The Italian Community in the Old East End
Since last I wrote, much of the external and internal work at 250 Massachusetts Avenue has been completed. The glass screen wall on the 3rd Street side of the building has been installed and stone walls and dry wall, ceiling panels, lighting, and skylight trimmings have all been added to the lobby. The 5th floor terrace has been planted, the pedestrian bridge is nearly complete, and the eco-chimney has been framed.
There is activity all around the site itself. The last of the magnificent tower cranes came down this weekend. The roof of the E Street garage entrance has been poured, signals await a Pepco inspection to begin operating at 3rd and G Streets, shrubs have been planted along Massachusetts Avenue and 2nd Street, and tree-pits have been installed along 3rd Street.
Forms have been installed to support the Historic Synagogue when it is lifted from its crib, and masonry has been added to the back wall of the Holy Rosary Rectory and the Casa Italiana.
The restoration of the Holy Rosary Rectory and renovation of Casa Italiana marks yet another chapter in the history of the Italian community in the old East End. Before there was a Center Leg Freeway, before Georgetown Law Center moved to the East End, and before anyone ever thought about a development such as Capitol Crossing spanning multiple neighborhood streets, a vibrant working class neighborhood with homes and businesses occupied the current construction site. Although African Americans and immigrants from Germany, Ireland, and Eastern Europe — Jews, Protestants, and Catholics — all lived in the surrounding neighborhood, the dominant immigrant group on the site were the Italian Americans. The area was sparsely occupied in the early 1800s, but grew in population shortly before the Civil War. The site became a thriving neighborhood in large part because of the economic boom brought on by the Civil War and its aftermath. Several wars and the expansion of the federal government continued to bring prosperity to the neighborhood — notwithstanding a few serious economic depressions — until the 1960s when the Eisenhower Interstate Highway system and America’s love affair with the automobile devastated the community. Buildings were destroyed, businesses closed or relocated, and long-time neighbors bid farewell to each other as the wrecking balls tore through the neighborhood. Through it all, however, stood Holy Rosary Church, an exquisite house of worship for the predominant Italian Roman Catholic community in the East End. Though the neighbors left, the parish remained, drawing not just the original parishioners but their children, then their grandchildren, and then their great-grandchildren, back to their spiritual home.
The Italians of Holy Rosary parish were not the first Italians to come to America. Christopher Columbus, an Italian, was the first European explorer other than the early Vikings to set foot in the Americas. By the early twentieth century, however, Italians were the largest group of immigrants in America. Between 1881 and 1920, four million Italians immigrated to the United States. They emigrated from Tuscany, the Valley of the Po, Sicily, and Basilicata. These Italians were tradesmen, artists, scholars, farmers, skilled and unskilled laborers — mostly refugees hoping to escape poverty, disease, and political turmoil in Italy.
Italians who came early to Washington, D.C. — those arriving during the early- and mid- nineteenth century — were able to find work building the emerging Federal city. Italian painters, sculptors, and stone carvers were responsible for decorating the U.S. Capitol building and other prominent federal buildings. Constantino Brumidi, an Italian immigrant who arrived in the United States in 1852, spent twenty-five years painting murals and art in the Capitol. His work still exists today and is famously known as the Brumidi Corridor.
Peter Cardelli, who sculpted ornaments for the Capitol, also sculpted busts of Presidents James Monroe, James Madison, and Thomas Jefferson from life. He then received permission to replicate them and sell them as his property. Giovanni Andrei carved the column tops for the U.S. House of Representatives Statuary Hall. Another skilled sculptor of figures, Giuseppe Franzoni, traveled from Tuscany to the United States in 1806. Franzoni sculpted some of Benjamin Latrobe’s intricate designs for the Capitol. He also created a full-length representation of Liberty and the Eagle for the south wing of the Capitol, the uniquely American corn capitals for the Senate vestibule, and a row of caryatid supports for the gallery rail above the old Senate Chamber. Franzoni learned the spirit of his adopted country well. His work in the U.S. was praised by Congressmen as being “truly American.” After Franzoni died in 1815, Andrei became the Capitol’s chief sculptor and worked on the building for more than twenty years. Unfortunately, the work of both artists in the Capitol was mostly destroyed during the British burning of the city in 1814.
Skilled sculptors continued to come to America to build Washington, D.C. and they continue to do so today. Their artistry can be found all around the city. Look at the Library of Congress, the Supreme Court, the National Archives, the Lincoln Memorial, the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Washington National Cathedral, Constitution Hall, McKinley Technical High School, the U.S. Marine Corps War Memorial, and the six statues guarding the entrance to Union Station. You will see the touch of an Italian hand in all of them.
The late nineteenth century and early twentieth century immigrants were not always so celebrated. Notwithstanding their determination, the millions of Italians who arrived in America at the turn of that century experienced much suffering and sacrifice. American nationalists greeted them with prejudice and anti-Italian sentiment from the moment they arrived. The nationalists inflamed anti-foreign attitudes and used the fear of job insecurity to justify beating, lynching, and other brutal crimes against the new arrivals. Many Italian immigrants, unable to speak English and unfamiliar with American culture, were exploited by a group called the padroni. The padroni, some of whom were earlier immigrants, were entertainers, hustlers, and labor contractors who took advantage of those who had just arrived in the United States. The padroni made the newcomers glowing offers of homes, jobs, protection, and other assistance. Instead of being sincere patrons, the padroni placed the immigrants in overcrowded and unsanitary tenements, forcing them to surrender almost all of their earnings for rent.
