An Interview with Paul Golio
The following are comments from an interview with Paul Golio that was done on March 26, 19998. The Interview was conducted by Ellen and Nathaniel Klein. The comments are based upon Mr. Golio's reading of Life of a River Village.
Immigrants from Zungoli, p. 53 & 54
I think these are the Cannolas. Pasquale Cannola and his wife. He was a tailor if I’m not mistaken, and he lived where the library is, and then he lived above what is now Sisters Flowers. That was a nice family. I remember Louie, there were five or six of them.
Page 116-117
This is Miss Tisi. And the Cottens. This might be Tommy, there’s John, there’s quite a few o them. Eddie died when he was very young. Good kid, very good kid. They came over with my dad. It was early in the 1900's, 1905, 1910, something like that. They migrated from Italy to better themselves really. My father lived on a farm. His father was a baker. But you know, you want more. It’s like living in Minnesota on a farm; you want to see New York, you want to see the bright lights. And sometimes when you come from a rural area, there’s not too far you can go, you know what I mean. You can only go so high, and I think that’s why a lot of them left Europe. If you notice, the town has an Italian influence. A lot of Italian stucco. They’re very good people. They were hard-working people. They never took nothing for nothing. They come over more or less to better themselves. Everybody thought there was gold in the streets.
Italian Fiestas, page 116-117
They had the feast of Mother Carmella. And then you got Saint Gennaro, you got about four different feast days to hold every year. Saint Anthony’s feast. This [in the photo] was a rare occasion of it. It used to be yearly–every summer you looked forward to at least two or three of them. They would carry the saint through the streets like down on Arthur Avenue or Mulberry Street in Little Italy. My father used to say the biggest sinners run up with the biggest amount of money! But you pinned the $20 bill, the $10 bill, and this was their way of paying back God, I guess, by being religious. The women are more religious than the men.
So why did they stop having the feasts? Maybe the Church wasn’t getting enough. Father Anthony and Father Toscani, there were a lot of them that believed in it but some of them felt.... I don’t know if it was political or if the village stopped it. I don’t see how the village could stop it, because they enjoyed it every year. The Church really didn’t put it together–usually a good Catholic puts it together, somebody who’s active in the Church, they make sure that it gets put on. There was a guy named Frankie Osso, I think he put quite a few of them on, and then he died and it just kind of ceased. But as a kid, there would be three a year. Here you see they’re cooking what you call zeppoles, dough balls in oil. They’re good, with sugar, salt, whatever you prefer.
Hyatt-Livingston house, page 11 & ad at rear:
There was a big wall in front of it, which was brick, not stone. Here [in the first picture], you’re inside the wall. In the middle of the wall, there was an opening and set up there was a bust of Washington. But somebody stole it during the war, for the copper and other kinds of metal. Washington was supposed to have slept here. And across the street they have a little bench with another thing from Washington, right on the corner of Livingston and Broadway. We didn’t call it that at the time. This was either called Kendall’s or Clark’s, maybe after the people that took it over. Then they built co-ops there. I think there was a little skulduggery. This was the building they sabotaged. If I’m not mistaken, the Kendalls owned it. I don’t think they wanted to sell it, but they were old and they were down South somewhere....
Sacred Heart Church, page 22:
Do you want to know who built it? Mr Altieri built it. It was a beautiful church. At that time, he was so into building that he didn’t really look at costs, he just wanted something that was beautiful. And he wasn’t good at estimating jobs. I guess he loved his work. He had people working for him and he was so good at it that I think he appreciated what he did more than the cash value, you know what I mean. He was a very good mason. He built two or three buildings in Dobbs Ferry. There’s another building on lower Main Street, all concrete. It’s in the Italian style, you know, with the porches, and they were all done in masonry. The church is the building that killed him, that’s the building that bankrupted him. But it was a beautiful building...it still is a beautiful building. He built a lot of buildings and when you see them, you know they’re his.
The old school, page 26 (bottom)
This is the old school. It had a bell that rang at 8 o’clock in the morning. Buses circled here. Kids that came off the bus, that was a big treat. They lived in The Manor, as they called it, up on the hill. So in order to ride the bus, you had to be friends with a kid that lived on Clinton Avenue and go home to play, and then his father would take you back.
There were a lot of nice people. Mrs. Levy, she owned the big castle up on top of Beacon Hill. She could park her car anywhere she wanted in town, any way she wanted. She couldn’t drive, really; she parked her car any which way...nobody bothered her. But in the winter time she had big hayride sleds, they had horses that pulled them, and they would put hay in the back of the sleds, and they would go on hayrides. Afterwards she would invite the kids in to have ice cream. That was a big treat, ice cream.
