Wall Street Journal / Greater New York Section - July 29, 2011
"The Mayor of Arthur Avenue"
By Sumathi Reddy
Much has changed over the years on Arthur Avenue in Belmont, the Little Italy of the Bronx. Italians made way for Albanians who made way for Mexicans, resulting in streets where empanadas sell alongside shops boasting Italian tomatoes (straight from the homeland) near a church that features pasta and taco nights and a bilingual priest. But there was one part of the neighborhood that everyone could always rely on: Joe.
His name was Joe Liberatore, but here they called him Little Joe or the mayor of Arthur Avenue. The 92-year-old patriarch was a fixture at the Arthur Avenue Retail Market and reportedly the last of the original merchants, and so news of his death has made a dwindling community step back and remember the man in the context of a neighborhood clinging on to its past as an Italian stronghold. "He was the first merchant in the market and he's been there in the same spot ever since," says Frank Franz, chairman of the Belmont Business Improvement District and a lifelong resident. "His home was here, his church was here. He never wandered more than seven blocks."
Mr. Franz isn't much different. The 57-year-old lives in the same house that he grew up in and that his family has owned for 101 years, and he doesn't plan to leave. "There's a handful of us that just won't let go," he said. Mr. Liberatore died on Monday due to complications related to his advanced age, according to his family. A widower, he had five children, 10 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. He raised his family in Belmont and like many families, his children grew up and one by one they left. Most moved to Westchester, one went to Queens. Joe stayed.
"This was his life," said Joseph J. Liberatore, one of his sons. Mr. Liberatore was born in Connecticut but raised in Italy, returning to the U.S. at 17. He started off as a pushcart vendor, buying his cart for $25, according to Joseph and his brother Richard Liberatore. Standing five feet, three inches, he would ride the Third Avenue elevated railroad to Washington Market in downtown Manhattan in the wee hours of the morning and haul his daily produce to the Bronx, said family members. On cold days, the story has it, vendors burned newspapers to stay warm. In 1940, as part of an effort to get pushcart vendors off the streets, Mayor Fiorello La Guardia opened the Arthur Avenue Retail Market, among others. More than 100 peddlers crammed into the market. Joe was among them, selling his fruits and vegetables during 12-hour work days that got his five children through school. In the 1970s, Joe shifted his business and began selling plants and flowers and seeds, along with seasonal vegetables. There were Italian seeds to grow San Marzano tomatoes and basil. Potted plants and gardening tools. He renamed the business Garden of Plenty. The number of retailers in the market dwindled (there are just eight now, including a bakery run by an Albanian and a stall where Spanish-speaking employees hand-roll cigars).
But Joe stayed. Joe was the only merchant with his own entrance to the market. His rules of business were simple: stand, never sit; keep your hands out, not in your pockets. He was a man of few words. Some of his favorite sayings: "If it grows here, we have it. In season or out." "If you don't see it, ask Joe."
On days when he closed, he would tell the community why. "Closed for Grandson's baptism," one of his signs read. Politicians came to the market and always snapped photos with Joe. He met mayors and governors and the photos in his stall include one with Hillary Clinton. "From one mayor to another" is how Mayor Michael Bloomberg began a 2009 letter to Joe, before going on to wish him a happy 90th birthday. "Mayor La Guardia certainly knew what he was doing when he took you off the streets, because your constituents on Arthur Avenue have reaped the rewards ever since," the letter said. "Not only do they know where to go to get the best tomato plants in town, they also know where to turn for sound advice about what's best for the neighborhood."
When the local church needed something, or a neighbor required a lending hand, Joe was there to help, say neighborhood stalwarts and family members. He was a Yankees fan. He liked wrestling before there was a WWE, and he went to local boxing matches. He tended his garden. He was pious, volunteering as an usher at Our Lady of Mount Carmel every Sunday morning at the family Mass. When his health deteriorated, a priest would often visit him at home. "He was a faithful parishioner and volunteer," said Elizabeth Mannini, a lifelong resident who works in the church. "He was just a gentle soul and a humble man. He was one of those men, like your Grandpa."
In recent years, Joe's son Richard took over, with Joe playing more of a consulting role. As his sons walked into a local coffee shop this week, they exchanged Italian words of mourning with one after another area resident. Flowers have poured in and hundreds of people have come from near and far to honor Joe's memory. People like Gina DiNatale, an 83-year-old woman with an Italian accent, who walked with her cane to D'Bari Funeral Home on Wednesday to pay her respects at the wake. Ms. DiNatale is from the same town in Italy as Joe: Villa Sant'Angelo in the Abruzzo region. "I saw him every day because I passed by the market," she said. "He was a very nice man, a very respected man." There are men and women like Joe in neighborhoods across the city, those who stayed when most everyone they knew left and everything around them changed. And really, Joe wasn't around as much over the past year. The proud man who never took anything but vitamins until the age of 90 and who once hid his cane in public was suffering from poor health. He was in and out of the hospital. His visits to the market and even church were much more sporadic. But people still talk about him as the bespectacled man who would wish them well from the front door of the market, a man who personified an era whose time passed long ago.