Most Italians who arrived in the United States in the late nineteenth century landed in New York. The majority of them remained in New York or migrated to California, Baltimore, and Chicago. Few of those Italians migrated to the District of Columbia because there were scant job opportunities here at the time. Unlike New York and California, Washington did not have the factories, commercial ports, or mills where most Italians were able to find work. Their limited English language skills and their unfamiliarity with American culture left them suited for only unskilled labor. Unskilled jobs were not as plentiful in Washington as they were in other cities. Still, immigrants continued to arrive. Some who came were skilled artisans, some were shopkeepers, and some came simply to try their luck.
Some of that luck was derived from the fable Pinocchio written by Carlo Collodi in 1881. Collodi’s fable was not exactly the one portrayed by Walt Disney in 1940. Disney’s animated movie portrayed a wooden marionette who just wanted to be a real boy. The original story, first published in the magazine Giornale dei Bambini as “The Adventures of Pinocchio, a Puppet’s Story,” told how Pinocchio angered his father Geppetto, a carpenter, so much with his mischief and lies that Geppetto found a small boat and set sail for the New World. When Pinocchio saw the boat disappear under a wave, Pinocchio repented and apologized to his father. But he was too late — Geppetto was gone. Thankfully, a giant pigeon appeared and offered to take Pinocchio to where his father was. Pinocchio agreed and followed his father to the Americas. In the end, Pinocchio found his father in the belly of a giant dogfish. He rescued his father and because of all of his good deeds, Pinocchio became a real boy.
On the back cover of a 2002 translation of Collodi’s original story, author Nancy Canepa, described the book this way.
Readers familiar only with the Disney adaptations of Collodi’s classic will be surprised by this dark masterpiece, a central work in the Italian literary canon…[t]he Adventures of Pinocchio garnered immediate acclaim as a children’s story. Today Italians consider Pinocchio, along with The Divine Comedy and The Decameron, one of their most important works of literature. Collodi did more than merely weave a captivating tale. Through metaphor and allusion, he summed up the national character of Italy and made biting commentary on many of the prominent social concerns of the nineteenth century, among them the despair and hunger of poverty, the importance of an education, and the hypocrisy of the judicial and medical establishments. Indeed, the universality of Collodi’s themes led [Italian philosopher] Benedetto Croce to remark, ‘The wood from which Pinocchio is carved is humanity itself.’
Italians departing for America during the early twentieth century took with them the story of Pinocchio as a good luck charm to remember that traveling, though frightening, was often necessary to reunite with loved ones. Indeed, many of the Italians leaving for America were either families seeking a better life in the States or women and children hoping to reunite with husbands or fathers who had already gone to America during the late nineteenth century.
Collodi was not the only Italian writer with connection to the United States. Alberto Moravia was a literary icon who is known for works, especially Gli Indifferenti, which discussed existentialism and detachment from society. Moravia travelled to the United States but never lived here; nonetheless, many of his works have been adapted and translated into movies, including The Conformist, The Empty Canvas, and Agostino. Virgilia d’Andrea was a prominent writer and poet who immigrated to the United States in 1928. She is best known for her book of poetry, Tormento, which warned against the fascist movement in Italy during the early twentieth century. Andrea’s works were known to be emotive and inspiring to the people of Italy who, in 1922, were fighting for a social revolution and waiting for a better life. The second printing of Tormento, which was published after d’Andrea arrived in America, was immediately seized by the Italy’s fascist government for inspiring revolt. More modern writers, such as Gay Talese, Mario Puzo, and Don DiLillo are well known to Americans today. Poet Grace Cavilieri was appointed the Poet Laureate of Maryland in 2018 and Adriana Trigani has authored at least eighteen books and is an award-winning playwright. Italian Americans have also become giants in the movie and music industry. Lee Iacocca led two of the U.S. major automobile manufacturers. He developed the Ford Motor Company’s beloved Mustang and led the Chrysler Corporation out of bankruptcy in the 1970s. The imprint of the twentieth century Italian immigrants, like that of all immigrants to this country, is woven deep into the fabric of America.
Although Italians in Washington, D.C. never established themselves in an urban enclave comparable to the Little Italy in New York, the East End was rich in Italian culture. Most Italians settled in two East End neighborhoods: Judiciary Square and Swampoodle. The Italian Americans who resided in the Judiciary Square area tended to be carpenters, grocers, and barbers. Swampoodle, located near Gonzaga High School and Union Station, was mostly dominated by Irish; but it also became the home of Italian artists and construction workers.
The Capitol Crossing site, sitting at the western edge of Swampoodle, was completely developed by 1923. The architecture was typical of Washington at the time. Brick structures in Italianate or Victorian styles predominated in the area. Small factories, hotels, apartment buildings, and flat-front houses stood side by side in this multicultural working-class neighborhood. Looking at the neighborhood now, one can hardly believe that this was a thriving residential area, teeming with small businesses. Vaccaro’s Italian Delicatessen and Bakery, located at 3rd Street and Massachusetts Avenue, NW, began as an Italian bakery and grocery in 1906 when John Vaccaro came from Palermo to start a new life. Until it moved in the 1970s, it served some of the best cannoli in the city. I know this because I ate them myself when I attended Georgetown Law Center in the late 1960s. Other merchants and shopkeepers lived and worked in the neighborhood. Viareggio’s Grocery Store stood at 3rd and I Streets, NW. Augusto Vasaio and his sons ran the AV Ristorante Italiano at 6th Street and New York Avenue NW for almost 60 years before it closed in 2007. The AV, ultimately a complex of several buildings, was a favorite of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
Regardless of whether an Italian lived in Judiciary Square or Swampoodle, virtually all of them had an unwavering devotion to Catholicism. The Italian Catholics were a religious minority in Protestant-dominated Washington, D.C. Moreover, the Catholic churches that did exist were largely presided over by the Irish and Germans. Consequently, the Italian community wanted their own church — one led by an Italian speaking priest and dedicated to Italian Catholic practice. The hierarchy of the Catholic Church recognized the growing need for a church to minister to the Italian community so it commissioned Bishop Giovanni Battista Scalabrini to establish a congregation in the United States for Italian Americans. Existing church leaders debated over the practicality of assigning a priest to specifically accommodate Italians, and other Catholic communities even complained about the cost of establishing an Italian church. Still, the Italians of Washington, D.C. continued in their quest and recruited Father Nicholas De Carlo to be their pastor. After securing the cooperation of smaller Italian communities in the Washington, D.C. area, Father De Carlo was able to establish a parish and the Holy Rosary Church for the Italian community.
