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. It regularly featured natives from the southern Italian region of Basilicata (also known by its ancient name Lucania) who were excelling in America.

Excerpts below set the banquet scene and the speeches by Charles, Joseph, and Michael Paterno and Anthony Campagna are transcribed.

The Meaning of the Great Banquet Offered by the Basilicates of New York to Giovanni Riviello • Written August 1926

The historian, who aspires to give a complete picture of the unfolding of the life of the Italian people in the last fifty years, and who wants, together, to search for all the sources from which the fruitful energies that made it possible have arisen, in spite of enormous difficulties, his marvelous progress, will not be able to fully succeed in his intent, if he does not make an effort to relive the labor endured by that immense army of several million emigrants, who, animated by a tenacious will to work and triumph, in the short span of a few decades, they were able to lay the solid foundations of a greater Italy, especially in the free colonies of the two Americas.

The short-sighted politicians of thirty years ago, who tried to put a laughable halt to that immense exodus, and the flaccid sentimental poets of the time, who squeezed copious tears on what appeared to their eyes a painful spectacle of misery, did not realize that this overflow of masses beyond the borders of the homeland was but the providential outlet of too rapid development, and, better still, the first sure sign of a magnificent expansion and a new glorious awakening of our race.

To this grandiose movement, our province of Basilicata, which the hopes of a rebirth within the great family of the united homeland had seen, after a long, tormenting and patient waiting, turn into vain illusions, and which had been able to suffer stoically, in silence, has participated with a deployment of forces proportionally far superior to those of all the other regions of Italy. The phenomenon of emigration, while presenting itself as impressive as a whole, has just rippled the waves of life in the other provinces of the kingdom, which all, despite the more or less large contribution given to the emigrant crowds, have grown in population; but it has deeply disturbed the placid patriarchal life of our province, which has seen the total of its inhabitants decrease by almost ten per cent.

Keeping in mind the general demographic increase of the kingdom, which, from the census of 1881 to today, is measured in more than thirty-three percent, together with the decrease of the Lucanian populations, it is easy to calculate, especially if due account is also taken of the instinctive repugnance of the our good provincials to oppose the free play of the forces of nature and to listen to certain advice of caution, inspired by the theories of a great English economist, that more than two hundred thousand are the Basilicates living today far from their barren mountains and their valleys still today infested with malaria.

Question two hundred thousand Lucanians, scattered in strong nuclei from the banks of the San Lorenzo to those of the Rio della Plata, from the shores of the Atlantic to those of the Pacific, equally resistant to the frosts of Canada and the torrid climate of Columbia and Brazil, highlighting the their rich intelligence and all those beautiful qualities of tenacity, perseverance and thrift, which had remained inactive or succeeded unproductive in their naturally poor native land, have dramatically denied the rash assertions of certain sociologists, raving about alleged ethnic inferiorities , with which they thought to explain the state of abandonment, into which a region they had never visited had fallen.

The progress made in general by the Lucanian emigrants, who, in their great majority, illiterate peasants and shepherds, had to overcome enormous difficulties in a fierce competition with better prepared and aggressive people, was immense; but even surprising and such as to fill the soul with pride and the path by course of many of them, who have had the advantage of a modest culture and a set of technical or professional knowledge. And another characteristic and sympathetic trait distinguishes the Basilicatesi living abroad, and it is the tender nostalgia that keeps them tied to their humble region of origin, of which they cannot boast neither the magnificence of opulent cities nor the splendor of landscapes, combined with an intense affection for the great Italian homeland.

Aware of this very lively sentiment of our emigrated populations, and relying heavily on it for the success of his daring initiative and for the vitality of his noble enterprise, the lawyer Giovanni Riviello, tireless defender of the good rights of our province for forty unrecognized years, proud assertor of our most shining glories, and courageous and disinterested opponent, from his earliest youth, of those local politicians who, in the fulfillment of their personal ambitions, drowned the memory of the distant province, in need of help and thirsting for justice, he wanted and knew how to create, in this magazine, an effective instrument of cohesion between all members of the Lucanian people.

From our emigrants, who kept a vague and unpleasant memory of some weekly leaflet living a wretched life, which very often served as an ignoble weapon in those miserable local and personal struggles, in which lawyers without causes and gentlemen neglectful, badly exhausted their energies growing on the remnants of showy squandered patrimonies, the beautiful publication by Giovanni Riviello, splendid for its typography and all vibrant with noble ideals, was received with great enthusiasm and with a sense of sincere and profound satisfaction. Everyone felt that the most patient and silent region of Italy finally had a strong and virile voice.