Write to Sumathi Reddy at sumathi.reddy@wsj.com
"The Mayor of Arthur Avenue"
By Sumathi Reddy
Much has changed over the years on Arthur Avenue in Belmont, the Little Italy of the Bronx. Italians made way for Albanians who made way for Mexicans, resulting in streets where empanadas sell alongside shops boasting Italian tomatoes (straight from the homeland) near a church that features pasta and taco nights and a bilingual priest. But there was one part of the neighborhood that everyone could always rely on: Joe.
His name was Joe Liberatore, but here they called him Little Joe or the mayor of Arthur Avenue. The 92-year-old patriarch was a fixture at the Arthur Avenue Retail Market and reportedly the last of the original merchants, and so news of his death has made a dwindling community step back and remember the man in the context of a neighborhood clinging on to its past as an Italian stronghold. "He was the first merchant in the market and he's been there in the same spot ever since," says Frank Franz, chairman of the Belmont Business Improvement District and a lifelong resident. "His home was here, his church was here. He never wandered more than seven blocks."
Mr. Franz isn't much different. The 57-year-old lives in the same house that he grew up in and that his family has owned for 101 years, and he doesn't plan to leave. "There's a handful of us that just won't let go," he said. Mr. Liberatore died on Monday due to complications related to his advanced age, according to his family. A widower, he had five children, 10 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. He raised his family in Belmont and like many families, his children grew up and one by one they left. Most moved to Westchester, one went to Queens. Joe stayed.
"This was his life," said Joseph J. Liberatore, one of his sons. Mr. Liberatore was born in Connecticut but raised in Italy, returning to the U.S. at 17. He started off as a pushcart vendor, buying his cart for $25, according to Joseph and his brother Richard Liberatore. Standing five feet, three inches, he would ride the Third Avenue elevated railroad to Washington Market in downtown Manhattan in the wee hours of the morning and haul his daily produce to the Bronx, said family members. On cold days, the story has it, vendors burned newspapers to stay warm. In 1940, as part of an effort to get pushcart vendors off the streets, Mayor Fiorello La Guardia opened the Arthur Avenue Retail Market, among others. More than 100 peddlers crammed into the market. Joe was among them, selling his fruits and vegetables during 12-hour work days that got his five children through school. In the 1970s, Joe shifted his business and began selling plants and flowers and seeds, along with seasonal vegetables. There were Italian seeds to grow San Marzano tomatoes and basil. Potted plants and gardening tools. He renamed the business Garden of Plenty. The number of retailers in the market dwindled (there are just eight now, including a bakery run by an Albanian and a stall where Spanish-speaking employees hand-roll cigars).
But Joe stayed. Joe was the only merchant with his own entrance to the market. His rules of business were simple: stand, never sit; keep your hands out, not in your pockets. He was a man of few words. Some of his favorite sayings: "If it grows here, we have it. In season or out." "If you don't see it, ask Joe."
On days when he closed, he would tell the community why. "Closed for Grandson's baptism," one of his signs read. Politicians came to the market and always snapped photos with Joe. He met mayors and governors and the photos in his stall include one with Hillary Clinton. "From one mayor to another" is how Mayor Michael Bloomberg began a 2009 letter to Joe, before going on to wish him a happy 90th birthday. "Mayor La Guardia certainly knew what he was doing when he took you off the streets, because your constituents on Arthur Avenue have reaped the rewards ever since," the letter said. "Not only do they know where to go to get the best tomato plants in town, they also know where to turn for sound advice about what's best for the neighborhood."
When the local church needed something, or a neighbor required a lending hand, Joe was there to help, say neighborhood stalwarts and family members. He was a Yankees fan. He liked wrestling before there was a WWE, and he went to local boxing matches. He tended his garden. He was pious, volunteering as an usher at Our Lady of Mount Carmel every Sunday morning at the family Mass. When his health deteriorated, a priest would often visit him at home. "He was a faithful parishioner and volunteer," said Elizabeth Mannini, a lifelong resident who works in the church. "He was just a gentle soul and a humble man. He was one of those men, like your Grandpa."
In recent years, Joe's son Richard took over, with Joe playing more of a consulting role. As his sons walked into a local coffee shop this week, they exchanged Italian words of mourning with one after another area resident. Flowers have poured in and hundreds of people have come from near and far to honor Joe's memory. People like Gina DiNatale, an 83-year-old woman with an Italian accent, who walked with her cane to D'Bari Funeral Home on Wednesday to pay her respects at the wake. Ms. DiNatale is from the same town in Italy as Joe: Villa Sant'Angelo in the Abruzzo region. "I saw him every day because I passed by the market," she said. "He was a very nice man, a very respected man." There are men and women like Joe in neighborhoods across the city, those who stayed when most everyone they knew left and everything around them changed. And really, Joe wasn't around as much over the past year. The proud man who never took anything but vitamins until the age of 90 and who once hid his cane in public was suffering from poor health. He was in and out of the hospital. His visits to the market and even church were much more sporadic. But people still talk about him as the bespectacled man who would wish them well from the front door of the market, a man who personified an era whose time passed long ago.
Write to Sumathi Reddy at sumathi.reddy@wsj.com