In 1913, Father De Carlo created a chapel out of a house at 83 H Street, NW. For Father De Carlo, deciding on the name for the chapel was easy. Before he became a priest, Father De Carlo had been deathly ill and vowed to build a church dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary if he recovered. According to some Catholic traditions, the Rosary was given to Saint Dominic in a vision by the mother of Christ. The Hail Mary, the main prayer, is said repeatedly while reciting the Rosary. Father De Carlo kept his promise and on December 14, 1913, he offered his first Mass at the Holy Rosary Church. The church quickly became the focal point of the neighborhood, hosting both religious and secular activities for its parishioners and community.
The parish held carnivals, concerts, dansants (dinner dances), plays, and tea gatherings. In recognition of its service to the Italian community, King Victor Emmanuel of Italy gave the Church a gift of a golden chalice.
Despite the community’s demonstrated civic responsibility, World War II took a toll on its members as Italy entered the conflict on the side of the Nazis and declared war on the United States. World War II reignited Americans’ anti-Italian sentiments, evoking distrust and suspicion. Italian nationals in the United States were suddenly foreign enemies. More than 10,000 Italians nation-wide were forced from their homes and hundreds were relocated to internment camps. Hundreds of thousands more suffered curfews, confiscations and mass surveillance during the war. The Italians in Washington were not spared this hostility, but the priests of Holy Rosary continued to offer Masses for parishioners and helped the Italians living in Washington survive the prejudice and hardship. The Holy Rosary Parish also held movie screenings, picnics, concerts, and fundraisers as distractions from the many anxieties brought on by the war. Despite being under surveillance by the United States government, the Church never changed its schedule or practices. The Italian community, following the parish teaching, maintained that Italy’s participation in the war did not compromise them; they staunchly proclaimed their status as faithful Americans. The men and women of Holy Rosary parish, like other Italian Americans throughout the country, joined the war effort. Men of the parish joined the services while the women on the home front volunteered at local support organizations. The Church also supported the war effort by donating materials and cash to the American government. Slowly, hostility toward the Italian community decreased as Americans came to recognize that its citizens could, in fact, be both Italian and American.
The Italian community in Washington, D.C. flourished during the post-war economic boom. For those who lived through the war, fighting on behalf of the United States instilled an even greater American pride and identity. Italians were able to find jobs and return to school to obtain college degrees. Many achieved wealth through their work in business, finance, and real estate. One member of the real estate business, Raphael G. Urciolo, was the president of a family-owned company. In the mid-1940s, he and civil rights lawyer Charles Hamilton Houston fought private restrictive covenants that prevented African Americans from purchasing homes in Washington. They ultimately prevailed in the Supreme Court as a companion case to Shelley v. Kramer, a unanimous decision forbidding such restrictive covenants.
As with descendants of many other nineteenth century immigrants, employment opportunities created greater wages and wealth, enabling many Italian Americans to move out of the city and into the suburbs to live in better housing. Even after they moved though, they returned to Holy Rosary Parish on Sundays and holidays to celebrate their faith and renew their friendships with their now-scattered fellow parishioners.
In 1955, the Italian community faced the destruction of its church. Even though Holy Rosary served more than 2,000 parishioners and significantly contributed to the Italian American community, city planners in Washington decided to demolish the church as part of the government’s plan to build Interstate 395 through the city as the Center Leg Freeway — a part of the Capital Beltway system. The District wanted to destroy the city’s only Italian Catholic church so that motorists could drive swiftly through the area to save time and money. Understandably, the Italian community was outraged. They vigorously protested the construction plans and ultimately won. Although the parish lost its rectory, the church itself was saved. A new rectory was built on a remnant of the former F Street near 3rd Street. It remained there until it was demolished as part of the Capitol Crossing Project. A new rectory is currently being built behind the church.
Today, the Holy Rosary Church welcomes all people, regardless of their heritage. But the Italian influence remains strong. The church offers Mass in Italian and continues to celebrate its Italian ancestry through its Cultural Center — the Casa Italiana. The Casa Italiana Cultural Center has been recognized as the corner of authentic Italy in the heart of Washington, D.C. The Center provides the community with Italian speaking and writing courses, as well as classes on cooking, wine tasting, and the ancient art of Italian ceramic pottery. Parishioners still go to the Casa for movie nights, participate in prayer groups, and attend social outings to the monuments and other attractions around the city. The parish regularly holds food drives and charity events such as the Feast and Food Drive in honor of Saint Anthony and the Catholic Charities Lenten Food Drive. As the only Italian national parish in Washington, D.C., the Holy Rosary Church, with its distinct Italian architecture, remains the center and home of Washington’s Italian-American community and serves as a reminder of the thriving Italian community that once lived and worked in the old East End.
