Victory Lodge #33 of Pittsburgh, PA, invites the ISDA community to celebrate the 99th birthday of Joseph B. Falce on April 8 (belated wishes are more than welcome).

“Uncle Joe” has been a lifetime member of the Victory Lodge of the ISDA. Joe was interviewed recently by Melissa Marinaro of the Heinz History Center. In the interview, Joe shared many of his life stories, including being the youngest of eight children of Italian immigrants.

Joe lived in the Hays section of Pittsburgh during the Depression. He quit school to join the Navy, taking part in three invasions during WWII. When he returned home, he finished high school.

Then he attended the University of Pittsburgh. For 44 years, Joe worked for US Steel, being an instructor of various trades.

He was active in the union. When he retired, he found a new career in local politics.

To hear more of Joe’s remarkable stories, visit the Heinz History Center when you are in Pittsburgh.

You can send birthday cards to:

Joe Falce

Discovery Commons

2000 Cool Springs Drive

Pittsburgh, PA 15234  

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In 1931, with the Great Depression casting a long shadow over the country, a crew of Italian immigrants began excavating the foundation for what would become Rockefeller Center. Grateful to have work when so many were struggling, they decided to bring some holiday cheer to the grinding and risky work site in Midtown Manhattan.

By Christmas Eve, they had pooled their money, purchased a modest 20-foot balsam fir and decorated it with whatever they could find: cranberries, paper garlands, tin cans, even foil wrappers from blasting caps. That simple tree marked the humble beginnings of what we now know as the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree tradition.

By 1933, the tradition had grown significantly. That year, Rockefeller Center raised its first official Christmas tree — a 50-foot fir wrapped in 700 lights.

Today, the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree stands as a towering symbol of the holiday season.

Adorned with 50,000 LED lights and topped with a dazzling Swarovski star comprised of 3 million crystals, the Norway Spruce will come to life on December 3, 2025, marking the official start of the Christmas season.

The tradition’s lasting significance lies in its origins: a simple act of gratitude and hope during one of the nation’s darkest times.

What began as a small gesture by hardworking immigrants has become a cherished part of the holiday season, reminding us of the resilience, community and spirit that continue to define this celebration.

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By Tony Traficante, ISDA Contributing Editor 

While FDR had his fireside chats, I experienced porch side chats where I learned much about my heritage.

It is well known that weekly Sunday suppers were a special time for large Italian families. It was a day of rest, except of course for Italian mothers — but they loved it, as they had an opportunity to enjoy the company of relatives and visiting friends.

Life was simple and uncomplicated. There was a weekly routine that was only interrupted by a wedding, religious service, celebration, or social activity at the local ISDA lodge. Routine, habit, and custom created stability for Italian immigrants. It was a form of security and basic to their survival.

Homemade pasta, a traditional custom, was the norm for Sunday supper, at least back then. The day promised good food and time to catch up with family affairs and neighborhood happenings. No one was permitted to leave the table until dinner was over for all. And even if they had such gadgets, you wouldn’t dare have a cell phone, with texting features, at the table!

Sundays ended with the adults sitting on the front porch enjoying conversations with a “digestive,” or a cup of coffee (not necessarily in that order).

We kids were out in the alley playing a variety of street games until it got dark, then we went to roost on the porch steps. It was here I learned much about the world of our parents and friends. Listening to them reminisce about their way of life in Italy, and the circumstances of their existence as new immigrants in the United States, was both fascinating and distressing.

Most of our neighbors and friends came from some of the poorest regions of Italy. What my parents called “La meridionale,” others called “Il mezzogiorno.” Many were farmers, laboring in the fields for hours under a hot sun. Naturally, they became dark complexioned, “un po’ più abbronzati.” And for this, they suffered intolerance and bias from the American community. They were ridiculed, too, for their dress, the way they talked, their customs and even the things they ate.