Ellen Fay, 69 Maple, page 29
That’s another nice family. Bucky Fay is still living. He had a wonderful father and a wonderful mother. You know, when you’re a kid and they see you and they say, "Hey there! How are you doing, buddy?" it’s coming from the heart. That’s the type of a man he was. He was a good father to his son, I would imagine, but he was also a good man. You got vibes from him. A kid can pick out certain things about people that we can’t see. The Fay family’s an old family; it goes way back. This might have been on Maple Street. He [the son] is still alive, they call him Bucky. I never knew his real name, just called him Bucky. And I don’t think he had buck teeth either. Nice kid. He was a gentleman of a kid.
Dick’s Cabin
Growing up, I lived on Main Street. I was born over Dick’s Cabin, where La Foresta is now. That was Dick’s Cabin for years, and every summer the Yankee players and the Giant players would come up and dine in Dick’s, which was a class steakhouse. Lobster. We would take them crabbing and fishing. Jack Lorkie was from South Carolina. The first time I saw a Southern belle, they were all beautiful women. Even as a kid I realized, wow, these are nice looking girls. We used to take them crabbing. The older ones would teach them how to make a crab sauce for spaghetti and they loved it. They never crabbed before so it was a big treat to them. Jack Lorkie, Joe DiMaggio, a lot of big guys like that too.
The first television was put in there when they had the Billy Kahn and Joe Louis fight. That was a big deal. Kahn almost beat Joe Louis but he got carried away. He was too light to beat him but he thought he could.
Dick’s Cabin goes way back. You got Scappy’s Harmony Inn, and you got Dick’s Cabin... I don’t know if a lot of people realize it but Mr. Bucci, who had all the children, 17 children, staked him. Nobody ever talks about that. Old Man Bucci was a great man, had a big moustache, drove a big team of horses. They used to go down to 145 Palisades, that was Philippine Beer. Anchor Brewery. And all underneath that building was catacombs, like being in France. It’s all stone, and you can walk in there for blocks. That’s where they kept the beer cold. Old Man Bucci used to pick up the beer from there and put the barrels on top of the wagon and then he would ride with his team of horses–he had about six or eight horses–pulling it up the hill. He had a big moustache, he was a big man, and you’d hear the whip go crack. But he never hit the horses, just made a noise but that was enough to wake them up, and then he would deliver beer. I don’t think people realize that a lot of people that did go into business and made money, or even those who went to jail, he bailed them out. He owned a lot of property, he had 17 kids, so a lot of people don’t know that Old Man Bucci really backed a lot of people. He was the type person who didn’t brag about what he did but he set up a lot of business people in town. And Dick was one of them.
Masters School, page 42-43
That was a class school for girls from classy families. It was like a finishing school I guess. Now it’s coed, but they would never think of having boys in there. The girls spent a lot of money in the town. They were allowed to go only in certain stores, like the photography shop, which Agnes Faviola owned, the type of shop where you might take your small child to have a picture taken. They’d mount kids up on a pony or put them on a little table to take a picture. They had a guy named Freddie, I think his name was Delaney, he’d come around with a white and black Shetland and for a buck he’d take your picture on the horse. Then they had the fruit man who used to yell out, "Potatoes, 5 cents a pound!" Then you had the ice man that everybody chased in the summer because they wanted to get the chips off the ice. That was a big deal, like eating a pineapple ice. It was just refreshing. All that’s gone. And then there was Besson’s, where they had the lumber yard.
Old Hotel, page 56
This building was down as you go over the bridge, right in front of you when you came down the ramp going to the southbound side of the train. There was a hotel and a bar, and you could play pool in there. I think I even have a couple whisky bottles that say Dobbs Ferry on them. Blue bottles, they look like pinch bottles. Now this is all parking lot, and Chart House is over here.
Downey House, page 59
It’s the corner of Livingston and Main Street. In fact, my cousin Gene owns the house now. It used to be an inn too, if I’m not mistaken.
For fun, page 62:
We played hockey, believe it or not, way back then. There was a lake named Belle Suvers (?), and it was up in back of Mountain Road, where Columbia Labs is and Ardsley Country Club. The woman would let us go in the winter when it was frozen, and we played hockey on it. That was a big deal. I never thought of it, because hockey was never really a big game, but in the winter we did play hockey. We played a lot of baseball in the park on lower Palisade Street. It wasn’t much, but it was good enough for us.