But Holy Rosary is more than a reminder of the past. The vibrancy of the community continues. The parish and PGP Partners are implementing an expansion and renovation to the Casa Italiana. The Center’s library will be divided into two large rooms — one for a children’s library and one for all other books. The expansion will allow the Center’s collection of 3,038 Italian books, originally only available during limited hours, to be available on weekends and every evening during Italian language programs. Overall, the Center’s library, including 1,803 Italian children’s books and 240 DVDs and 43 VHS tapes of Italian movies, will now be able to grow because of the generous donations from the community.
Renovations will also include rooms dedicated to the Italian American Collection of Washington, D.C. The Italian American Collection preserves and displays historical objects, memorabilia, and documents that depict the lives, struggles, and achievements of Italian Americans in Washington, D.C. and the surrounding area. The Collection will consist of at least four atriums and two floors. The four atriums will display Italian American artifacts. One of the two floors will include a virtual collection of Italian art and construction in the District of Columbia. The other floor will be devoted to the Italian American experience through the history of the Holy Rosary Church and Casa Italiana Cultural Center. Future visitors to the Center will be able to explore exhibitions showcasing the banners of the organizations of the Holy Rosary Church, items belonging to prior pastors of the church, and posters advertising historical events of the church. Two stages for concerts, plays, and conferences will also be created.
The Italian immigrants in the East End, like their Jewish neighbors across the street and all other immigrant groups, brought their culture to America and enriched us all in ways great and small. Today, we cannot separate their contributions from our lives. Their music, art, and literature, food and customs, once the province of their home nations, are embedded deeply into the life of America. Indeed, modern America exists because brave people from other nations came here, made it their home, and shared their culture with those already here. We of many nations have melded into the America we know, cherish, and seek to preserve; to remain true to the words of Emma Lazarus on the Statue of Liberty — “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” Yet somehow, we seem to have forgotten that legacy of immigration today.
The notion of a nation as one entity as opposed to a union of disparate peoples was forged by the Civil War and the words of the original Republican Party. Lincoln, speaking in Chicago in 1858 and referring to the immigrants who had come to the country after the founding, said that they had the right to claim this country “as though they were blood of the blood and flesh of the flesh of the men who wrote [the] Declaration [of Independence].” Two years later, again in Chicago, the Republican Party nominated Lincoln for President and included in its platform Plank #14, which stated,
That the Republican party is opposed to any change in our naturalization laws, or any state legislation by which the rights of citizenship hitherto accorded by emigrants from foreign lands shall be abridged or impaired; and in favor of giving full and efficient protection to the rights of all classes of citizens, whether native or naturalized, both at home and abroad.
A nation of immigrants should never forget that their fathers and mothers, grandfathers and grandmothers, and ancestors even before them, came to America with hopes and fears like the immigrants of today. Like the Italians immigrants of Holy Rosary, immigrants help forge a nation of promise, one that has perhaps stumbled as often as it picked itself up, but a nation which took the best from each of the immigrant cultures and wove it into the fabric of America. We did so by remembering the past as we created the future. Today, we need to look to the past, to the founding of the Republican Party, and remember the lessons and gifts it gave to America — a nation, without slavery or discrimination, and with a welcoming hand to those seeking a better life for themselves and their children.
Wally Mlyniec
SOURCES
Janelle Sampana, L’20, researched much of the Note and wrote substantial portions of it. Betsy Kuhn again edited the Note with her deft touch. We are also grateful to the staff at the National Italian American Foundation and the use of their library and Museum.
Around Washington, The Wash. Herald A3 (July 30, 1922).
Ask Art, Giuseppe Franzoni, http://www.askart.com/artist/Giuseppe_Franzoni/10018622/Giuseppe_Franzoni.aspx (last visited June 29, 2019).
Boundary Stones, The Michelangelo of the Capitol, https://blogs.weta.org/boundarystones/2015/02/13/michelangelo-capitol (last visited June 18, 2019).
Brett Abelman, Swampoodle: This Ain’t Yer Grandma’s Uline Arena (or is it), DCIST,https://dcist.com/story/11/05/23/swampoodle-this-aint-yer-grandmas-u/ (May 23, 2011).
Carlo Collodi, The Adventures of Pinocchio, the Story of a Puppet, Nancy Canepa Translation, Steerforth Press, 2002.
Catherine M. Petrini, The Italian Americans 63–64 (2002).
Clancy Martin, What the Original Pinocchio Really says about Lying, New Yorker (Feb. 26, 2015).
Destination America, When Did They Come? https://www.pbs.org/destinationamerica/usim_wn_noflash_5.html (last visited June 17, 2019).
Don’t Speak the Enemy’s Language! Speak American!, The National Italian American Foundation (2019).
Edward Corsi, Italian Immigrants and Their Children, 223 Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 100, 100 (1942).
Hamil R. Harris, Holy Rosary Church, a Hub for Italian Family, Turns 100, Wash. Post (Dec. 13, 2013).
Holy Name Society Will Hold Annual Dansant, Wash. Times A1 (Feb. 19, 1922).
Holy Rosary Church Observes Feast Day, Wash. Times 10 (Oct. 2, 1922).
Holy Rosary Church, Casa Italiana Center, http://www.holyrosarychurchdc.org/casa-italiana/ (last visited June 29, 2019).
Howard Gillette Jr. & Alan M. Kraut, The Evolution of Washington’s Italian-American Community, 1890: World War II, Immigration & Ethnic History Society 7, 10 (1986).
Italian Art in the U.S. Senate, http://users.erols.com/sabatinr/capitol.htm (last visited June 29, 2019).
Italian-Americans: Fascism and the Two World Wars, The National Italian American Foundation (2019).
Izetta Mobley, Holy Rosary Church (2017).
