(Carolina + Giovanni Paterno —> Minnie + Saverio Paterno —> Annette + Charles Paterno —> Robert Silvester Paterno)
ROBERT S. PATERNO, (Bob) age 83, died November 6th at his home in BellaVita Subdivision (Pearland, Texas) and was welcomed to heaven by his Lord and Savior. He was diagnosed with Sclara Derma in the late 90’s but went into remission a year later. Only during this past year did it begin to take its toll.
Bob was born October 7, 1940 in New York City and was the last of 5 children born to Annette and Charles Paterno. After getting his high school degree, he joined the US Air Force in 1958 and served in Korea as an Administrative Specialist until 1961. Several years later, he attended and then graduated from the University of Massachusetts. While attending the university, Bob became a Fred Astaire dance instructor to help pay for his schooling.
Bob became a successful insurance agent and eventually moved to Houston in 1976. He enjoyed playing golf, skiing, ballroom dancing, flying (he obtained a private pilot’s license), cruising, and scuba diving, but his main interest was playing tennis. He and his team won the coveted title of USPTA Adult Tennis League Texas State Championship in 2001 and 2002.
In 1987, Bob met the love of his life Kelley who also became his wife and his grand ballroom partner. Together, they cruised the world (over 17 cruises) and visited many foreign ports such as Australia and many countries in Europe. Several were with their best friends George and Beverly Yeiter or with his brother Thom and his wife Fran.
[Kelley Paterno compiled the book Paterno Family Genealogy which gave rise to this research website.]
During his tenure in the Houston area, Bob owned and operated four very successful postal centers which he eventually sold at a very profitable margin. In 2004, Kelley and he moved to BellaVita, a community for seniors and fell in love with all the folks here. They took part in many of the activities and even taught ballroom dancing at the club house. Bob was no sloucher: he always had to keep busy. Before long, he was doing various job around BellaVita including installing cabinets, flooring, fans and making minor repairs. He and his brother Thom are responsible for the construction of the library shelving complex.
For the past 20 years Bob has been an active member of South Main Baptist Church in Pasadena.
Bob was blessed with 5 children, all boys: Robert, Michael, Thomas, William and lastly Anthony. All survived him except William who died as an infant. He is also survived by his brother Thomas, his sister Anne, his sister-in-law Frances, a multitude of grandchildren, nephews and cousins and especially his most coveted friends, George and Beverly Yeiter.
La Basilicata nel Mondo (People from Basilicata in the World) was an illustrated monthly magazine produced by Giovanni Riviello in Naples, Italy. It was one of the mostly widely distributed Italian magazines abroad and regularly featured natives from the southern Italian region of Basilicata (also known by its ancient name Lucania) who were excelling in America.
As an exception, our first page, this time, bears a Lady’s portrait.
And the exception is all the greater and weightier because this Lady is not only foreign to Basilicata, but she is not even Italian-born, although the infinite and radiant lure historical and artistic Italy exercises on the mind of all cultured and high-bred human beings has fostered in her a particular cult for her husband’s great Mother-country, which she has travelled over, her whole soul enraptured by the divine wonders of our magnificent sky and of its incomparable beauty.
Of this Lady, so full of goodness and intellectuality that she forcibly remind us of those Florentine Women of whom Dante sang:
“Yon, who, understanding, the third heaven do move.”
Kind fate made the ideal companion of our fellow countryman Joseph Paterno of Castelmezzano, who, together with his brothers, has founded one of the most colossal building firms of New York, so that the sweet flower of poetry may bloom in the home of this audacious man, inflexible as steel in his temperament of a formidable fighter, and that it should fill for him with harmony the gaps of this great day battle, in the sanctuary of his domestic bliss.
This is one of the reasons why we hold Mrs. Jule Paterno in such high consideration. Another reason must be found in the radiance of her poetry.
Impassioned student of letters and philosophy, as Mrs. Jule Paterno is, her artistic dream might soar high, drawing inspiration from all the ideals of human progress, which she feels so exquisitely and unfolds so personally, through the wise selection of her vast and modern culture. She is not only a poet by inspiration, but a poet of concrete thought – a thing all the more worthy of admiration, because our other Women-poets – even the greatest of them – love better to dream than to think deeply, to compose rather than to create, contenting themselves with rendering their speech more melodious, and caring mostly for the brilliancy of imagery, with all the sweetest delicacy of form, and the finest charms of fantasy. This strength of thought comes to her from her love of study, which distinguishes her from the generality of the American gentlewomen, who love to spend their time amidst gaieties and worldly pleasure, while she prefers to delve down deep in books, finding there only her mind’s joy.
Mrs. Jule Paterno, as already stated, belong to that line of Women-poets who think deeply and lead their readers to do likewise. Hers is not poetry of form, it is creative poetry; and it is born – like a bubbling source of pure water – from the need which she feels in the deepest recesses of her instinctively artistic mind to express feelings which well up in her in an unforeseen and spontaneous way, from the direct sensation that strikes her imagination with Nature’s phenomena, or life’s happenings, a sensation which creates in her that lyrical fervor and that state of personal grace and easy emotion that are essential conditions for the creation of poetry.
“I am one who, when Love prompts, listens: and thus That which inwardly is said, I go explaining…”
The source of her inspiration is pure and self collected.
Her sweetness and feminine suavity interpret as an ever-new marvel, a flower’s, a star’s, a child’s dream. And when her Mother’s-love prompts her to bend over her children’s white cots, watching their innocent slumber, her art spreads its wings, her poetry is completed, and she then creates small poetical pictures of insuperable fineness and of latin purity.