Some complained that their treatment as immigrants in America was not much better than what they left behind.“Cambiano i suonatori ma la musica è sempre quella.” The players may have changed, but the music is always the same.

The American labor force accused the Italians of taking their jobs “Ma che,” the Italians replied! “Facciamo il lavoro che nessuno voleva fare!” They did the work no one else wanted to do! They did it to survive and feed their families.

“Era una vita dura.” There is no question that it was a difficult time for many immigrants. Those who hung in there said, “Siamo genti forti. Non abbiamo fatto tutta questa strada solo per abbondonarlo!”  We are strong people, they said! We did not come all this way only to give up.

For my parents, education was a constant topic of preaching. You must learn the American ways and customs. America is our home now, and your birthright, they said. “Certo,” certainly, it is OK to speak our language at home.

They wanted us to fit in but not forget our heritage. Be proud Americans, they said. But never be ashamed of your heritage. It, too, is a story you must know and preserve.

“E’ vero che anche noi siamo cittadini americani,” and we are proud and thankful for that!

“E pure, il nostro sangue sarà sempre quella di Italia.”

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But we were told that Michelle did not qualify for citizenship through my grandmother. The consulate said Italian citizenship could only be passed through the paternal line. The application I had received from the Pittsburgh consulate was outdated; it listed “great-grandfather or great-grandmother.” The updated version allowed only the great-grandfather. We had spent a great deal of time and money, and it was deeply frustrating.

The cost was around $10,000 for my daughters and myself, and the reason? It was the right thing to do. I’m proud of my Italian heritage, and I want my daughters — and my four grandsons — to carry it forward.

Make a Pledge and join Italian Sons and Daughters of America today. 

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In mid-20th-century Cleveland, Ohio, a plan to widen one of the city’s most significant bridges nearly erased its most iconic landmarks. At stake were the Guardians of Traffic — towering Art Deco sculptures lining the Hope Memorial Bridge, which spans the Cuyahoga River and physically links Cleveland’s East and West sides.

In the 1960s, Cuyahoga County Engineer Albert S. Porter proposed removing the statues to make room for more automobile lanes. Porter, a dominant force in Northeast Ohio infrastructure planning from 1947 to 1976, dismissed the sculptures as outdated ornamentation — “just a bunch of old stone men with helmets,” he scoffed. His priorities were clear: function over form. “Beauty doesn’t reduce traffic jams,” he argued.

Yet Porter’s proposal would ignite a preservation movement that not only saved the Guardians but served as a pivotal chapter in the unraveling of his political career.

The bridge, originally named the Lorain-Carnegie Bridge, opened in 1932 after decades of discussion around how to unify Cleveland’s split urban landscape. Local leaders believed a major bridge could symbolize not just physical connection, but civic ambition. Rather than build a bland utilitarian bridge, the city commissioned architect Frank Walker and sculptor Henry Hering to imbue the design of the structure with artistic and historical significance. The result was eight sandstone figures — monumental pylons, each holding a different mode of transportation — watching over the flow of traffic from both directions.

While Hering received top billing, the physical labor and artistic execution fell largely to Cleveland’s Italian “scalpellini” (master stone carvers). Many of these craftsmen hailed from Oratino, a small town in Molise, Italy, and had been brought to the city by Giuseppe Carabelli, a Lombardy-born sculptor and monument maker. The scalpellini found work not only with Carabelli’s firm but also at companies such as the Ohio Cut Stone Co., which helped carve and assemble the Guardians from Berea sandstone. These artisans settled in what would become Cleveland’s Little Italy and contributed their skills to some of the city’s most enduring landmarks.

Despite their craftsmanship, the scalpellini remained largely anonymous. Their names were absent from bridge plaques, and their role in the Guardians’ creation faded from public memory — until the threat of demolition, decades later, renewed interest in the statues’ origins.