Lontane Americhe, National Italian American Museum (2019).
Mary Elizabeth Brown, An Italian American Community of Faith 7 (2015).
National Italian American Foundation, Italians in America 33 (2001).
Patrick Kiger, The Closest Thing to a “Little Italy” in Washington, Boundary Stones,https://blogs.weta.org/boundarystones/2015/02/12/closest-thing-little-italy-washington (Feb. 2, 2015).
Remigio U. Pane, The Italian Americans (1987).
Robert F. Harney, The Padrone and the Immigrant (1974).
Rosary Exercises Today, The Wash. Herald A1 (July 8, 1922).
The Italian Church, The National Italian American Foundation (2019).
The National Italian American Foundation, Italian American Populations in All 50 States,http://www.niaf.org/culture/statistics/italian-american-populations-in-all-50-states/ (last visited June 15, 2019).
Tim W. Smith, A Profile of Italian Americans: 1972–1991 (1992).
United States Senate, Justice, https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/art/artifact/Sculpture_25_00001.htm (last visited June 29, 2019).
Sumpter Priddy and Ann Steuart, Seating Furniture from the District of Columbia, 1795–1820, Chipstone, http://www.chipstone.org/article.php/610/American-Furniture-2010/Seating-Furniture-from-the-District-of-Columbia,-1795%E2%80%931820
Women of Holy Rosary Church at Carroll Hall Tonight, The Wash. Post A7 (May 3, 1921).
Since last I wrote, much of the external and internal work at 250 Massachusetts Avenue has been completed. The glass screen wall on the 3rd Street side of the building has been installed and stone walls and dry wall, ceiling panels, lighting, and skylight trimmings have all been added to the lobby. The 5th floor terrace has been planted, the pedestrian bridge is nearly complete, and the eco-chimney has been framed.
There is activity all around the site itself. The last of the magnificent tower cranes came down this weekend. The roof of the E Street garage entrance has been poured, signals await a Pepco inspection to begin operating at 3rd and G Streets, shrubs have been planted along Massachusetts Avenue and 2nd Street, and tree-pits have been installed along 3rd Street. Forms have been installed to support the Historic Synagogue when it is lifted from its crib, and masonry has been added to the back wall of the Holy Rosary Rectory and the Casa Italiana.
The restoration of the Holy Rosary Rectory and renovation of Casa Italiana marks yet another chapter in the history of the Italian community in the old East End. Before there was a Center Leg Freeway, before Georgetown Law Center moved to the East End, and before anyone ever thought about a development such as Capitol Crossing spanning multiple neighborhood streets, a vibrant working class neighborhood with homes and businesses occupied the current construction site. Although African Americans and immigrants from Germany, Ireland, and Eastern Europe — Jews, Protestants, and Catholics — all lived in the surrounding neighborhood, the dominant immigrant group on the site were the Italian Americans. The area was sparsely occupied in the early 1800s, but grew in population shortly before the Civil War. The site became a thriving neighborhood in large part because of the economic boom brought on by the Civil War and its aftermath. Several wars and the expansion of the federal government continued to bring prosperity to the neighborhood — notwithstanding a few serious economic depressions — until the 1960s when the Eisenhower Interstate Highway system and America’s love affair with the automobile devastated the community. Buildings were destroyed, businesses closed or relocated, and long-time neighbors bid farewell to each other as the wrecking balls tore through the neighborhood. Through it all, however, stood Holy Rosary Church, an exquisite house of worship for the predominant Italian Roman Catholic community in the East End. Though the neighbors left, the parish remained, drawing not just the original parishioners but their children, then their grandchildren, and then their great-grandchildren, back to their spiritual home.
The Italians of Holy Rosary parish were not the first Italians to come to America. Christopher Columbus, an Italian, was the first European explorer other than the early Vikings to set foot in the Americas. By the early twentieth century, however, Italians were the largest group of immigrants in America. Between 1881 and 1920, four million Italians immigrated to the United States. They emigrated from Tuscany, the Valley of the Po, Sicily, and Basilicata. These Italians were tradesmen, artists, scholars, farmers, skilled and unskilled laborers — mostly refugees hoping to escape poverty, disease, and political turmoil in Italy.
Italians who came early to Washington, D.C. — those arriving during the early- and mid- nineteenth century — were able to find work building the emerging Federal city. Italian painters, sculptors, and stone carvers were responsible for decorating the U.S. Capitol building and other
Brumidi Corridors in the Senate Wing.
Credit: govinfo.com and savingplaces.com
prominent federal buildings. Constantino Brumidi, an Italian immigrant who arrived in the United States in 1852, spent twenty-five years painting murals and art in the Capitol. His work still exists today and is famously known as the Brumidi Corridor.
Peter Cardelli, who sculpted ornaments for the Capitol, also sculpted busts of Presidents James Monroe, James Madison, and Thomas Jefferson from life. He then received permission to replicate them and sell them as his property. Giovanni Andrei carved the column tops for the U.S. House of Representatives Statuary Hall. Another skilled sculptor of figures, Giuseppe Franzoni, traveled from Tuscany to the United States in 1806. Franzoni sculpted some of Benjamin Latrobe’s intricate designs for the Capitol. He also created a full-length representation of Liberty and the Eagle for the south wing of the Capitol, the uniquely American corn capitals for the Senate vestibule, and a row of caryatid supports for the gallery rail above the old Senate Chamber. Franzoni learned the spirit of his adopted country well. His work in the U.S. was praised by Congressmen as being “truly American.” After Franzoni died in 1815, Andrei became the Capitol’s chief sculptor and worked on the building for more than twenty years. Unfortunately, the work of both artists in the Capitol was mostly destroyed during the British burning of the city in 1814.