The form is neat, clear, and fits completely and perfectly the idea that is thus imaged, little by little, under the watchful eyes of the poetess, who studies the birth of her thought in the light of art.
Her verses reveal to those who read them “with a loving mind” a talent and an inspiration truly remarkable. And though they call Keats to mind, on account of some ideal connections, which, however, are no derivations they impress one with an immediate sense of a beautiful effort for originality and show the trace of the hidden process of creation and working out of the poet’s mind who torments herself to reach that artistic perfectibility which is the hoped-for goal of all true artists. Above all Mrs. Jule Paterno has the merit of following a way of poetry all her own, revealing in it an exquisite and superior artistic personality.
Villa Paterno, home of Joseph and Jule Paterno in Riverdale, The Bronx, New York City
We will add here some small samples of her poetry. Here is one: “Reflections.” And we call the attention of the reader on the keenness of its observations and on its philosophical intent:
Sometimes I write jingles About those with whom I mingle This time I think I’ll deviate And try for pastures new – A good thing to remember As round about you go, Do not think the quiet people Are always so slow. Then too, believe just half you see, And nothing that you hear Because when you have turned away You can almost hear the others say “Oh listen! I must tell you my dear About Mr. So and So and Mrs. This and That… How wonderful the world would be were it not for that fact.
And look how simple and fresh, how full of light this small picture of “Spring” is….
The birds are singing The air is fresh and clear My hearts is happy, dear, And love is everywhere Like the birth of a babe In its pink and whiteness God gives us spring All filled with gladness. After winter snows Many ills and pills Our heart rejoices And the world is filled With a desire to listen For the voice of spring.
Front drive and entrance to Villa Paterno
It seems to us that the poets of harsh rhetoric and of formal contortions have much to learn from this simplicity:
If thy lips To my lips Were tightly sealed No pain too great But could be healed Nor sorrow too deep When they arms enfold It seems a pity To barter for gold A woman’s treasure That keeps us going From birth until we tire Of life’s unending and many demands There is always someone with outstretched hands To bid us nestle our troubled head On breast or shoulder As the case may be. I was meant for you, dear, And you were meant for me.
Joseph and Jule’s house at Deal Beach, New Jersey
As maternity is the feeling she most completely fathoms in her soul of Wife and Mother, so is it also the one she understand most perfectly in her poetry.
Mrs. Jule Paterno has two most lovely children: Joseph (Junior) – who in the family is lovingly and jokingly daubed June – and John (Jack).
On her children’s dreams, in her own dreams for their future, her poetry becomes animated with Woman’s loftiest passion, and is humanized in the sweetest and most touching way, crowning her Mother’s-love with a halo of sanctity, through which her own feeling interprets the feelings of the Mothers of the world, so that her poetry becomes universal.
Back of house at Deal Beach, New Jersey
Listen: “To June and Jack…
Two boys I know Worth all the gold In this great land of ours How one can tell Just at a glance The love light in their eyes When in I peep Before they sleep And take them by surprise. “Oh! Mother dear… I love to hear As they both hold me close I do not like braggadocio But I can surely boast Of happiness complete, divine Even when it rains It shines – I mean The love light In my boys’ brown eyes.
Mrs. Jule Paterno and her sons Joseph Jr. (left) and Jack (right)
All absorbed in her mission of Wife and Mother, Mrs. Jule Paterno cultivates poetry only as a domestic virtue in the few moments she can spare for it – and, although she is very modest – as are all artists of real merit, and has not yet published a complete edition of her fine and beautiful string of precious poems, the attention of the best public of New York has been attracted toward this sweet and inspired Woman-Poet, by that part of her work which has been published in the American newspapers.
She loves to write most of her poems in that blessed green solitude of the enchanted Paradise called Palm Beach, on the shores of Florida, where she spends her winter “villeggiatura” (country holiday) every year. Only last year has she blossomed forth as a poet for New York’s public.
Joseph Paterno, Champion of Golf
A true gentlewoman, proud and cultured like an Italian patrician Lady of the Renaissance, she surprised the guests she had invited to dinner, by placing at the cover of each of them a lovely card bearing a little poem she had written expressly and personally for each one, and dedicated to each of her guests. An act, this, that illustrates not only the marvelous quickness and flexibility of her mind and talent, that succeeded in finding adequate words, thought of beauty and newness for each friend, but also her innate good taste and the lordly delicacy of her hospitality.
We hope that she will collect all her verses in a book, which certainly must needs gather around Mrs. Jule Paterno the plaudits of all lovers of good and pure poetry. After having told, as best we could, of Mrs. Paterno’s poems and having sung her matchless virtues as Woman, Wife and Mother, we should also say something of her husband’s personality. But of Joseph Paterno, athlete of the building business of New York, we have had occasion of speaking ere this. Of him, who, more than anyone else succeeded in impersonating in a foreign land, the sturdy, constructive virtues of our Lucanian race, and has glorified them with his own elevation and with the nobility of his patriotism. We are proud to have already pointed him out to the admiration of our fellow countrymen and to all Italy.
He never ceases from the titanic battle of his life: Work, work, work, on an ever progressing scale – this is the reason of his very existence, and he spreads his energy in enterprises ever more genial and daring.
Among the new buildings which he intends erecting and is on the eve of starting, we point out to our readers an edifice of imposing size and noble architectural design which is to enrich the already magnificent Fifth Avenue, with an ultra-modern House-Hotel.
Here are the news which we are able to impart about this new marvel:
The edifice which is to rise at 825 Fifth Avenue shall be a new step towards the ever increasing growth of the residential life of New York City.
The growing popularity of the plan of House-Hotel and of the complete development – up to 100% of the cooperative ownership causes automatically another idea to blossom forth: i.e. the co-operative erection of a great hotel.
