“Mary, we crown you,” she sang softly

Margaret Ruta, 84, crowns the statue of Mary Help of Christians (Maria Ausiliatrice) at the last clebration of her Feast Day in the East Village. Parishioners at the church, an Italian national parish, celebrated their last Mass today. The 109 year old church was one of 21 closed by the Archdiocese of New York this year.

Keep your eye on the pallino

Out of the five boroughs, Queens, not surprisingly, has the most public bocce courts. One of them is located in Corona at William Moore Park. Despite the area's largely Hispanic population the locals refer to it as "Spaghetti Park" since the area surrounding the park retains such a strong Italian identity.

How does an area remain "Italian" even as the population shifts? Well, in this case, the bocce court helps, but many of the businesses surrounding the park appear Italian-- for example, not only are there multiple restaurants displaying the Italian flag, but this is also the home to the Lemon Ice King of Corona, where you can get the best Italian ice in the City. So, more than the reality of population composition, it is the presence of recognizable ethnic identifiers that, as Philpott shows, leads a neighborhood to be defined as an ethnic enclave.

From there, I made my way to another of Queens' bocce courts. This one is at Astoria Park, in the shadow of the Hell Gate Bridge. this morning, I found six old men playing a game that was sedate in comparison to the roiling water under the bridge. It is easy to understand why the river at this spot got the reputation it did, but the quiet Italians were definitely defying stereotypes.

Getting his button

Ok, I admit it. I took a couple of days off. I'm calling it a post-semester mini-vacanza.

Having momentarily gone astray, I was nudged back on track by this 2005 headline from the Post: "WI$EBUY! Fakefella tried $1M bribe to be Mafia made man." Ooh! An excuse to write about gender! I felt better immediately, since I rarely get a chance to do so anymore.

The headline seems to indicate that the Mafia is, at least, financially solvent and that they are upholding their own code of ethics. You can't be made with money, can you?

This idea raises an interesting question about masculinity. You are a "made man" after you "make your bones" by whacking someone. The killing does not bring you into manhood (not a traditional rite of passage), but brings you into a different type of manhood. There is no implication that prior to being made, you are not a man.

How many of these rites of passage within manhood exist? Probably more than we think, meaning that the things men do are not continual rites of passage into manhood, but through manhood. But, bringing them ultimately where? Is there a finite level of manhood or masculinity? Can it be achieved or even identified? Hmm.

That old joke

"Do you know why New Yorkers are so depressed?"
"No. Why?"
"Because the light at the end of the tunnel is New Jersey."

This is not an anti-Jersey rant. Really, I have no strong feelings about the state either way and I haven't spent enough time there to form an opinion. Having said that, I did spend a good deal of time yesterday in and around Newark Liberty Airport. The airport itself is lovely- efficient, well-organized with nice shops and waiting areas- a traveler's dream. The short term parking was even cheap and close to the terminals.

My gripe is not with the airport or even Jersey; it is with whomever laid out the escape route from Newark. Having gotten there with little problem (admittedly, some may consider reading directions while sailing down the Garden State Parkway at 80 miles an hour to be a problem), heading home, I found myself inexplicably poised on the brink of crossing the GW with little idea of how I got there. Did I miss the signs? Did I confuse the Turnpike and the Parkway? Should I have been better prepared? Somehow I think it is a combination of all three.

Yet, in the case of Newark, I have to go south to go west to go north because, if I go north, I must go east? A lot of highways seem to be laid out with a Robert Moses-like disregard for common sense and the basic considerations of neighborhood, town or just plain humanity. I am not unique in making this statement, but I feel it bears repeating.

Of course, it was Mayor Vincent "Impy" Impelitteri, a Connecticut native (via Sicily), who gave Moses a blank check to rip down, crossover and cross out a lot of NY's neighborhood core (for fun, mention the Expressway to anyone who grew up in the Bronx in the '50s or'60s and see how they react). Maybe all this really points to is the triumph of immigrant pragmatism over sentiment. Odd, since both are considered core "Old World", "ethnic" values.

Tabloid history

Spent another day with microfilm, the New York Daily News and the New York Post from the first few months of 1969. Today, both papers are considered to border(?) on tabloid, but I think a distinction must be made. At least in the late '60s, the Daily News is far more sensational, in both headlines and reporting style than the Post. If anything, the Post is far stodgier and conservative (regardless of the editorial endorsement of Herman Badillo Sr. in the mayoral primary)-- sensational and tabloid-esque in a, "Hrumph, look what those kids are doing now" sort of way. Or maybe it was, as one of my committee members said, "sensibly liberal"? I think the best description would be old-school, New Deal Democratic, whereas the Daily News was inching more and more to the right every day.

Regardless of political slant, they both, unlike, say, the Times, capture the reasons why Fun City wasn't very much fun. Murders, rapes, school riots (high school, universities), garbage strikes and a fabulously ridiculous mayoral race set the city up to spiral out of control in the next decade. Even the Yankees and the Mob were in trouble. That never means anything good.

All this chaos, coupled with the breakdown of these two NY institutions, made me think of some dialogue from The Sopranos:

Uncle Junior: What happened to the '50s? Even rival families were able to settle their differences amicably.

Tony: Yeah, I remember that picture of Albert Anastasia lying there all amicable on the barbershop floor.

This explains why we look back nostaligically to the City in the 1960s, as in, "Gee, the murder rate in 2005 was at its lowest level since..." I guess we always do remember better than it was, even when confronted with evidence that proves otherwise. Of course, if you only read the Daily News, you'd wonder how anyone managed to avoid being shot, stabbed, choked, and/or chased.