"Salem Street" Courtesy of City of Boston Archives

A Memory of the North End

by Lauraine Alberetti Lombara

This Spring, I attended the fabulous wedding of my cousin Gus’s great granddaughter, held in Gloucester, where relatives and friends gathered for a happy celebration.  It brought back tender memories of growing up in Boston with visits to the North End.  Cousin Gus, my father’s first cousin and his wife, Rachela, and their three children lived on the third floor of an apartment building on Cross Street. For me, growing up in South Boston among predominantly Irish-American families and a few Polish, Lithuanian and Italian-American families, going to the North End was like going to Italy. My parents spoke Italian to my two brothers and me when we were at home and we answered in English, so when we visited our cousins or friends from Italy, Italian was mainly spoken. The babble outside and inside my cousin’s house was a staccato of familiar words and sounds, very unlike what we heard in our neighborhood.

We kids would lean out the window and watch a parade of shoppers haggling with the fish merchant, Giuffre’s, on the corner of Cross and Salem Streets. They would be toting huge cloth bags (talk about being green early on!) filled to bulging with their fruits and vegetables, plus loaves of freshly baked breads peeking out of paper bags in their arms.  Going for a walk was a feast for the senses - pass the salumeria (grocery/deli) and salivate for a fabulous sandwich of prosciutto, salami, mortadella, mozzarella or provolone cheese and all the condiments (gourmet fare now); smell the pizza and yeasty aromas of the bakeries; breathe the scent of freshly ground coffee; sniff the briny odors of the myriad seafoods, artfully displayed on wooden tables - all this appealing to the eyes as well as the nose, then reaching perfection when tasted.

After my cousins moved to Cambridge, I only went to the North End occasionally, visiting family friends or shopping with my father at the stalls at Haymarket and Faneuil Hall. A major treat was eating pizza at the original Pizzeria Regina on Thatcher Street.  I was baptized at Sacred Heart Church in North Square, which I always loved stopping in to light a candle and say a prayer.

Gus and his family were our only “real” cousin in America. We spent many vacations, holiday visits and day trips with Gus, Rachela and all the children, having so much fun we used to say  it was sinful!  Laughter abounded, happiness reigned and we were all joined in the joy of family.

My brothers, my “younger” cousins and I are now the elders, the first line, matriarchs and patriarchs of this clan here. I hope we do as good a job as our parents did and provide a  loving caring, close family for our children and grandchildren who deserve the best, handed down to us from our dedicated parents who came to America to find a dream.  They gave their best to give us the best they could.