On the evening of the first Sunday of last May, the most authoritative representatives of the vast Basilicata community of New York and the neighboring cities, which includes small colonies of almost all the one hundred twenty-six municipalities of the province and forms one of the most numerous, active and peaceful elements of the great Italian family of this metropolis, wanted to make manifest, in a solemn form worthy of the generous feeling that animated them, the high appreciation for the audacious work of the founder of “Le Basilicata nel Mondo,” offering him a banquet of almost a thousand seats in the most luxurious of those splendid New York hotels, which seem to huddle around the locality that is the center, where the life of this immense city pulsates more rapidly and almost whirlwindly.

The party turns out to be brilliant and eminently significant. The enthusiastic crowd of professionals, priests, traders, industrialists, businessmen and workers, almost all of them coming from Basilicata, gathered around the hundred tables, exquisitely set, in the magnificent and vast hall of the Commodore Hotel, it presents a picturesque symbolic picture of the progress made by our emigrants and, at the same time, an eloquent justification for the initiative of the celebrated publicist appeared.

But the exaltation of our region was not the exclusive reason for the celebration, that the image of all of Italy was always present. With happy thought, they wanted four other very worthy children of Basilicata to participate in the honors of the evening, the lawyer Anthony Campagna and the brothers Joseph, Michael and Doctor Charles Paterno, all from Castelmezzano, for their truly splendid generosity in favor of the House of Italian Culture. This institute, destined to make the relations of culture and friendship between Italy and the United States closer and more intimate, will have, thanks to these generous Lucanians, who march in the front row among the most enterprising builders of New York, in the Columbia University Campus, a seat entirely worthy of the high goals set and of the two noble nations concerned. As a tangible sign of the affectionate admiration and sincere satisfaction of the provincials, they were offered, in the name of the Basilicates of New York, four great gold medals, bearing on the right, in artistic bas-relief, the lines of the erected building of beautiful architecture Italian. And the delivery could not be made by hands more worthy than those of the President of the Banquet, the Grand Officer Doctor Antonio Stella, of Muro Lucano, a magnificent figure of eminent professional and fervent patriot, who vibrated in the moving words of praise for his they have the same proud and dignified Italian accent of good understanding that has long been signaled to the poisonous attacks of the most blatant bad faith by the supporters of the restrictive measures for our immigration to this country.

With the consent, support and cooperation of these men, and with the active enthusiasm of all the people, we are sure that “Basilicata nel Mondo” will be in a position to be able to fulfill its task effectively. All the Basilicata emigrants, who the monthly publication of Giovanni Riviello consider as a ring of Diana for all the people of Basilicata, want that in this glorious rebirth of our beloved Italian in which the Italian people, guided to bright destiny by a Man who knows to chastise all their weaknesses and awaken and make all the dormant intrinsic forces wonderfully active and fruitful, and on the way to rediscover the one that had been lost for centuries, that is the self-confidence even their beloved region resurrects to new life with the proper help of the government, but, even more, for the filial initiatives and with the work of all his children.

Written in New York, July 1926 by Francesco Maglietta

Over a Thousand Basilicates, Among Whom Were the Greatest Exponents of Intelligence, Wealth, and Work, Solemnly Reaffirmed, in New York, with a Banquet to our Director, Their Unconditional Solidarity with “La Basilicata nel Mondo.”

Introductions of the Banquet Chairman Grand Official Dr. Antonio Stella, Party President Knight Pasquale Margarella, Toastmaster Honorable Frank R. Galgano, Treasurer Knight Raymondo Guarini, Secretary Professor Francesco Maglietta, and many others.

The article list names of those who attended the banquet.

The banquet is further described and then, over coffee, Grand Official Dr. Antonio Stella addresses the audience before he introduces the Paterno Brothers and Anthony Campagna.

Paterno Brothers, Lawyer Campagna!

The citizens of Basilicata residing in America, taking the opportunity of this party in homage to the Lawyer Riviello, who, with his beautiful and spirited publication, illustrates the most worthy events and the most deserving personalities of our Region, have believed it logical and right to honor, among these personalities, first of all you individually, for the work of high patriotism and difference you are making in building the House of Italian Culture on the Columbia University Campus.

With your extraordinary and truly royal munificence you will not only erect a building, which will certainly be aesthetically perfect and modern, like all your marvelous constructions, but you will raise a true temple to Italian culture, where numerous children of our immigrants and their children will flock. Americans, who really love and want to know our country. Epicurus, this temple which you erect on the Acropolis of New York, in the enclosure of the University, which, by happy coincidence, also bears the name of a great Italian – the greatest Italian that perhaps ever existed, because he gave the world a new continent – You, I say, with this temple of Culture also lay the true cornerstone of that complete and permanent friendship between the United States and Italy, which can only take place when the culture of one people has penetrated that of the other.