Every one knows that to successfully bring forth a new idea and persuade the world to accept it, needs the greatest perspicacity both in the forming of the project and in its execution.
Thus in thinking out the building at 825 Fifth Avenue, every smallest detail had to be deeply studied for months past by Joseph Paterno, and to day the project is ready to be launched forth and presented to the public, who cannot possibly but approve of it.
Its chosen situation if facing both the most beautiful street and Central Park as well, and is only a short distance from the very heart of the City. With its towers and its distinct architectural lines, this building will include every refinement that can be found only in the best houses. A tranquil atmosphere will surround it, making the place a most desirable residence.
Magnificent rooms and Offices-Help that will adequately attend to the needs of the resident, private halls, every thing will be there, and nothing, in fact, will be missing to render life comfortable from every standpoint. Next door to the dining-room, there will be a vast kitchen, splendidly appointed by expert hotel-men, and directly connected with a set of elevators, so that the most perfect service may be assured. The apartments are to be disposed differently one from the other and all will be richly fitted.
But the final success of every co-operative building depends on the expense. Will the price of every apartment be low enough, and yet offer all the conveniences?
Here is the answer: “Yes…Comparisons will show it. The builder, Paterno Brothers, who have a large experience, acquired in 20 years of building works ever new, intend to give a new measure of their capabilities in this enterprise. The architect is to be J.E.R. Carpenter who drafted many other edifices which have risen ton the East side of the Residential section. The agents entrusted with the direction and the sale are Messrs. Brown, Wheelock, Harris, Vought and Co, Inc..
The question of the service in the kitchen, of the preparation of the food and of the help for the dining rooms and the apartments, which is the base of the successful handling of all hotels, will, of course, require the greatest care from the directing group, who, naturally, intend employing an expert “Maitre d’Hotel” of indisputable ability and experience.
Other help, indispensable to the precise and orderly proceeding of the service, will also be selected with great care.
This house will offer the greatest advantages with an expenditure relatively much inferior to that of like abodes.
My family and I embarked on a two week trip to Southern Italy from September 1st through 15th. We flew into Naples, explored the area and historical sites for several days, then drove by car to Bari. Again we explored the city for several days before driving to the main reason for our trip: the village of Castelmezzano.
Since embarking on my genealogy path in the Spring of 2020, I knew that I would soon need to see the village of my Paterno family. It was every bit magical, meaningful, and educational as I had hoped. This was our first view of Castelmezzano when we arrived.
Our first glimpse of Castelmezzano
Pay no mind that we stopped too soon to park and walked a long unnecessary walk to reach our hotel, however it didn’t matter because we were mesmerized by the village streets and we were so happy to have finally arrived.
The blue route is the way we should have come in all the way in to the Hotel Dolomiti (the pink pin just past where the blue route ends). However we stopped near where the blue route enters the screen at Parcheggio 2 ‘Belvedere Giuseppe Padula’ (lavender pin) which is a parking lot for day visitors. We walked passed the Monserrat down to the Hotel Dolomiti.
Dolomiti Lucane is a mountain range in the region of Basilicata, southern Italy. Located in the Southern Apennines and dominating the Basento Valley, the range is at the heart of the Gallipoli Cognato Piccole Dolomiti Lucane Regional Park, which also include the Gallipoli-Cognato forest. The range is named “Dolomiti” because of similarities to peaks in the Dolomites in northern Italy. The range was formed 15 million years ago. (Wikipedia)
Carla (me) and Bella (our daughter) walking past the Monserrat to the Hotel Dolomiti
We stayed five nights (Saturday, September 9th – Thursday, September 13th) at the Hotel Dolomiti which was delightful, comfortable, beautiful, and very welcoming. It is small with just eight rooms on the second and third floors. On site is a restaurant/bar on the first floor with indoor and outdoor seating as well as a spa. We enjoyed breakfast downstairs every morning and had dinner here twice. The food, drink, service, and hospitality were fantastic!
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 10th
We devoted our Sunday to exploring Castelmezzano by foot. We marveled at the Paterno and Campagna family homes, the hundreds of homes built into and atop the rock, the steep streets the width of America alleys, and the forested mountainside around the village.
To the left of the Hotel Dolomiti is the Palazzo Paternò, the beautiful white house where brother Saverio Paterno lived when he was Podesta, or chief magistrate of Castelmezzano, appointed by Mussolini in 1922.
Click on the photos below to enlarge, scroll through, and read captions.
Below is the original Paterno home where Giovanni and Carolina lived with their first four children: Celestina, Saverio, Canio (Charles), and Giuseppi (Joseph) before emigrating to Manhattan.
The plaque reads: “With a munificent act and with spontaneity of feeling, Comm. Giuseppe (Joseph) Paterno donated this house to this municipality for the venerated memory of his parents Giovanni and Carolina and for the sincere attachment to the land that gave him birth. The fellow citizens mindful of his generosity places this plaque as an everlasting memory.” This house is located at the Volo dell’Angelo Biglietteria (Flight of the Angels zipline ticket office) on the map above (turquoise pin on the upper right).
The house that Anthony Campagna, second cousin to the Paterno siblings and husband of Marie Paterno, purchased for his Castelmezzano family is on the main village square – Piazza Emilio Caizzo – and across from the main church, Chisea di Santa Maria dell’Olmo. The position of this home is exquisite as it can be seen from nearly any direction around the village.
Click on the photos below to enlarge, scroll through, and read captions.
We walked down to the cemetery to see the Paterno mausoleum which is flanked by two beautiful angel statues. Interred here are Saverio Paterno, his wife Minnie Rose Breden Paterno, their infant son Antonio, their 8 year old daughter Carolina, and their adult daughter Giulia.