Skilled sculptors continued to come to America to build Washington, D.C. and they continue to do so today. Their artistry can be found all around the city. Look at the Library of Congress, the Supreme Court, the National Archives, the Lincoln Memorial, the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Washington National Cathedral, Constitution Hall, McKinley Technical High School, the U.S. Marine Corps War Memorial, and the six statues guarding the entrance to Union Station. You will see the touch of an Italian hand in all of them.
The late nineteenth century and early twentieth century immigrants were not always so celebrated. Notwithstanding their determination, the millions of Italians who arrived in America at the turn of that century experienced much suffering and sacrifice. American nationalists
Credit: National Italian American Foundation
greeted them with prejudice and anti-Italian sentiment from the moment they arrived. The nationalists inflamed anti-foreign attitudes and used the fear of job insecurity to justify beating, lynching, and other brutal crimes against the new arrivals. Many Italian immigrants, unable to speak English and unfamiliar with American culture, were exploited by a group called the padroni. The padroni, some of whom were earlier immigrants, were entertainers, hustlers, and labor contractors who took advantage of those who had just arrived in the United States. The padroni made the newcomers glowing offers of homes, jobs, protection, and other assistance. Instead of being sincere patrons, the padroni placed the immigrants in overcrowded and unsanitary tenements, forcing them to surrender almost all of their earnings for rent.
Most Italians who arrived in the United States in the late nineteenth century landed in New York. The majority of them remained in New York or migrated to California, Baltimore, and Chicago. Few of those Italians migrated to the District of Columbia because there were scant job opportunities here at the time. Unlike New York and California, Washington did not have the factories, commercial ports, or mills where most Italians were able to find work. Their limited English language skills and their unfamiliarity with American culture left them suited for only unskilled labor. Unskilled jobs were not as plentiful in Washington as they were in other cities. Still, immigrants continued to arrive. Some who came were skilled artisans, some were shopkeepers, and some came simply to try their luck.
Some of that luck was derived from the fable Pinocchio written by Carlo Collodi in 1881. Collodi’s fable was not exactly the one portrayed by Walt Disney in 1940. Disney’s animated movie portrayed a wooden marionette who just wanted to be a real boy. The original story, first published in the magazine Giornale dei Bambini as “The Adventures of Pinocchio, a Puppet’s Story,” told how Pinocchio angered his father Geppetto, a carpenter, so much with his mischief and lies that Geppetto found a small boat and set sail for the New World. When Pinocchio saw
Geppetto carving Pinocchio and Pinocchio flying to the Americas.
Credit: Wikipedia
the boat disappear under a wave, Pinocchio repented and apologized to his father. But he was too late — Geppetto was gone. Thankfully, a giant pigeon appeared and offered to take Pinocchio to where his father was. Pinocchio agreed and followed his father to the Americas. In the end, Pinocchio found his father in the belly of a giant dogfish. He rescued his father and because of all of his good deeds, Pinocchio became a real boy. On the back cover of a 2002 translation of Collodi’s original story, author Nancy Canepa, described the book this way.
Readers familiar only with the Disney adaptations of Collodi’s classic will be surprised by this dark masterpiece, a central work in the Italian literary canon…[t]he Adventures of Pinocchio garnered immediate acclaim as a children’s story. Today Italians consider Pinocchio, along with The Divine Comedy and The Decameron, one of their most important works of literature. Collodi did more than merely weave a captivating tale. Through metaphor and allusion, he summed up the national character of Italy and made biting commentary on many of the prominent social concerns of the nineteenth century, among them the despair and hunger of poverty, the importance of an education, and the hypocrisy of the judicial and medical establishments. Indeed, the universality of Collodi’s themes led [Italian philosopher] Benedetto Croce to remark, ‘The wood from which Pinocchio is carved is humanity itself.’
Italians departing for America during the early twentieth century took with them the story of Pinocchio as a good luck charm to remember that traveling, though frightening, was often necessary to reunite with loved ones. Indeed, many of the Italians leaving for America were either families seeking a better life in the States or women and children hoping to reunite with husbands or fathers who had already gone to America during the late nineteenth century.
Collodi was not the only Italian writer with connection to the United States. Alberto Moravia was a literary icon who is known for works, especially Gli Indifferenti, which discussed existentialism and detachment from society. Moravia travelled to the United States but never lived here; nonetheless, many of his works have been adapted and translated into movies, including The Conformist, The Empty Canvas, and Agostino. Virgilia d’Andrea was a prominent writer and poet who immigrated to the United States in 1928. She is best known for her book of poetry, Tormento, which warned against the fascist movement in Italy during the early twentieth century. Andrea’s works were known to be emotive and inspiring to the people of Italy who, in 1922, were fighting for a social revolution and waiting for a better life. The second printing of Tormento, which was published after d’Andrea arrived in America, was immediately seized by the Italy’s fascist government for inspiring revolt. More modern writers, such as Gay Talese, Mario Puzo, and Don DiLillo are well known to Americans today. Poet Grace Cavilieri was appointed the Poet Laureate of Maryland in 2018 and Adriana Trigani has authored at least eighteen books and is an award-winning playwright. Italian Americans have also become giants in the movie and music industry. Lee Iacocca led two of the U.S. major automobile manufacturers. He developed the Ford Motor Company’s beloved Mustang and led the Chrysler Corporation out of bankruptcy in the 1970s. The imprint of the twentieth century Italian immigrants, like that of all immigrants to this country, is woven deep into the fabric of America.