The only brook I can think of where we waded like that was the brook behind Cedar Street [Wickers Creek]. It started up here and went back behind Dobbs Manor and the Draper Lane apartments. When I was a kid there was only a big mansion back there, with nobody in it. The little house is still there. That was the house for the keeper, and it’s been restored. The big mansion they tore down. We used to go in there and roast potatoes in the fireplaces. We never caused problems like fires or anything like that. We would cook potatoes and corn. There were about 26 rooms in the house. It was like a haunted house. It had spiral staircases that went up. I think there were four floors. We would go onto the second floor, go over to the fireplace, and make a fire. The girls and the guys would sneak in there. We’d talk and kid around, nothing dirty. We were too innocent to know anything about anything really. We played hide and seek. Nobody bothered you, and like I said, we weren’t reckless...we didn’t break the windows or anything.
As kids, we’d go swimming nude. We would steal a 2 x 8 or a 2 x 10, maybe 15 feet long, and mount it in the rocks so we had a diving board. We’d go off Sisters’ Beach; there was a beach in back of Mother Cabrini, so that’s where we would swim. We’d only get up out of the water when the expresses went by. When the local went by, you went in the water because someone would recognize you and go home and tell your mother.
Page 74:
This is Hudson House. This used to be their landing right there. If I’m not mistaken, Ardsley Country Club sits back in here. This is the Ardsley-on-Hudson train station. Little boats used to come in there and dock. Now there’s none of that, all that beauty is gone. Why they let it deteriorate, I don’t know. But schooners used to come in with people that had money, actors and actresses and people that owned big businesses.
Page 82
This building burned down twice. In the ‘40's–maybe ‘46 or ‘47–it burned down again. I remember because my father said, that building is bad luck. There was Stolzer’s, a German butcher, right here. It’s right opposite Dick’s Cabin. There used to be a plant place here, that sold tomatoes, all kinds of flowers and garden stuff. That was DeLuca’s.
Boy on pony, page 87
Here’s the little horse that used to come around to take pictures that cost you a buck. Might have even been less than that, a half a buck or a quarter. He’d put you up and he had a box camera. He’d take the picture this week, and next week when he came back, he’d give you the picture and take somebody else’s kid. There was another guy that used to travel around with him who had a little monkey. It used to climb up on the window sills. You’d give him a penny, and he’d go like that. He had one of those little pillbox hats on, like Phillip Morris, real cute, and he had a little vest. He would tell the animal to climb up the drain and tap you. He’d put his hand out or take his hat off. He’d put the penny in, take the penny out, put it in his mouth, put his hat on... The hat had an elastic band. He’d take the penny and put it in his pocket. I would say this was during the Depression.
Vehicles - Page 87
You know where this is? There’s a beautiful store that just opened up on Main Street. It’s got the big glass windows. It looks like it belongs in New York. That used to be where they parked the mail trucks. On the left is a German guy named Burt Reidel. On the right, this is a cousin of mine, Joe Delmerico, he was with them a thousand years.
Page 88
That looks like Apples Kelly. That’s a big family in Dobbs Ferry. I think this is Tony Tisi. This is Anderson, if I’m not mistaken, the son of the woman who worked in Dobbs Ferry school. She had two sons, good-looking boys, redheads. Joe DiGuglielmo. I think there was his father Dominick, then there was George, and there was Joe. I think he did have a sister. But that’s Joe DiGug. Gordon Pearce? Mr. Pearce worked for the Daily Register. He was a reporter. He knew everybody. I don’t think he worked a day in his life. I don’t know what kind of a job he had unless he was a bookkeeper or a writer for the paper. But he was a nice guy, a very nice man, smoked a cigar, a portly guy. As a kid when I used to go down and get the papers to sell for a nickel apiece, he was in the back working, maybe setting up the press or whatever. I think he was a writer because I never saw him with dirty hands.
Pages 90-91
This is Coffey. This is Shuluk. Baiano. Delmerico...this was my cousin. And this was DeRosa, the barber. That’s when he was a young guy. He was a handsome guy when he was a young guy. We all get old.
Police, pages 104-105
Gelardi, Bocanini, Coffey. This one, he had an Irish name. He was a nice guy. When I was a kid, he was a rough guy, but then when I got older, I found that he was a nice guy. Tommy O’Connor (?). A lot of them were from Yonkers. I know them but I don’t really know them, you know. The chief was a very nice guy. This guy was a little uppity... he was a butcher. I worked with him as a kid, and then when he became a cop he forgot who he was. This guy’s name was MacDougal. What a nice guy he was. He became a cop but he was so good, so nice, that he couldn’t even give a ticket out. He couldn’t even give a parking ticket out without even looking at the person!
Ad for GSB
Greenburgh Savings Bank. That goes ‘way back, before my time. That clock is still there, you know. It doesn’t work, and as many times as I’ve seen them have clock people in there.... It must be terrible competence because they don’t put it together. It lasts maybe two months and then it goes out again.