Additionally father Giovanni (John), who was the first of the family to emigrate to Manhattan, may or may not still be interred here since 1899 when he return ill to Italy to die. His crypt is present. When his wife Carolina died in 1925 in Manhattan, it is told that Giovanni’s remains/ashes were transported to the USA to be interred with her. At this time it can not be confirmed if Giovanni’s remains are in Castelmezzano, at Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx, or both.
Click on the photos below to enlarge, scroll through, and read captions.
After lunch and rest, Chad and I took a hike up the mountain. At the edge of the village (see the white square on the aerial map above) there is a long rock staircase that goes up to the Via Paschiere. From that road many trails lead to the top where the “Volo dell’Angelo – Partenza da Castelmezzano” (Flight of the Angels Castelmezzano Departure) platform is located. We watched several people enjoy the thrill of this very popular zipline tourist attraction.
The video below was taken on the mountain trail as we headed back down to the village.
High above Castelmezzanoo – click YouTube title to watch lager
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 11th
After breakfast at Hotel Dolomiti, Chad and I went up to the municipal building for a very important meeting. The municipal building was donated to the village as a school house by Anthony Campagna.
The plaque inside (photographed in the slideshow below) reads: “To Count Antonio Campagna who, at his own expense, by building this school house, gave a new admirable example of generosity and love for his homeland and his native place, the municipality of Castelmezzano gratefully placed. 9 (April or August) 1931”
Click on the photos below to enlarge, scroll through, and read captions.
At the municipal building we had a very important meeting about the Paterno/Campagna Museum that is being created in Castelmezzano to honor Charles and Joseph Paterno and Anthony Campagna, sons of Castelmezzano, who found success in the USA as builders of fine apartment houses.
The meeting included Castelmezzano mayor Nicola Valluzzi, Professor Alberto Baldi, Carla, and Barbara Baldi, sister of Alberto and professional translator. Journalist and author Renato Cantore participated by Zoom.
Click on the photos below to enlarge, scroll through, and read captions.
In the afternoon it was our time to fly the famous Volo dell’Angelo zipline! We secured our tickets, took the shuttle as far as it would go, and then hiked to the departure platform. Bella and Michael went first. Chad and I followed.
The red circles on the map show the first line which took us from Castelmezzano to the neighboring village of Pietrapertosa. Once there, we were shuttled around to the Pietrapertosa departure platform. This second line, indicated by the green circles, took us back to Castelmezzano.. All together it took us about 3 hours from ticket office to hotel.
Bella & Michael launch from Castelmezzanoo – click YouTube title to watch lager
Click on the photos below to enlarge, scroll through, and read captions.
The video below shows an incredible view of Castelmezzano.
GoPro on Carla’s helmet – Pietrapertosa to Castelmezzano – click YouTube title to watch lager
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12th
Every year on the 12th and 13th of September, regardless of days of week, the village annual festival takes place.
“The Basilicata is a land rich in traditions and boasts unique rituals that, since the most remote times, celebrate the ancestral link between man and nature. Particularly, during the spring and summer period, the region becomes the stage for really unique ceremonies: “wedding of the trees”.
The unusual marriage takes place between a trunk and a top of two different trees, a symbolic union between “two spouses” that calls the archaic omen to fruitfulness and the renewal of life in the auspiciousness of abundance. Tree rituals, therefore, celebrate the union of two plants that are literally grafted together to form a single new tree and raised to the sky in a climate of celebration and solemnity.
In most cases “marriage” involves cutting down a tree from the forest being dragged into the village by pairs of oxen; the log is then joined together, in a mystical friendship between heaven and earth, at the top of another tree cut down in a forest different from the first. The cerro (Hawthorn) trunk represents male vigor, while the (holly) top represents the female part.
They are segments that lead the log and the top from the woods to the town square and, to alleviate the woes of transport, several stops are planned in the name of the local food traditions. The festival has as additional protagonists the traditional music and the cries of the bovars which, along with the roar of the oxen themselves, accompany and chant in a slow and cadence pace the execution of the ancient ritual.” (source)
We were standing just outside the Hotel Dolomiti to see the oxen arrive and all of the associated festivity!
The oxen arrive in Castelmezzano – click YouTube title to watch lager
The oxen brought the tree trunk further into the village and then were turned around to bring the trunk to where it would stand.
The oxen take the trunk to the standing location – click YouTube title to watch lager
The holly top was carried into the village and up to the church on the main square to be blessed by the priest.
Click on the photos below to enlarge, scroll through, and read captions.
After the holly top was blessed it was returned to where the trunk was taken by the oxen.
The holly top leaves the church – click YouTube title to watch lager
Click on the photos below to enlarge, scroll through, and read captions.
After the procession, the village had a street party with food & drink vendors, goods, games, and music.
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 13th
The second day of the festival was comprised of band music all day, a procession of the saints, an afternoon auction at the base of the festival tree to raise money for the church, and another street party at night with vendors.
Click on the photos below to enlarge, scroll through, and read captions.
St. Antonio, St. Rocco, and St. Vito were carried in procession throughout all of Castelmezzano then returned to the church.
On Thursday we left to drive back to Naples to fly home Friday. We thoroughly enjoyed our time in the beautiful village of Castelmezzano, the precious mountain village from where my Paterno ancestors originated. The people were so friendly and welcoming, the food delicious, the architecture amazing, and the festival was a delight to witness. We learned much, made many new friends, collected happy memories, and we’re looking forward to returning when the Paterno/Campagna museum opens!