Although Italians in Washington, D.C. never established themselves in an urban enclave comparable to the Little Italy in New York, the East End was rich in Italian culture. Most Italians settled in two East End neighborhoods: Judiciary Square and Swampoodle. The Italian
Picture of Swampoodle Neighborhood.
Credit: CurbDC
Americans who resided in the Judiciary Square area tended to be carpenters, grocers, and barbers. Swampoodle, located near Gonzaga High School and Union Station, was mostly dominated by Irish; but it also became the home of Italian artists and construction workers.
The Capitol Crossing site, sitting at the western edge of Swampoodle, was completely developed.by1923. The architecture was typical of Washington at the time. Brick structures in Italianate or Victorian styles predominated in the area. Small factories, hotels, apartment buildings, and flat-front houses stood side by side in this multicultural working-class neighborhood. Looking at the neighborhood now, one can hardly believe that this was a thriving residential area, teeming with small businesses. Vaccaro’s Italian Delicatessen and Bakery, located at 3rd Street and Massachusetts Avenue, NW, began as an Italian bakery and grocery in 1906 when John Vaccaro came from Palermo to start a new life. Until it moved in the 1970s, it served some of the best cannoli in the city. I know this because I ate them myself when I attended Georgetown Law Center in the late 1960s. Other merchants and shopkeepers lived and worked in the neighborhood. Viareggio’s Grocery Store stood at 3rd and I Streets, NW. Augusto Vasaio and his sons ran the AV Ristorante Italiano at 6th Street and New York Avenue NW for almost 60 years before it closed in 2007. The AV, ultimately a complex of several buildings, was a favorite of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
300 Third Street, NW 200–204 F Street, NW
Regardless of whether an Italian lived in Judiciary Square or Swampoodle, virtually all of them had an unwavering devotion to Catholicism. The Italian Catholics were a religious minority in Protestant-dominated Washington, D.C. Moreover, the Catholic churches that did exist were largely presided over by the Irish and Germans. Consequently, the Italian community wanted their own church — one led by an Italian speaking priest and dedicated to Italian Catholic practice. The hierarchy of the Catholic Church recognized the growing need for a church to minister to the Italian community so it commissioned Bishop Giovanni Battista Scalabrini to establish a congregation in the United States for Italian Americans. Existing church leaders debated over the practicality of assigning a priest to specifically accommodate Italians, and other Catholic communities
People from the neighborhood
On the left in the first picture is Pat Lignelli, the Italian Barber
even complained about the cost of establishing an Italian church. Still, the Italians of Washington, D.C. continued in their quest and recruited Father Nicholas De Carlo to be their pastor. After securing the cooperation of smaller Italian communities in the Washington, D.C. area, Father De Carlo was able to establish a parish and the Holy Rosary Church for the Italian community.
In 1913, Father De Carlo created a chapel out of a house at 83 H Street, NW. For Father De Carlo, deciding on the name for the chapel was easy. Before he became a priest, Father De Carlo had been deathly ill and vowed to build a church dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary if he recovered. According to some Catholic traditions, the Rosary was given to Saint Dominic in a vision by the mother of Christ. The Hail Mary, the main prayer, is said repeatedly while reciting the Rosary. Father De Carlo kept his promise and on December 14, 1913, he offered his first Mass at the Holy Rosary Church. The church quickly became the focal point of the neighborhood, hosting both religious and secular activities for its parishioners and community.
Holy Rosary Church Dedication Ceremony
Credit: Historical Society
of Washington, D.C.,
General Photograph Collection (CHS 11256).
The parish held carnivals, concerts, dansants (dinner dances), plays, and tea gatherings. In recognition of its service to the Italian community, King Victor Emmanuel of Italy gave the Church a gift of a golden chalice.
Despite the community’s demonstrated civic responsibility, World War II took a toll on its members as Italy entered the conflict on the side of the Nazis and declared war on the United States. World War II reignited Americans’ anti-Italian sentiments, evoking distrust and suspicion. Italian nationals in the United States were suddenly foreign enemies. More than 10,000 Italians nation-wide were forced from their homes and hundreds were relocated to internment camps. Hundreds of thousands more suffered curfews, confiscations and mass surveillance during the war. The Italians in Washington were not spared this hostility, but the priests of Holy Rosary continued to offer Masses for parishioners and helped the Italians living in Washington survive the prejudice and hardship. The Holy Rosary Parish also held movie screenings, picnics, concerts, and fundraisers as distractions from the many anxieties brought on by the war. Despite being under surveillance by the United States government, the Church never changed its schedule or practices. The Italian community, following the parish teaching, maintained that Italy’s participation in the
A sign on Terminal Island in California in 1942 Painting on U.S. and Italian
prohibiting Japanese, Italian & German origin from the area Friendship at end of WWII
Credit — John Florea/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images Credit: The National
Italian American Society
war did not compromise them; they staunchly proclaimed their status as faithful Americans. The men and women of Holy Rosary parish, like other Italian Americans throughout the country, joined the war effort. Men of the parish joined the services while the women on the home front volunteered at local support organizations. The Church also supported the war effort by donating materials and cash to the American government. Slowly, hostility toward the Italian community decreased as Americans came to recognize that its citizens could, in fact, be both Italian and American.
The Italian community in Washington, D.C. flourished during the post-war economic boom. For those who lived through the war, fighting on behalf of the United States instilled an even greater American pride and identity. Italians were able to find jobs and return to school to obtain college degrees. Many achieved wealth through their work in business, finance, and real estate. One member of the real estate business, Raphael G. Urciolo, was the president of a family-owned company. In the mid-1940s, he and civil rights lawyer Charles Hamilton Houston fought private restrictive covenants that prevented African Americans from purchasing homes in Washington. They ultimately prevailed in the Supreme Court as a companion case to Shelley v. Kramer, a unanimous decision forbidding such restrictive covenants.
