Mosquito Park:

Living in the Western Slope Heights of Jersey City was quite different from the “Horse Shoe” section of downtown. The days of street barbeques with your neighbors were over. Nobody in the Heights opened up the fire hydrant “johnny pump” in the summer and nobody played stickball in the streets. Leonard Gordon Park on Hudson Boulevard, now Kennedy Boulevard, became my new “street”. The park was nicknamed “Mosquito Park” because it was filled with mosquitoes that flew in from the swamps of Secaucus. There are giant stone sculptures of bears and buffalo at the entrances to the park. I spent most days and nights in this park playing basketball, baseball, and football. I practiced and practiced, day and night. This is where I developed my discipline. I learned to “never give up” and that if I "keep trying", some day I will be rewarded. My reward came after a grammar school basketball game. Rocky Pope, a local High School basketball coach and Jersey City legend, offered me a sports scholarship in the locker room after the game. Next to the day I met Martha, it was one of the best days of my life. My dog, Colonel Glenn loved to run and play in "Mosquito Park". Colonel was named after the astronaut John Glenn. He followed me home while I was walking in a snow storm along Route 440. He stayed with me until he disappeared in 1974.

In later years, my friend Danny and I would practice guitar and trade riffs on his father’s old Martin 6-string and my Gibson acoustic in the circular gazebo we called the “round house” in the middle of “Mosquito Park”. We played in the “round house” to get the “echo effect” that made us sound better than we really were. We knew about the “echo effect” from reading the album cover of the “Royal Counts”, a local acapella group from Dickenson High School. Their lead singer, Herman Hammond, mentioned in the liner notes that the "Counts" practiced in the connecting tunnels of the “Hill Top” school to get the “echo”. I can still remember the day Danny taught me how to play “The House of the Rising Sun” in the “round house”. I felt like I had just uncovered the secret of eternal bliss! I still have that old Gibson and an electric ’57 reissue Fender Stratocaster . Last year, Martha gave me a new Martin 6-string acoustic for Christmas. This is a picture of my old garage band member Willie who taught me how to play my favorite type music, the blues. My favorite blues guitarists are Robert Johnson, Elmore James, Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, and B.B. King.

Frankie Infante and World War III:

One of our friends from those days made it “big” in the 80’s. Asbury Park had Bruce Springsteen but Jersey City had Frank Infante. He played for a local group called World War III and later became the lead guitarist for the famous rock group “Blondie”. World War III and other local bands played in a club very close to the Galaxy on Bergenline Avenue across from the Park. People would tease Frank and call him “Frankie Freak” because he had bad acne scars on his face, but he got the last laugh when he became a famous rock guitarist. If you are familiar with Blondie’s hit song “One Way or Another”, Frank is the guitarist playing the solo in that song. I ran into him one night at "Max's Kansas City" in New York, right about the time Blondie was at their peak. A few weeks later, I'm sitting next to him, talking about the old days in JC, on a plane from LA to Newark. And, since Frank was from the Marion section of Jersey City, I had my Andy Warhol fifteen minutes of fame when he gave me a ride home from the airport in his record company’s limo. Blondie regrouped last year without Frank Infante. Hearing Blondie play without Frank and his signature guitar sound was as upsetting to me as when I was told by the GTCA that it would take 8 days before someone could come and fix the two leaks I had in my bathrooms. And it was as disappointing as not seeing those yellow barrels, that catch the leaking water, next to the elevators in the Galaxy Mall. Frank is a great guitarist and deserved his success, but some friends of mine from the Heights didn’t turn out so well. When I returned from Miami in 1970 I found many of my old friends had traded their basketballs in for brown bags with airplane glue, Carbona cleaning fluid and later, heroin. They would sniff glue and then roll down the steep hills of Mosquito Park. In 1977, I was at the bedside of my close friend and quarterback from the Pop Warner and Al Blozis teams when he died from heroin use at the age of 27 in the Jersey City Medical Center. Another friend had his throat slit with a knife while sitting in his car handing money to a heroin dealer on Rivington Street in NYC. I was never really happy about moving to Miami after high school, but I believe that it probably saved my life.