Porter’s utilitarian outlook was consistent with his broader philosophy. During his nearly three-decade tenure, he championed massive freeway expansion projects, often at the expense of neighborhoods, parks, and historical landmarks. His plans to extend freeways through Cleveland and its eastern suburbs met fierce resistance — especially from residents of Shaker Heights and Cleveland Heights, two affluent communities that flourished during the rise of then-local oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller. As one local historian put it, “Porter’s vision was blind to beauty.”

But the Guardians proved immovable, both physically and symbolically.

As word of the demolition proposal spread, public backlash followed. Local newspapers, including The Plain Dealer and the Cleveland Press, published editorials condemning the plan. The Cleveland Chapter of the American Institute of Architects issued a formal statement calling the Guardians “irreplaceable monuments of civic art.” Citizens organized petitions, public meetings, and protests. Schoolteachers incorporated the statues into local history lessons. Artists produced sketches and posters in tribute. Rally signs read, “Don’t Deface the Guardians!” and “Preserve Our City’s Soul.”

One preservationist later recalled, “We fought to save a city, not just a statue.”

As the public rallied to defend the Guardians, Porter’s power began to wither. In 1977, he was indicted on corruption charges for bilking workers out of payday money (he would later plead guilty, pay a $10,000 fine and serve a 2-year probation). The scandal ended his decades-long grip on public works in Cuyahoga County. His downfall coincided with a growing national shift away from car-centric urban planning and toward historic preservation, public transportation, and walkable cities.

In 1976, the Hope Memorial Bridge was added to the National Register of Historic Places, granting it protection. In the early 1980s, the bridge underwent a major renovation. Rather than being demolished, the statues were cleaned, restored, and reappreciated.

Today, the Guardians of Traffic stand not only as symbols of industrial progress but as monuments to cultural resilience — preserved through civic engagement and resistance to short-sighted modernization. As one speaker remarked during a 1970s public hearing, “The Guardians stood long before Porter, and they will stand long after.”

And indeed, they have. When Cleveland’s Major League Baseball team adopted the Guardians name in 2021, it marked not only a nod to the statues’ towering presence but also to the city’s layered past — to its immigrant story, its civic struggles, and the belief that some things are worth preserving.

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The War Department assigned Louis Zamperini an “official death date” and President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a condolence letter, but Sylvia Zamperini refused to believe her son was gone.

“None of us believed it. None of us. Not underneath, even,” she later recalled after “Louie” — the inexhaustible Olympian from the 1936 Berlin Olympics — was found alive.

After his bomber crashed in the Pacific in 1943, he and the pilot, 2nd Lieutenant Russell Phillips, survived 47 harrowing days adrift at sea, battling sharks, starvation and enemy fire.

Captured by the Japanese, they endured brutal treatment in POW camps for more than two years.

Despite the severe abuse, Zamperini’s spirit and grit carried him to his greatest finish line: the end of the war. His story of resilience and survival became widely known through Laura Hillenbrand’s biography Unbroken.

Zamperini was freed in August 1945, after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan would officially surrender on Sept. 2, 1945.

President Harry Truman called Zamperini a “credit to our country,” General Douglas MacArthur labeled him a “brave and heroic man,” fellow Olympian Jesse Owens praised his iron will and the world looked on in awe.

After the war, Zamperini became a motivational speaker, sharing his powerful story of perseverance and faith with audiences around the world.

He also dedicated himself to philanthropy, actively supporting charity work and programs for troubled youth, using his experiences to inspire and uplift others.

In 1946, he married Cynthia Applewhite, with whom he had two children, and together they built a life centered on service and family.

Zamperini passed away in 2014 in Los Angeles at the age of 97.

One of his most enduring quotes was fewer than 10 words: “If you can take it, you can make it.”