Our daughter Bella – 5th generation Paterno – in Castelmezzano
Should you visit, be sure to download the Visit Castelmezzano app for a village map and highlighted historical markers and points of interest. You can fly into either Naples or Bari and drive to Castelmezzano. Ciao!
Fate Decreed That the Young Physician Cure Housing Ills Instead of Human Ailments in the Working Out of His Destiny
Dr. Charles V. Paterno, creator of the remarkable Hudson View Gardens apartment group on Washington Heights, builder of the $10,000,000 multi-family structure at 270 Park Avenue and the man who was responsible for the production of dozens of the finest residential properties in New York, must by now be a fatalist because he was not intended for the building business at all. For years he strove to enter his chosen field of endeavor, medicine; but an inexorable fate barred him from the path and pointed the way for his construction activities.
Now, recognized as one of America foremost builders he is resigned to his task of curing housing ailments instead of prescribing for the physical woes of his fellow beings.
A Real M.D.
For those who have wondered why the “Dr.” has always been associated with Charles V. Paterno, let it be known that he ws graduated from the Cornell School of Medicine in 1899. That year his father, John Paterno, the builder, who was engaged in the erection of an apartment house on 112th Street near the Cathedral died and Charles V. and his brother, Joseph, were obliged to assume the responsibility of finishing the job as wage earners for the family and their widowed mother.
Charles V. just filled in on this operation. His objective was still medicine and he expected to practice his profession when the building was completed.
Their Second Operation
But fate intervened once more in the sale of the completed structure and the acquisition of an adjoining unimproved parcel in part payment. So it became incumbent on the two boys to undertake another apartment operation on the newly acquired site. With a working capital of about $3,000 they went ahead, completed the building and made a $3,000 profit, quite an achievement for two beginners.
The lure of further profits from this lucrative business spurred the young medico to engage in one more undertaking and Paterno Brothers started a seven-story elevator building on West 105th Street, near the West End Presbyterian Church. They made $40,000 on the sale of this structure and the young doctor bowed once again before the fate which was decreeing his separation from medicine.
A Larger Project
The next operation was still larger. It was on 103rd street between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue, a building known as El Casco Court. Then he built a still larger house, Putnam Court, on 104th Street, between Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues, selling all of these as he went along with his brother Joseph.
Beginning of work on the new buildings of Columbia University attracted Paterno Brothers to this neighborhood and they built a number of houses on the farm lands fronting on Morningside Avenue West.
Their next field of operation was in the vicinity of Riverside Drive and 116th Street, where they began the construction movement which has since revolutionized the entire character of this noted highway. Their initial operation was the first twelve-story multi-family building in the district at 440 Riverside Drive, which they later sold to Benjamin N. Duke, the tobacco magnate. It houses 150 families and is still owned by Mr. Duke.
Dr. Paterno recalls that during the days of construction on this building, he pastured his horse on the site of this present tall apartment house known as the Coliseum at 435 Riverside Drive.
Weathered the 1907 Panic
The panic of 1907 was weathered with some difficulty and they tided over until 1909, when Charles V. decided to go back to his first love, medicine. He stepped out of the Paterno Brothers organization, they divided the assets and Joseph has continued, to this day, in the business under the Paterno Brothers corporate name.
In the early part of 1914 Dr. Paterno conceived the idea for a great $10,000,000 apartment house on the New York Central Railroad block bounded by Madison and Park Avenues, Forty-seventh and Forty-eighth Streets. There was then no indication of the impending World War. It was but shortly after that the European conflict started, but the doctor was already committed to the project and saw it through all the trying days of labor and material difficulties and Government embargoes with a patience and persistence that baffled comprehension at the time.
It must be recalled that this project was the largest of its kind yet attempted in New York. In normal times it would have been a herculean task. In war times it seemed an impossibility. Dr. Paterno traveled all over the United States for building material. He dared not trust these commodities in shipment after they had been bought, so he posted guards on the freight trains. An idea of the immensity of the operation may be gleaned from the fact that 9,000* tons of steel were required.
The structure was not finished until 1918. Under ordinary conditions construction should have taken a year. But his troubles were not yet over. He could not find tenants. America was an active participant in the war, every one was thinking about the war and the renting situation was at a standstill.
“People were worrying about the wind-up of their affairs and the future of their families. Moving to a fashionable Park Avenue apartment was the last thing in their thoughts,” declares Dr. Paterno in describing those days.
Change in 1918
But the change occurred in the fall of 1918 and in 1919, when, with the war ended, the first effects of the cessation of apartment house construction during the previous years became noticeable. Rents began to rise and there were not enough apartments to go around. The Paterno achievement at 270 Park Avenue, which in 1919 was returning a gross rental of $300,000 was showing in 1923 an aggregate annual rental of $1,250,000!
The apparently indefatigable doctor-builder laid off construction after that an bought a 700-acre estate at North Castle, where, in his spare time, he is conducting a vigorous timber growing campaign.
It is his ambition to plant 2,000,000 young trees for resale as nursery stock and for use at Christmas time. Of this number 300,000 were planted in the spring of 1924.
Hudson View Gardens
Now we come to the great Hudson View Gardens project. In 1907, just before the panic broke, he had started the construction of the striking building on Northern Avenue knows as the Castle, which has long been a source of interest to onlookers from the Hudson River steamboats and to visitors on the Heights. It is an immense stone-turreted structure with both English and roman architectural features.
In order to protect this property Dr. Paterno had been steadily buying adjacent acreage until he owned a considerable tract surrounding the Castle. Some of it lay idle and the rest was used for the raising of garden truck.
The city was steadily growing to the north and very soon the development reached the vicinity of the Castle. Assessments for streets and sewers and other municipal improvements began to be levied on the Paterno acreage and the vegetable gardens, materially adding to the cost of maintenance.
