This is a printer-friendly version of an article from Zip06.com.
02/13/2019 06:00 AMFor Leo Marino, author of The House on Greene Street: Life and Times of a First Generation Italian American, compiling this first book was for his family.
“This started 20 years ago,” says Marino, a Branford resident. “My brother and I talked about our ancestry. This was before the days of ancestry.com.”
The family research took several trips to Italy, but the result was 300 years of history and three generations of family photos.
“It’s a daunting task,” Marino says, “writing an [auto]biography. My lawyer gave me the courage to write this book.”
Marino worried about the legacy he would leave his children and grandchildren. Furniture, money, heirlooms would end up used, spent, or in a box. This collection of short stories “is forever,” Marino says, but it wasn’t easy.
“At one time, I had to put the book down because I revisited things that disturbed me,” Marino says. “But my granddaughter told me, ‘You gotta get over it and just write it,’ and I did.”
Difficult Memories
Some of the difficult memories include fires that erupted in the factories surrounding Marino’s family’s house on Greene Street, New Haven.
Nowadays, the Wooster Square area of the city is known for Italian-American cuisine icons like Pepe’s, Sally’s, and Libby’s.
But in Marino’s youth, Wooster Square was home to factories and tenements.
“Back then,” he says, “there were a lot of fires.”
Right in his backyard loomed one of the factories that lit aflame.
“I saw this red glow and we saw flames shooting out the windows,” Marino says. “A man dropped out of the window and broke his back.”
To fight that fire, Marino explains the firefighters had to thread lines through the cellar of his family’s home because the buildings were too close together to fit between them.
Because of the way factory doors were designed, men were trapped in the factory, much like in the famed shirtwaist factory fire in the Flatiron district of Manhattan.
That fire occurred on Feb. 5, 1941. Ten men died.
“That fire,” Marino says, “has been in my mind. I kept that.”
But diving into his past wasn’t always painful.
‘A Hand on My Shoulder’
“I was reminiscing about my father,” he says, “and felt a hand on my shoulder. No one else was in the room. It felt like an out-of-body experience. It was so moving.”
Marino’s father, who immigrated into the United States at the age of 15, bought the house on Greene Street in 1919 for $2,500.
“The house had no facilities for bathing,” Marino says.
His family had to travel several blocks to St. John’s Street to take a bath. The house itself led to health problems for Marino, including mold-induced asthma.
Next: A Love Story
“It was deemed the worst block in [Wooster] Square,” Marino says.
The house may have been the trigger for difficulties growing up, but it inspired Marino’s collection of short stories which speak to the immigrant experience in the early-to-mid twentieth century: sacrifice, squalor, and somehow, hope.
Marino is currently working on his second book, a love story set against the backdrop of cultural fusion on Grand Avenue, New Haven.
“It’s a forgotten area,” Marino says, “but it was a mix of all different nationalities. All these stores were built by immigrants.
“It was a very viable neighborhood; everyone shopped on Grand Avenue.”
Marino will give an author talk and sign copies of his book on Wednesday, Feb. 27 at 6:30 p.m. at Hagaman Memorial Library, 227 Main St., East Haven.
His second book is in its third round of revision, and he hopes to release it within the next few months.
The House on Greene Street can be found on amazon.com; at PS Fine Stationers, 1028 Main Street, Branford, and on demand at R.J. Julia’s Booksellers, 768 Boston Post Road, Madison.
Are you a local author with an upcoming reading or signing? Email m.mcnellis@shorepublishing.com.
Editor's Note: Due to inclement weather, the author talk scheduled for Wednesday, Feb. 27 has been rescheduled for Thursday, March 14 at 6:30 p.m. at Hagaman Memorial Library, 227 Main St., East Haven.