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For 115 years, the Italian enclave of Raritan, N.J., would process the statue of Saint Rocco through the streets to kick off an Italian summer Festa filled with food, fraternity, and festivity. That is, until the COVID-19 pandemic sent the historic celebration grinding to a halt in 2020. As each year passed without a feast, the return of the beloved Festa seemed increasingly in doubt and another treasured Italian American tradition would be lost unless something was done. Thankfully, the Festa is not only back but it’s better than ever thanks to two years of hard work and planning from past, and future, Italian American leadership.

Raritan’s Italian Festa stepped off in 1896 when 100 or so Italian families in a town of 3,000 decided to plan the first St. Rocco celebration. The very first Festa had all the staples of an Italian feast. There was a Mass at the town’s original Catholic church, then St. Bernard’s, the patron saint statue of St. Rocco was processed through the streets, there was food, music and fireworks. By 1903, the Raritan Italians — who had been attending St. Bernard’s Church — started their own parish (St. Ann’s) and the Festa has been associated with it ever since.

Through the years, the Festa saw some interruption. From 1943–1945, the Festa was not held due to World War II. Then, in the early 2000s, the St. Rocco procession was controversially eliminated by a pastor at St. Ann’s, to the disappointment of longtime devotees. Finally, in 2020, the Festa was shut down due to public safety concerns during the pandemic. However, simply restarting once the public health restrictions loosened was no easy feat.

The Festa has long fought the temptation to hire vendors. All the food is made fresh daily by volunteers. Families of the parish school, Saint Ann Classical Academy, normally stepped up to help, as the feast was the school’s largest fundraiser. Unfortunately, enrollment was down after the pandemic so there was the question of volunteer participation. Also, critical kitchen items, like freezers, commercial refrigerators and the 40-gallon sauce vat colloquially known as “Vinnie the Vat,” needed to be replaced costing tens of thousands of dollars.

It was clear that if the Festa was going to be resurrected, it had to be authentic to the tradition.  That meant renovating the kitchen. To raise the necessary capital, a committee was formed that organized a “Restart the Festa” dinner in the fall of 2023 that brought back many of the feast’s favorite foods for one night only. The dinner was a smashing success with nearly 200 people in attendance, raising more than $11,000 to repair and replace the necessary kitchen equipment.

Once the startup capital was raised, it was time to plan the feast. A date was set this past June, and after nearly 60 years of service, we said arrivederci to Vinnie the Vat and benvenuto to Vinnie 2.0! As the event drew closer, the buzz grew louder. Finally, after two years of planning, despite all the naysayers and bumps along the way…we did it!

People from as far as Canada traveled back to the old neighborhood for the 116th Saint Ann’s Festa. It was a joy to see people embracing after long absences throughout the three-day event. When we brought Saint Rocco into the church for the Festa Mass and procession, there was a vocal chorus of elderly Italian women ecstatic with devotion.

The popularity of Festa food was through the roof, with more than 2,000 people attending each night. The pizza fritte line seemed endless as it wrapped around the corner of the church, while the debate over the sauce or sugar topping raged on. The Italian food stand sold out of meatballs, sausage and peppers, and eggplant sandwiches nightly and over 800 handmade cannoli and sfogliatelle were eaten throughout the event! This is it; this is Festa!

I had always been proud of my Italian ancestry, but it was through my participation in the ISDA that I was inspired to lead the cause to resurrect the Festa. Part of our mission as ISDA members is to preserve Italian American traditions and culture and celebrate our heritage through social activities and community events. When the opportunity to chair the Restart the Festa efforts presented itself, how could I say no?

Over the years, the theme of engaging young people as our future is rightly at the forefront of every major Italian American conference. Now there is no question that emerging leadership from Italian American youth is vital to moving our community forward. However, what is sometimes lost in the shuffle is how young people can receive the wealth of knowledge gained from prior generations. Through the ISDA, I have been fortunate to pick up the wisdom from experienced, like-minded Italian Americans who share the belief that traditions, like Festa, are worth saving

Tradition is a funny thing in the sense that it needs two parties to sustain it. You need the “old guard” to pass the torch and you need the “new guard” to receive it. If either party fails in their duty to foster, protect and shepherd the tradition, then the tradition is lost.