As Dr. Paterno whimsically remarked the other day:
“Finally a point was reached where every tomato I grew in the garden cost me about five dollars!”
He decided to sell part of the land to builders for certain types of apartment house development, but the land was too rugged and no one cared to take a chance.
So Dr. Paterno conceived the idea of a modern co-operative apartment house community. Within a year and a half this rocky waste, the despair of apartment house builders, has been transformed into the greatest co-operative venture on Manhattan Island, Homes have been provided for 354 families, of whom more than 150 have already purchased apartments.
Hudson View Gardens occupy a large tract of about seven acres fronting on Northern and Pinehurst Avenues from 182nd to 186th Streets, directly behind and above the site of historic old Fort Washington, the highest elevation on Manhattan Island. The location commands a view of the river for miles and of the Palisades beyond, while to the east lie Long Island and the Sound.
Fourteen Houses in Group
Fourteen [correction: 15] separate apartment houses compose the colony. Eight [correction: 9] of these are six stories high and are served by elevators; the remaining six are four-story buildings. The arrangement of the buildings, because of the contour of the land, is such that those farthest from the river rise above the others, so that all share in the advantages of the western exposure toward the Hudson.
A number of unusual features have been introduced in the houses representing the most modern labor-saving devices and conveniences to relieve the housewife from her many duties besides effecting economies in household expenses and building management.
Here are some of them: A co-operative laundry, an ice-manufacturing plant, a children’s nursery, an outdoor playground, a staff of maids, off-burning furnaces, automatic elevators, wall beds, dish-washing machines, built-in cabinets, and most interesting of all, radio service in each apartment direct from a huge private receiving station on the roof.
Dr. Paterno is still a comparatively young man. Time alone will tell what other great construction enterprises will be born in the brain that conceived Hudson View Gardens and 270 Park Avenue.
J.P. LOHMAN
* the number of tons of steel in the NY Evening Post article is illegible so I’m making a guess based on this article from The Sun • Sunday, June 24, 1917 (source)
M. E. PATERNO DIES; A NOTABLE BUILDER Erected Many Cooperative Dwellings Here – Expended $6,000,000 on One The New York Times • 15 July 1946
IRVINGTON-ON-HUDSON, N.Y., July 14 – Michael Edwin Paterno, realty operator and builder, one of the four Paterno brothers who rose from poverty to wealth through New York real estate, died here tonight of a heart attack in his home on El Retiro Lane. He had been ill in the house for ten days, but his condition had not caused anxiety. He was 57 years old.
Under the guidance of his brother, Dr. Charles V. Paterno, who died on May 30, Mr. Paterno learned the essentials of the real-estate situation on the isladn of Manhattan, and he became, with his brother, Anthony A. and the late Joseph and Dr. Charles V. Paterno, one of the pioneers in the planning and erection of large 100-per cent cooperative apartment houses of the highest class in New York.
Notable among the structures of this type that Michael E. Paterno built independently is 775 Park Avenue, the thirteen-story and pent-house apartment building which occupies the entire eastern side of Park Avenue on the block running from Seventy-second Street to Seventy-third Street. At the beginning of the construction the venture was estimated to cost approximately $6,000,000.
During the recent war period, Mr. Paterno’s activities were necessarily limited. His only operation, carried out with his brother, Anthony, was the erection of a series of small homes at Norfolk, Va., in accordance with the Federal Housing Administration program. Recently he had an office at 2112 Broadway.
In the First World War Mr. Paterno served with the Engineers Corps of The American Expeditionary Forces. He leaves a widow, Anna Marie Paterno; two brothers, Anthony, of this city, and Saverio Paterno of Castelmezzano, Italy, and four sisters, Mrs. Anthony (Marie) Campagna and Mrs. Armino (Christina) Campagna, wives of well-known builders; Mrs. Rose P. Faiella and Mrs. Theresa Miele.
I thank the New York Adventure Club for inviting me back to present three webinars about my ancestors and their architectural legacy. Each webinar has a $10 registration fee which allows you to attend live and/or access the replay for 1 week.
‘The Paterno Family: Chronicling a New York Real Estate Legacy’ Webinar
How did one of Manhattan’s most successful real estate family dynasties of the 1900s happen mostly by accident? And how could it be that almost all of their buildings still stand generations later? Fortunately, a great-granddaughter of the family has meticulously cataloged each of their projects and New York story like never before. From 35th Street to 188th Street between Riverside Drive and East End Avenue, it’s time to explore the real estate legacy of the Paterno family and their significant contribution to New York architecture. Friday, July 14 at 8:00 PM – 9:30 PM ESTMore information & registration
‘The Paterno Castle: Deep Dive into NYC’s Famed Gilded Age Mansion’ Webinar
How did Dr. Charles V. Paterno, a 29-year-old living in Manhattan’s Upper West Side, get the sort of money to build a 4-story marble castle in 1907 overlooking the Hudson River? And what sort of lavish lifestyle did he and his family enjoy during its brief 30 year existence? Using rare documentation, historical maps, and extensive photographic evidence, it’s time to explore one of New York’s premier mansions of the Gilded Age like never before. Friday, July 21 at 8:00 PM – 9:30 PM EDTMore information & registration
‘The Paterno Monograms: Art of Personalizing Apartment Buildings’ Webinar
The Paterno family — one of Manhattan’s most successful real estate family dynasties — fancied monogramming many of their New York apartment houses. Was this insignia simply a marketing tactic or something more? It’s time to explore the fascinating story behind these artworks like never before. Friday, July 28 at 8:00 PM – 9:30 PM EDTMore information & registration
Once Penniless Immigrant, Paterno Has Become Moving Spirit of Italian Cultural Center in America • Sunday, January 11, 1931 • By Agnes G. Slawson for the Brooklyn Eagle
Joseph Paterno made his debut in the country at the age of two and a half, a small and forlorn Italian immigrant. His father had been ruined by an earthquake’s destruction of a block of houses he had put up near Naples, so he and his family had set out to seek better fortune in the New York of the eighties. They spent thirty-one arduous days on a sailing vessel with nothing more substantial than hope to comfort them.
