back to their neighborhoods. I mean there’s no doubt there’s all kinds of condos now, just off from the west Main area, Doty area, sort of between there and downtown. And then, of course, the high-rises along West Wash, and now of course East Wash is getting loaded that way, too. But the Greenbush just never did take much back in. <span><br /></span><br />One other thing, a recollection that I have from that neighborhood, I know it’s in my mind, it really couldn’t be the one or two feet that I’m thinking of, there was hardly any space between two buildings. You would, you might want to find a shortcut to go from one street to the street behind it, and instead of going around the corner to the streets that were maybe north and south you would try to cut through and I recall some places that you just had to just squeeze to get through. And in the summer the grass snakes, the green and black grass snakes seemed to always find a place where my foot would go, and I just—or the ball would fall and you’d reach down to pick up a ball and you’d be right next to a snake. <br /><br />Back to Schwartz's Pharmacy; probably others have talked about this place, again it was just across the street from the official Triangle, but this was a real gathering place. And during the war years, particularly when, well, people that had lived in the Greenbush, they would go off in the service and instead of writing back home, writing cards to their family, they would mail their card to Schwartz Pharmacy and they’d be posted up there. You’d walk in there to get a cherry Coke or to get medicine or do whatever you were going to do, and you would read all about maybe the person who was twelve years older than you who you knew, who you admired from afar, who was now in Germany, in the army. And so that’s, that was a big-time gathering place.<span><br /></span><br /><strong>INTERVIEWER:</strong> So really writing to the neighborhood, to share their news. Wow.<span><br /></span><br /><strong>MS: </strong>Exactly. Yeah. Those are my memories. Those are my memories. I’m probably going to walk away from here today and say, “Why didn’t I tell her this.” But those are the things that I remember the most. And, of course, I spent most of the time dwelling on my maternal grandparents, my maternal grandfather in particular. The cemetery of course is here, and so all my relatives, my parents, my grandparents, are at Forest Hills. I’ll be at Forest Hills. And I hope that it’s a while, but that’s just part of living in Madison. For those of us that are natives, this is what we do. <br /><br /><strong>INTERVIEWER:</strong> Thank you.<span><br /></span><br /><strong>MS:</strong> You’re welcome. I hope this—<br /><br /><em>[END OF RECORDING]</em>
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Oral history interview with Merle Sweet
Subject
The topic of the resource
Madison (Wis.)
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright 2018, Merle Sweet and Madison Public Library. All rights reserved. For more information, contact Madison Public Library.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Sweet, Merle
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Damon-Moore, Laura
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-03-19
Description
An account of the resource
Oral history interview with Merle Sweet for the Living History Project. Merle recounts his family's history in the Greenbush neighborhood and nearby on Mills Street. He tells several family stories about his maternal grandfather, Max Shapiro, who was a newspaper and helium balloon vendor in downtown Madison for many years. Merle talks about popular play and recreational spots for youth in the Greenbush neighborhood, including school playgrounds and the Park Street viaduct.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Madison, Wisconsin
Dane County, Wisconsin
Wisconsin
Language
A language of the resource
en
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
gree-004
gree
gree-004
-
https://omeka.madisonpubliclibrary.org/files/original/a5bb3ce3486e32010f2c81f23cde39a2.jpg
f473d1bd3298467396f12b7a7c91c1a9
Still Image
A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Photographs
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Photograph of Monkey Island
Subject
The topic of the resource
Madison (Wis.)
Zoos
Parks--Wisconsin
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright Wisconsin Historical Society. All right reserved. For more information, contact the Wisconsin Historical Society.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Hone, Harold N.
Description
An account of the resource
Spectators looking at the Monkey Island at Vilas Park Zoo (Henry Vilas Zoo). This is one of many images photographed by Harold Hone for "Wisconsin: A Guide to the Badger State."
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Madison, Wisconsin
Dane County, Wisconsin
Wisconsin
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
gree-004b
gree
gree-004
-
https://omeka.madisonpubliclibrary.org/files/original/5d0656fb3526bcb8118a19602212c717.jpg
581588a3ef89a00979cb67df3f5f7e9f
Still Image
A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Photographs
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Photograph of Rohde's Supper Club
Subject
The topic of the resource
Madison (Wis.)
Restaurants
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright Wisconsin Historical Society. All rights reserved. For more information, contact Wisconsin Historical Society.