Since the first Festa I would have attended was canceled during the pandemic, I listened to anyone who had experience with the event to help piece it together. Parents told stories about working the Festa with their grandparents as kids, and how they couldn’t wait to work the Festa with their children when it returned. The best was this old Italian lady who shared with me her stories working in the kitchen for decades, fondly recalling how she would roll meatballs and clean pots and pans. She was comforted that younger generations are continuing the tradition.

It was through those conversations that I understood Festa was bigger than I imagined. We are standing on the shoulders of giants. The committee could not have pulled off the Festa without the sacrifices and contributions of the generations before us.

What began in the spring of 2022 as this wild idea to restart the Festa to support my daughter’s school, turned into this two-year odyssey. Somewhere along the way, it became more than a fundraiser. The Festa is a testament to our faith, our families and our future. Salute!

Make a Pledge and join Italian Sons and Daughters of America today. 

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We have journeyed from burglaries and robberies to highspeed chases and midnight patrol beats, with many dangerous situations coming and going. So much so, that, after almost 30 years of retirement, new memories still surface from time to time. Enter the “Three Hooligans,” who still bring a smile to my face.

We were subtly patrolling the lower end of our district as plainclothes detectives when quitting time finally rolled around. We had wrapped up an investigation and headed back to the station house, taking a short cut through Carnegie, Penn., a small borough just outside Pittsburgh.

Cruising on the main drag we saw some commotion ahead. As it turned out, there was a group of unruly teens throwing raw eggs at passing cars. Seeing the possibility of this causing an accident and injuries, we screeched up to the curb.

Jumping into action we rounded up three of the culinary crooks who were hurling the eggs with surprising accuracy. We had two problems:

#1: We had no jurisdiction in Carnegie, Penn.

#2: No motorist wanted any police action taken.

We chose one solution: We identified ourselves as task force officers and gave the teens a lecture on the unintended consequences of seemingly innocent mischief.

The trio penitently sat on the sidewalk, offering up sorrow, prayers and assurances that this would never happen again. We started with confiscating their oval-shaped ammo. Of course, this is not the end of the story; it was just too hard to resist. In the mood of the night, “someone” hatched a plan that would provide ample punishment.

Gathering on-lookers, we smiled and laughed as the stunned boys got a little payback. Yes, we gave them a taste of their own medicine and smashed a few eggs on their melons. We beat it out of the area before the Carnegie Police arrived on site.

No one complained; telephone pictures weren’t a thing yet. We were the only police officers that knew what happened that evening, until now. “Who were those crazy plainclothes detectives,” we jokingly asked ourselves on the way back to the station.

I often wondered if those young men ever told their families about that night. A little bit of street justice could be handed out then, but perhaps not today with all the oversensitivity going around. In the end, whose idea was it to resolve the incident with the cracking of the eggs?

Of course, I have the right to remain silent!

Make a Pledge and join Italian Sons and Daughters of America today. 

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The City Hall station of the IRT Lexington Avenue Line, part of the first underground line of the subway that opened on October 27, 1904.

“The Dawn of Italian America”

Urban life was often filled with hazards for the new immigrant, and housing could be one of the greatest dangers. In the early 1900s more than half the population of New York City, and most immigrants, lived in tenement houses: narrow, low-rise apartment buildings that were usually grossly overcrowded by their landlords, according to the Library of Congress.

Cramped, poorly lit, under ventilated, and usually without indoor plumbing, the tenements were hotbeds of vermin and disease, and were frequently swept by cholera, typhus, and tuberculosis. The investigative journalist Jacob Riis, himself a Danish immigrant, launched a public campaign to expose and eradicate the exploitative housing new immigrants were forced to endure.

For Italians, this way of living came as an enormous shock. In Italy, many rural families had slept in small, cramped houses; however, they spent most of their waking hours out of the house, working, socializing, and taking their meals in the outdoors.