Hope continued, for some time, to be the chief comforter of the Paterno family. The father did not soon meet with success. Meanwhile, the family grew steadily larger in both size and appetite. Joseph Paterno was, consequently, obliged to start work at an early age. He sold papers on Park Row. Later he helped a dentist make artificial teeth. This work took up so much of his time that he was obliged to leave school. Finally he drifted into the office of a West Side real estate firm and there became office boy for the handsome salary of four dollars a week. After he had been there one week, Mr. Hobbs reproved him for not clearing out the waster paper baskets and was thereupon told that his new office boy had come not to be a porter but to learn the real estate business.
Joseph Paterno soon did gain opportunity to learn both the real estate and the building business. His father had the good fortune to meet at mass a building contractor named John Macintosh. A friendship developed. The two men became partners and erected many West Side apartment houses. No one went up without every detail of its construction having been observed by young Joseph Paterno. When he was only eighteen, he was given opportunity to show what he had learned. His father fell sick and returned to Italy in the vain hope that his native air would revive him. When the senior Paterno died, two flats he had started (507 & 505 West 112th Street) were still incomplete. These his son Joseph managed to finish.
The young builder then began to hunt for someone to back him in his ambitious scheme of building ten, fifteen or even twenty-story apartment houses. This idea was greeted as a bit of youthful fancy. But one real estate man finally consented to back him in erecting a block of six-story apartment houses. Joseph Paterno immediately wired his older brother, Charles, who was just taking his doctor’s degree at Cornell. The two formed a partnership and the Paterno fortunes abruptly began going up.
The new apartment proved a success. The two brothers received backing for more apartment houses in the Columbia University district. By means of the profits they cleared they were able to undertake more and more extensive operations. Dr. Paterno gave up all thought of returning to the medical profession, and for some twelve years the two brothers continued to do important things to the West Side skyline. At the end of that time Dr. Paterno started a building concern of his own and Joseph Paterno went on alone.
His buildings and his fame continued to shoot upward. By 1912, when he was only thirty-one, he had built in the general locality of Columbia University apartment houses assessed at twenty-two million dollars. Until 1926 he continued to dot the West Side with skyscraper apartment houses. He then switched his building operations to the East Side. There by his co-operative apartments he showed himself a leader in creating new housing condition. In 1927, he took an important step in building the first co-operative hotel in New York, a twenty-three-story building.
Quick construction has always been Joseph Paterno’s guiding rule. A man of terrific energy, he is able to oversee a vast amount of detail. He is, besides, extremely shrewd and keen in dealing with men. Never has he permitted opportunity to indulge in any prolonged knocking at his door. When he started building in the late nineties, the rise of population and of land values was forcing people from private homes into tall apartment houses. New York was literally growing upward, and Joseph Paterno saw to it that his career went up with the city.
All the Paternos have achieved amazing success as New York builders, but Joseph Paterno remains the true self-made man of the family. Dr. Charles Paterno was the only member of the family who offered any great educational advantages. The younger brothers had their way blazed for them by the building ventures of Joseph and Dr. Charles Paterno.
Joseph Paterno’s greatest achievement of recent years is the Casa Italiana, Columbia University’s center of Italian culture. Justice John T. Freschi first interested him in the project of providing a gathering place for Columbia’s Italian students. Joseph Paterno immediately enlisted for the plan the support of his brother, Michael E. Paterno, and of his brother-in-law, Anthony Campagna. The project gradually took on vast proportion. Columbia provided a $165,000 plot of land, opposite its chapel at Amsterdam Avenue and 117th Street. Joseph Paterno, Michael E. Paterno and Anthony Campagna underwrote the expenses of erecting a $400,000 building. Dr. Paterno presented a library containing – just as a start – 10,000 volumes. He is still adding to it.
When the plans for Columbia’s Italian House were well under way, Jospeh Paterno, Michael E. Paterno and Anthony Campagna went with Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, president of Columbia, on a trip into Italy. They paid official calls on Mussolini, the King and the Pope. Mussolini received the plans for the Casa Italiana with the greatest enthusiasm and promised to send Senator Guglielmo Marconi, inventor of wireless, to America for the dedication ceremonies. He further showed his approval by giving his American guests an impressive party at the Villa d’Este. All the fountains played, and the gates of the villa were opened for the first time in forty years. To Joseph Paterno, in recognition of his services in helping Italian-American relationships, Mussolini gave the title of “Commandatore.” He also presented him with a photograph, signed not with the usual “Complementi,” but with the very flattering inscription, “A Giuseppe Paterno, della buona razza Italiana” – “To Joseph Paterno, of the best Italian stock.”
When Marconi arrived in America, Joseph Paterno arranged a dinner for him. In order to aid the endowment and building funds of the Italian House, he charged $1,000 a table. The guests were many and distinguished. Through the money collected at this dinner and through the many large gifts of the Paterno family, the Casa Italiana was at last completed. On Aug. 5, 1926, the Italian Ambassador laid the cornerstone, and Joseph Paterno appeared before all New York not only as one of its greatest builders, but also as one of its most important citizens “della Buona razza Italiana.”