Frizzi & Lazzi:

Eating at the street barbeques from downtown were replaced with eating at Tippy’s Charcoal Heaven when I moved to the Heights. One day while reading the menu at Tippy’s, I noticed my grandfather’s name on the bottom of the menu. It seems silly today, but back then I felt like a celebrity because my grandfather was the printer of Tippy’s menu. My grandfather owned a printing company in New York and was an Italian actor in the Giglio Theater on Canal Street. When I visited my grandparents on Erie Street in Jersey City, I would entertain my grandmother by imitating famous people. She would always say to me, “you’re just like your grandfather”. I didn’t understand what she meant because I never knew my grandfather was an actor until years later. I stayed with my grandparents in the summers at an old mansion that was turned into a boarding house near the beach in Long Branch. Italian families from Jersey City all stayed at this house called “Mare Chiare” (English translation: Sea Bright). MY grandfather told me that Mare Chiare is the name of a village in Naples where he was born. The women cooked together in the huge communal kitchen. My grandfather would come on the weekends and play bocce ball with his friends in the back yard. My grandfather was a strong powerful Italian man from the old school. After dinner, he would go to the living room, sit in his favorite chair, light up one of his “L&M” cigarettes, and read while he waited for my grandmother to make demitasse espresso. After a few minutes, he would put down his paper and say in a loud deep voice: “Non sento l'odore di caffè” (English translation: I don’t smell the coffee). I can still see the fear on my grandmother and mom’s faces. They would stop talking, drop everything, and run to make his coffee! That voice was so strong it gave me the chills. His personality and powerful voice served him well both on the stage…and in the living room. I was never an actor, but I did study modern drama with the New York Times theater critic and author, Margaret Croyden. I love the theater and some of the writers I admire the most are Henrik Ibsen, Eugene Ionesco, Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Harold Pinter, Eugene O’Neill, Arthur Miller, and Edward Albee. One of my favorite plays is Sartre’s No Exit. Every time I read No Exit, I imagine myself in the drawing room, the location of the play, with the two people that I hate most in the whole world! Can you guess who they are? My favorite quote comes from Camus; “Life can only be understood backwards, but must be lived forwards”. My grandfather was the President of the Italian Actors Union and President of the Columbus Democratic Club. He was the Master of Ceremonies for the Feasts the Democratic Club held on Monmouth Street every year. In later years, he worked as a “prompter” helping actors when they forgot their lines. A few months ago, I was surfing the Internet and came across a book written about Italian actors in New York City. I contacted the author, Dr. Emelise Aleandri, and asked if she knew my grandfather. She knew of him but had no idea what he looked like. I sent her a picture of my grandfather and mentioned he was the President of the Italian Actors Union. She suggested that I look at a picture in one of her books, The Italian-American Immigrant Theatre of New York City. I opened the book and there was my grandfather on pages 125 and 126! Dr. Aleandri is the author of two other books, Little Italy and The Italian-American Immigrant Theatre of New York City 1746-1899. Dr. Aleandri is also the actress who played the supporting role of Florence Colombo, the next door neighbor of the family central to “Crooklyn”, Spike Lee's semi-autobiographical film. She was one of the commentators in the NBC special about Little Italy last July. If you would like to learn more about the Italian-American Theater, you can visit Dr. Aleandri’s website My grandfather did most of the printing for the theater companies in Little Italy. For the past month, I have been tracking down my grandfather’s theater posters and playbills for Dr. Aleandri to use in her next book. She has invited Martha and me to her book opening press release party in October.

Hague’s Zeppelins:

I mentioned in Chapter 1 that I lived in the “House that Hague Built” during the 70’s. The address was 2600 Kennedy Boulevard and it was the home of Mayor Frank Hague. I became friends with one of the doormen, Sunny, who was very old and remembered when Frank Hague was king and ran Jersey City like a tyrant. He told me that Hague had his own private police force called "zeppelins" or "zepps". He kept "zepps" posted on each of the four corners of his building. If someone attempted to walk by and the "zepps" didn’t like the way he looked, they would force him to go a different way. Sunny told me that all of the materials that were used to build “2600” were “kickbacks” to Hague from contractors in return for getting the contract to build the Jersey City Medical Center on Montgomery Street. “2600” is a magnificent 10-story building, furnished with the same imported marble as the Medical Center. The rooms are huge and each bedroom has a wall safe. Hague lived in a duplex on the top two floors. Windows that face east have a fantastic view of Manhattan. I believe Hague’s duplex was split into two apartments when “2600” was converted to a condo a few years ago. “2600” was just one of the many jewels in Hague's crown - a crown he wouldn't be wearing if not for his trusty goon squad. Tyrants are nothing without their henchmen. Hague used the “zepps” to help him win elections, intimidate his critics and use bully tactics on those who disagree. Does this sound remarkably similar to the antics of the “Return to Reason” group? Does anyone see any similarity between Jersey City then, and the Galaxy and Guttenberg now?

Coming Next: Split Coconuts, Mooks And Mamalukes