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In New York, they found themselves confined to a claustrophobic indoor existence, using the same small room for eating, sleeping, and even working. A substantial percentage of immigrant families worked at home performing piecework — that is, doing work that paid them by the piece, such as stitching together garments or hand-assembling machinery. In a situation like this, an immigrant woman or child might go days without seeing sunlight.

Immigrants’ workplaces could be as unhealthy as their homes. A substantial number of southern Italian immigrants had only worked as farmers, and were thus qualified only for unskilled, and more dangerous, urban labor.

Many Italians went to work on the growing city’s municipal works projects, digging canals, laying paving and gas lines, building bridges, and tunneling out the New York subway system. In 1890, nearly 90 percent of the laborers in New York’s Department of Public Works were Italian immigrants. 

By no means was all Italian immigrants’ work grim and hazardous. Italians found work throughout the city, in many of the improvised trades that have long been a haven for immigrants, such as shoemaking, masonry, bartending, and barbering.

For a time, some observers felt that Italians operated every fruit-vendor’s cart in the city. For many immigrants, though, and especially women and children, work could only be found in sweatshops, the dark, unsafe factories that sprang up around New York.

When a fire broke out at the Triangle Shirtwaist factory in 1911, killing 146 workers, nearly half of the victims were young Italian women. The disaster helped galvanize the organized labor movement. During the Italian American summer feast season, we celebrate our traditions and religious rituals, but we also pay homage to the generations before us who toiled for years, paving the way to the success and elevation of our culture.

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Recently, while conducting family genealogy research, I came across an intriguing 70-page handbook titled the “Guide to the United States for the Immigrant Italian” by John Foster Carr. I immediately thought of my paternal and maternal Italian ancestors who achieved their westward destiny during the Great Arrival with the help of such organizations.

The handbook, a collaboration between Carr and the Connecticut Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), offered advice on finding work, becoming a U.S. citizen, and learning English.

A direct quote found on the back cover provides unique insight on the vital role that the Connecticut DAR played during the early period of the 20^th century.

“Thousands of immigrants have found employment and homes in the state of Connecticut. Many of them come from distant lands and speak no English. To help them become Americans and citizens the Daughters of the American Revolution in Connecticut have opened night schools and classes in English, as well as free reading rooms, with books and papers in foreign languages. They have provided lectures on American history in the Italian language. And so, as a friend, this Society has prepared the present guide to help the immigrant adjust himself quickly to the living conditions and social customs of the United States of America. In the state of Connecticut alone the Society has more than 4,350 members, divided into 47 Chapters, in the different cities and towns. All these Chapters are ready to give help to the immigrant Italian.”

Throughout my years of researching and documenting my Italian immigrant family, who settled in my hometown of Philadelphia, I have found there were various organizations that aided new immigrants, particularly in the late 1800s to early 1900s. Those that come to mind were mutual aid and fraternal societies, and settlement houses. Numerous settlement houses were dotted across America that provided much-needed community social services to new immigrants. Services ranged from childcare, citizenship classes, English language instruction, general education, cultural assimilation, and legal services.

What started out as continuing my family research turned out to uncover these often-overlooked aspects of the Italian American experience. So, in my humble opinion, a guidebook or the community social services provided by the settlement house movement across America were akin to lifelines that enabled our ancestors to prosper and put down the roots that would grow to become our 18-milliion-strong culture.

ISDA, and the ISDA Fraternal Association, shepherded its’ members from one era to the next, from assimilation to prosperity.

About Rich Leto:

Rich was born and raised in the Italian enclave of South Philadelphia, PA (South Philly). He currently resides in Columbus, Ohio. He is an ISDA Order/Fraternal member who attended the Cleveland and Pittsburgh ISDA National Conventions. As a proud second-generation Italian American, he enjoys informal writing as a hobbyist regarding the Italian American experience.

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