Description
An account of the resource
Exterior view of Rohde's Supper Club, located at 613 West Main Street.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Madison, Wisconsin
Dane County, Wisconsin
Wisconsin
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
gree-004c
gree
gree-004
-
https://omeka.madisonpubliclibrary.org/files/original/02a232f64214f05ab5dd30382bf8b374.jpg
f2f557fc39baab36668eb65b7053ec06
Still Image
A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Photographs
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Photograph of Madison Club
Subject
The topic of the resource
Madison (Wis.)
Clubs
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright Wisconsin Historical Society. All rights reserved. For more information, contact Wisconsin Historical Society.
Description
An account of the resource
Exterior view of the Madison Club, located at 5 East Wilson Street.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Madison, Wisconsin
Dane County, Wisconsin
Wisconsin
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
gree-004d
gree
gree-004
-
https://omeka.madisonpubliclibrary.org/files/original/d88e6a79133efcdfd7883337e94216f4.jpg
ab8d0ecf131bac52e21a5a335fb6db28
Still Image
A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Photographs
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Photograph of Rennebohm's on University Avenue
Subject
The topic of the resource
Madison (Wis.)
Drugstores
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright Wisconsin Historical Society. All rights reserved. For more information, contact the Wisconsin Historical Society.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Photoart House (Firm)
Description
An account of the resource
Interior of the Rennebohm Drug Store #7 at 901 University Avenue, with the soda fountain, two soda jerks, and the general sales area.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Madison, Wisconsin
Dane County, Wisconsin
Wisconsin
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
gree-004e
gree
gree-004
gree-004-image
-
https://omeka.madisonpubliclibrary.org/files/original/fe6e8400360da4d0536f535ce9c0e240.jpeg
c0ec4f4190433470916635eb5825adf1
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Recollection Wisconsin
Still Image
A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Newspapers
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
News clipping of Max Shapiro
Subject
The topic of the resource
Madison (Wis.)
Max Shapiro
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright Capitol Newspapers. All rights reserved. For more information, contact Capitol Newspapers.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Parker, Cedric
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1942-04-20
Description
An account of the resource
Newspaper clipping featuring newspaper vendor Max Shapiro with his new news stand.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Madison, Wisconsin
Dane County, Wisconsin
Wisconsin
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
gree-004f
gree
gree-004
-
https://omeka.madisonpubliclibrary.org/files/original/a0b8abf0ffe55c0cf22cf2788dc3a66a.jpg
68ae79bc9e9f73b6149dba17983ba5b4
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Recollection Wisconsin
Still Image
A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Newspapers
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Photograph of Max Shapiro
Subject
The topic of the resource
Madison (Wis.)
Newspaper vendors
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright Capitol Newspapers. All rights reserved. For more information, contact Capitol Newspapers.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
ca. 1948
Description
An account of the resource
Newspaper clipping featuring newspaper vendor Max Shapiro hawking newspapers outside his news stand in downtown Madison.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Madison, Wisconsin
Dane County, Wisconsin
Wisconsin
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
gree-004g
gree
gree-004
-
https://omeka.madisonpubliclibrary.org/files/original/bf234a9f10e1a980bffbeac961522184.jpg
e7610d65c530b7bbfd16390975957a71
Still Image
A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Photographs
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Photograph of Doyle Administration Building (Washington School)
Subject
The topic of the resource
School buildings
Elementary school buildings
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright Wisconsin Historical Society. All rights reserved. For more information, contact Wisconsin Historical Society.
Description
An account of the resource
Photograph of exterior of the Ruth Bachhuber Doyle Administration Building (historic name: Washington School), located at 545 West Dayton Street.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Madison, Wisconsin
Dane County, Wisconsin
Wisconsin
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
gree-002c
gree
gree-002
-
https://omeka.madisonpubliclibrary.org/files/original/85e6adcf7d36c97aa667db634791f67f.jpg
b8651ef833fb54240ad8dada7b33c3b5
Still Image
A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Book covers
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Book cover of Sicilian Loves: A love story of food and family
Subject
The topic of the resource
Book covers
Sicilian Americans
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright Benedict J. Di Salvo. All rights reserved. For more information, contact Madison Public Library.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Di Salvo, Benedict J.
Language
A language of the resource
en
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
gree-001e
gree
gree-001