As with descendants of many other nineteenth century immigrants, employment opportunities created greater wages and wealth, enabling many Italian Americans to move out of the city and into the suburbs to live in better housing. Even after they moved though, they returned to Holy Rosary Parish on Sundays and holidays to celebrate their faith and renew their friendships with their now-scattered fellow parishioners.
In 1955, the Italian community faced the destruction of its church. Even though Holy Rosary served more than 2,000 parishioners and significantly contributed to the Italian American community, city planners in Washington decided to demolish the church as part of the government’s plan to build Interstate 395 through the city as the Center Leg Freeway — a part of the Capital Beltway system. The District wanted to destroy the city’s only Italian Catholic church so that motorists could drive swiftly through the area to save time and money. Understandably, the Italian community was outraged. They vigorously protested the construction plans and ultimately won. Although the parish lost its rectory, the church itself was saved. A new rectory was built on a remnant of the former F Street near 3rd Street. It remained there until it was demolished as part of the Capitol Crossing Project. A new rectory is currently being built behind the church.
Today, the Holy Rosary Church welcomes all people, regardless of their heritage. But the Italian influence remains strong. The church offers Mass in Italian and continues to celebrate its Italian ancestry through its Cultural Center — the Casa Italiana. The Casa Italiana Cultural Center
Holy Rosary Church activities and food drives.
Credit: Holy Rosary Church.
has been recognized as the corner of authentic Italy in the heart of Washington, D.C. The Center provides the community with Italian speaking and writing courses, as well as classes on cooking, wine tasting, and the ancient art of Italian ceramic pottery. Parishioners still go to the Casa for movie nights, participate in prayer groups, and attend social outings to the monuments and other attractions around the city. The parish regularly holds food drives and charity events such as the Feast and Food Drive in honor of Saint Anthony and the Catholic Charities Lenten Food Drive. As the only Italian national parish in Washington, D.C., the Holy Rosary Church, with its distinct Italian architecture, remains the center and home of Washington’s Italian-American community and serves as a reminder of the thriving Italian community that once lived and worked in the old East End.
But Holy Rosary is more than a reminder of the past. The vibrancy of the community continues. The parish and PGP Partners are implementing an expansion and renovation to the Casa Italiana. The Center’s library will be divided into two large rooms — one for a children’s library and one for all other books. The expansion will allow the Center’s collection of 3,038 Italian books, originally only available during limited hours, to be available on weekends and every evening during Italian language programs. Overall, the Center’s library, including 1,803 Italian children’s books and 240 DVDs and 43 VHS tapes of Italian movies, will now be able to grow because of the generous donations from the community.
Renovations will also include rooms dedicated to the Italian American Collection of Washington, D.C. The Italian American Collection preserves and displays historical objects, memorabilia, and documents that depict the lives, struggles, and achievements of Italian Americans in Washington, D.C. and the surrounding area. The Collection will consist of at least four atriums and two floors. The four atriums will display Italian American artifacts. One of the two floors will include a virtual collection of Italian art and construction in the District of Columbia. The other floor will be devoted to the Italian American experience through the history of the Holy Rosary Church and Casa Italiana Cultural Center. Future visitors to the Center will be able to explore exhibitions showcasing the banners of the organizations of the Holy Rosary Church, items belonging to prior pastors of the church, and posters advertising historical events of the church. Two stages for concerts, plays, and conferences will also be created.
The Italian immigrants in the East End, like their Jewish neighbors across the street and all other immigrant groups, brought their culture to America and enriched us all in ways great and small. Today, we cannot separate their contributions from our lives. Their music, art, and literature, food and customs, once the province of their home nations, are embedded deeply into the life of America. Indeed, modern America exists because brave people from other nations came here, made it their home, and shared their culture with those already here. We of many nations have melded into the America we know, cherish, and seek to preserve; to remain true to the words of Emma Lazarus on the Statue of Liberty — “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” Yet somehow, we seem to have forgotten that legacy of immigration today.
The notion of a nation as one entity as opposed to a union of disparate peoples was forged by the Civil War and the words of the original Republican Party. Lincoln, speaking in Chicago in 1858 and referring to the immigrants who had come to the country after the founding, said that they had the right to claim this country “as though they were blood of the blood and flesh of the flesh of the men who wrote [the] Declaration [of Independence].” Two years later, again in Chicago, the Republican Party nominated Lincoln for President and included in its platform Plank #14, which stated,
That the Republican party is opposed to any change in our naturalization laws, or any state legislation by which the rights of citizenship hitherto accorded by emigrants from foreign lands shall be abridged or impaired; and in favor of giving full and efficient protection to the rights of all classes of citizens, whether native or naturalized, both at home and abroad.
A nation of immigrants should never forget that their fathers and mothers, grandfathers and grandmothers, and ancestors even before them, came to America with hopes and fears like the immigrants of today. Like the Italians immigrants of Holy Rosary, immigrants help forge a nation of promise, one that has perhaps stumbled as often as it picked itself up, but a nation which took the best from each of the immigrant cultures and wove it into the fabric of America. We did so by remembering the past as we created the future. Today, we need to look to the past, to the founding of the Republican Party, and remember the lessons and gifts it gave to America — a nation, without slavery or discrimination, and with a welcoming hand to those seeking a better life for themselves and their children.
Wally Mlyniec
SOURCES
Janelle Sampana, L’20, researched much of the Note and wrote substantial portions of it. Betsy Kuhn again edited the Note with her deft touch. We are also grateful to the staff at the National Italian American Foundation and the use of their library and Museum.
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