Joseph Paterno, although a man who prides himself on always looking forward, does occasionally look back over his career with pardonable satisfaction. Among the mementos he cherishes are signed photographs of Mussolini and Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, the program of Marconi’s dinner and a loving cup present him at an honorary dinner given by his friends and business associates. His other treasured souvenirs include a banquet cloth, which the children of his native town in Italy took twelve years to make for him, and a photograph taken after he had stunned himself, Mr Charles Schwab, and the rest of a foursome by making a hole in one. For the really big mementos of his career, Jospeh Paterno has only to look at the skyline of residential New York.
Anthony Campagna Dies at 84; Led School Building Program
Anthony Campagna, builder, former member of the Board of Education and philanthropist, died in his sleep yesterday (8 May 1969) at his apartment in Delmonico’s Hotel. His age was 84.
Lawyer Anthony Campagna
As president and more recently chairman of the boar of the Campagna Construction Corporation, Mr. Campagna built many skyscraper apartments along Park and Fifth Avenues.
As chairman of the Board of Education’s committee on building and sites in the nineteen-forties, he directed without pay a $100-million program of school construction. On his retirement from the board in 1949, the City Council, in a resolution, credited him with saving the city million of dollars in school construction costs.
Gov. Thomas E. Dewey named Mr. Campagna to the State Commission on School Building in 1950.
Restored Roman Ruins
Mr. Campagna was a founder of the Casa Italian at Columbia University. He restored Virgil’s Tomb in Naples and a historic Roman tower in Minturno; he contributed substantially to the Herculaneum excavations, to the Italian Historical Society in Rome, and to the orphans of World War I.
In 1930 King Victor Emmanuel III conferred on him the rank of Count, but he did not use the title, saying: “Builder is title enough.”
Mr. Campagna once stated his guide in life: “Always do more than you are expected to, and whatever you do, exert your level best and take pleasure in doing I. On the high plane of a famous prayer: Let your work be part of God’s plan, to serve Him and your fellow-man.”
Mr. Campagna was born in Castelmezzano, southeast of Naples. His father was a builder, but the son’s first aim was for the legal profession. He graduated with honor in 1906 from the Law School of the University of Naples. Disenchanted with his meager fees, he moved to Chicago in 1908 to join a friend in the publication of an Italian-language weekly. The paper did not prosper, so Mr. Campagna became clerk in an American law firm.
Turned Aside by Builders
On a visit to New York he met Joseph and Dr. Charles V. Paterno, the builders. They offered him a construction job and he soon relinquish his law career.
Surviving are two sons, Joseph A. and John J., a brother Armino; a sister, Maria Lombardi; six grandchildren, and a great-grandchild. His wife was the late Maria Paterno.
A funeral service will be held at 10 A.M. tomorrow at Frank E. Campbell’s Madison Avenue and 81st Street.
From Castelmezzano to New York – Here is the True Story of Skyscrapers by Enza Martoccia • La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno • 13 April 2023
PROJECT: The mayor of Castelmezzano Nicola Valluzzi announces the creation of a museum that will tell the world the story of the builders of skyscrapers in New York.
America in Castelmezzano and Castelmezzano in America. A new adventure begins: with these words the mayor of Castelmezzano, Nicola Valluzzi, announces the creation of an Interactive Museum that will tell the world the story of the builders of skyscrapers in New York, who left Castelmezzano at the end of the 1800s and introduced important constructive and architectural features in a city that was rapidly transforming. This is possible thanks to the funding of the project “Human Re-Generation Between Ancestral Rites and Experiential Attractors,” proposed by the municipalities of Pietrapertosa, Castelmezzano and Accettura as part of Line B – PNRR Tender (Intervention 2.1 Attractiveness of the Villages) promoted by the Ministry of Culture for a total of 2 million 560 thousand euros.
“One of the 229 projects financed throughout Italy – explains Valluzzi – the second for the highest score obtained in the evaluation of the examining commission is that of Castelmezzano. The interactive museum will be built in a recently reconstructed municipal building. It will tell the story of the Paterno and Campagna families, who built 164 skyscrapers between 1898 and 1964 (1), changing the skyline of Manhattan.”
In recent days, the scientific committee of the project met among the protagonists the Lucan journalist, Renato Cantore, author of the book “Castle on the Hudson” conductor of in-depth studies on the life and works of these families and Alberto Baldi, professor of visual ethnography at the Federico II University of Naples, author of “Emigrant Filmmakers. Successful Directions.”
Partners of the initiative are the Federico II University and the Academy of Fine Arts of Naples, among the other protagonists of this qualified team there will be young digital artists of great international fame. The goal is to catapult the visitor into a virtual journey inside the museum and with the help of new technologies such as augmented reality, 3D and video mapping, it will be possible to take a tour of early 20th century New York and visit the inside of the only castle ever built in the Big Apple (2) and some of the ingenious constructions created by these visionaries from Castelmezzano. After this preliminary meeting between partners and digital artists, the design phase was started, and the project will be completed by the summer executive project and immediately afterwards we will proceed with the tenders. Thanks to the engaging power of new technologies, unique immersive experiences will be offered to everyone.
Carla’s Notes: (1) The Paterno Family built 164 total buildings (14 demolished) that consisted of 155 total apartment houses (8 demolished), 4 family homes (3 demolished), 1 castle (demolished), 1 garage (now condo), 1 theater (demolished), 1 university cultural center, and 1 tiny steel home between 1896 and 1964. PaternoArchitecture.com
(2) Another residential castle built in Manhattan was Woodcliff (aka Libbey) Castle which I believe provided inspiration for Dr. Charles V. Paterno’s castle.
