Chapter 3. Father Settles in Cleveland, Ohio

Father arrived in Cleveland in the spring of 1900. He was met at the old Union Station by Rocco Motto, who was related by marriage to Grandpa Romanelli, having married Grandpa’s sister. He had migrated to Cleveland some fifteen years before and was well established. In fact, by this time, he had a successful business close by the Union Station. He had been able to acquire a small stand there, where he was doing a good business selling fruit, candy, pretzels, cigars, cigarettes, and pop, as soft drinks were called in those days. Signor Motto took father to his stand to rest and treated him to his first taste of coca cola, pretzels, and a cigar!

According to census figures, Cleveland at the time of father’s arrival could only boast of a population of 3,0’00 Italians. The majority of them had settled in downtown Cleveland in and around lower Ontario, Central, Broadway, Woodland, and Orange streets and around the old Central Market House that sat like an island between Ontario and East 4th Streets. Since it was the first largest concentration of immigrants from Italy, the area was known as Big Italy. It was also known as the Hay Market District, since the old farmer’s hay market had been located there at the western end of Central Avenue. The Gund Arena and Jacob’s Field now cover much of the area and the entire area is now called Gateway.

After having rested and enjoyed his snack at the Motto stand at the depot, Signor Motto then took father to his home at 303 Race Street, located off Ontario street, which was not too far from the depot and virtually a hop, skip, and a jump from the old Central Market House. 303 Race Street was an address in a three story tenement building that housed twenty-seven Italian families, the majority of whom had come from Laurenzana, father’s home town. It was a red brick building that had been built and was owned by the Newcomb Family some time before the turn of the century. When it was built, it was named the Newcomb Block after that family name. In later years, it became known as the Ginney Block, so dubbed by non-Italians, because the block housed families of Italian origin. There were five doorways in the front of the building with small vestibules that led to stairways leading to the two upper floors. Each of the building’s front doorways had its own street address number, and each landing from the ground floor on up had a four room flat on either side of it. Each flat bore a number in numerical order from the ground floor on up through the third floor flats. 303 Race Street was the address that marked the second doorway from the west end of the building.

The Motto family lived in flat No.3 on the right side of the third floor landing of 303 Race Street. Father was taken in by the Motto’s as a boarder. Father was happy to share one of the bedrooms with two of the family’s older sons, sleeping on a couch that was made up as a bed each night. Father used to laugh when recalling his days with the Motto brothers, who as young men like himself, built a friendship that lasted until death, a friendship that began in that little crowded bedroom where they shared every inch of space equally like brothers for several years.

It wasn’t very long after settling in with the Motto’s that father was fortunate enough to get a job with Mike Lavin, who owned and ran a fine custom tailoring shop located on the second floor of the Stone Building, situated on the south side of Euclid Avenue almost directly across from the Old Arcade. Mike Lavin was a big, jolly Irishman, who in addition to being a fine tailor with a large very lucrative business making clothes for a wealthy clientele, was also a devotee of boxing and regularly officiated as a referee in professional boxing matches. As a well known boxing official, his picture would appear in the newspapers from time to time officiating at the fights or posing with one local pugilist or another. I have pleasant memories of Mr. Lavin, because he never failed to give me a quarter whenever I made a delivery to the shop or did some errand for him. Father worked at home. My brothers and I had the job of picking up the materials for jackets that had been precut by a cutter in the shop as well as delivering the garments back to the shop for try on and then again when father finished the garments. Over the years, the delivery job was passed on from brother to brother as a matter of succession.

I can still see in my mind’s eye father sitting cross legged on the large kitchen table that was located against one wall of our large kitchen, hunched over the material as he took painstaking stitch after stitch or sitting at the old fashioned Singer Sewing Machine as he would feed the material under the needle as it moved speedily up and down, powered only by the steady action of his feet on the treadle.

I can also recall how he used to carefully heat the heavy hand irons on the small two burner gas stove. I was always fascinated when I watched him deftly sprinkle a few droplets of water on the base of the irons and always, like magic, see the droplets sizzle and bounce off the irons. The irons always seemed to be the right temperature for pressing the finished garment. In father’s case, the finished garment was always a suit coat of some kind. He was what they called a coat maker. In father’s day, custom tailoring establishments had coat makers, pant makers, and vest makers. As one of Mike Lavin’s coat makers, and because of the training in fine tailoring that he had received in Naples, father had become the number one tailor of the Lavin shop. This meant that he was always assigned the job of making special garments, such as tuxedo jackets and other formal wear, such as morning coats and what used to be known as Prince Albert coats in those days. Father, however, was always just as meticulous when making an ordinary suit coat as he was when making those more formal garments. Mike Lavin had some notable personalities as customers. The most notable that I know of was Adolph Menjou, that debonair and suave actor who was one of the few who managed to make the transition from silent films to talkies. Father, I was told, was always assigned the job of making Mr. Menjou’s suit jackets and formal wear as well. Father worked for Mike Lavin faithfully year after year, often doing rush jobs that had to be finished for important customers in a couple of days for one reason or another. There were times when he would work around the clock for as many as two days in a row to finish a suit coat or formal jacket of some kind.

By 1905, the Motto family had been able to move out of the flat at 303 Race Street, because their little store at the Union Depot had prospered. They had been able to purchase a home in the East 40th and Superior Avenue area. At the time that they vacated the flat, father took it over and prepared it for the eventual arrival of my mother-to-be, Grandpa Romanelli, and young Nicolo, who was by then six years old.