Brothers Paterno, Lawyer Campagna, very worthy children of Basilicata, I have the honor to present to you, on behalf of fellow Lucanians in America, a commemorative medal that will forever remind you of our admiration for what you have done for the cause of Italian Culture in America .

Of you it can certainly be said that you have well deserved the homeland. Italy acclaims you, America honors you, Basilicata blesses you in this and every other future work.

Official Knight Joseph Paterno

Ladies and gentlemen and honored guest!

I am overwhelmed with joy at the honor conferred on me tonight and I am richer in this moment because of your loyalty to me.

I am a builder of stone and mortar, but tonight I feel that you, my friends, are greater builder than I can ever hope to be, because you have built in me a great desire to be worth of your loyalty.

If I can one day be sure that I have done real credit to those distant hills so beloved by my sainted mother, I shall be proud to realize that I have not failed. I shall never forget what it has meant to me, when I rode through the cold and snow of my native hills on my way to America, with only mother’s arms and a young heart to keep me warm.

God bless you, my friends, because you are friends of those rugged hills that inspired a rugged people.

Michael Paterno

Mr. Chairman, Honored Guest, Ladies and Gentlemen!

While listening to the interesting speeches of my predecessors this evening, one thought has been uppermost in my mind: “What a pity the Casa di Coltura Italiana [House of Italian Culture] was not erected before I grew up to manhood!” For if that Institution is to fulfill our hopes in the development of the younger generation of American-born Italians, it is just the kind of intellectual Center that would have attracted me, and, who knows but it might have changed my whole career.

But perhaps it is not all loss: for one thing. I should, in that case, have missed the pleasure of contributing with my coadjutors to this noble cause.

In conclusion I will say that it has been a great pleasure and an honor, in the course of the planning of this institution, to come into contact with all the public-spirited and cultured gentlemen who have this work at heart. I have particularly been impressed with the high-minded personality of the moving spirit in the whole affair. I refer, it is perhaps needless to say, to that eminent scholar and genial public man, Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler: Long may he be spared to reside over the greatest American University.

Doctor Charles Paterno

Mr. Toastmaster, Honored Guest, Friends, Ladies and Gentlemen!

I am indeed most grateful to the participants of this Testimonial Dinner and members of the Province of Basilicata for the thought expressed by the magnificent gold medal presented to me this evening. I accept it with great honor and it shall ever be a memorial to me of this gathering of friends from the Province of Italy where I was born, to do honor to our guest of the evening, my friend Lawyer Giovanni Riviello.

Lawyer Riviello has done, and is doing excellent work, and is giving his best years of his life in forgoing ahead a monthly magazine “La Basilicata nel Mondo.” It is a real service which Lawyer Riviello is rendering to the Italian people and especially to those of the Province of Basilicata.

I am sure you all appreciate the fact that the monetary gain from this work is very little. Lawyer Riviello in fact, is practically a public benefactor, and as such he should receive your full support in a real manner.

What a wonderful country America is: I love it, but as much as I love America, I can never forget my Mother County. Italy has had its struggles and difficulties, but as a result of the strong hand of Mussolini at the helm, we have had a remarkable development in Italian industry, and there will continue to be great achievements in Italy in the next few years, under the leadership of Premier Mussolini.

I remember reading some time ago a reported declaration of Mussolini to his follower, which was quoted in substances as follows: “If I advance, follow me. If I retreat, kill me. If I am killed, vindicate me.”

A part of this famous statement seems to fit very well tonight for our guest of honor, that is, as Lawyer Riviello advances with his good work, let us all get together and follow him with real support and render to him all of the assistance we can for the promotion and advancement of “La Basilicata nel Mondo.”

Official Knight Lawyer Anthony Campagna

Mr. Chairman, Mr. Toastmaster, Distinguished Guest, Ladies, Fellow-Citizens!

This is one of those moments, when words seem inadequate to express the most intimate feelings.

I am deeply touched and filled with pride to find myself for the first time in this great family of ours and to receive with an old friend and dear relatives this cordial tribute, which reflects the known kindliness of our people.

The generous testimony of your affection is for us a high reward in the service of a patriotic ideal and this token which contains the symbol of our brotherhood in that ideal, will remain among the sacred remembrances of my life, and will be handed to my children as a pledge of honor and duty toward our native land and toward our Italy, great and immortal.

When, from the majestic hill of Columbia University, will rise, like a radiant beacon light, the House of Italian Culture, we shall rejoice in the serene conscience that to erect that temple to the Italian genius and civilization, contributed not only the efforts and financial support, but the initiative and ideality of the sons of Basilicata.

I thank Dr. Antonio Stella for his benevolent remarks and wish to extend to him my felicitations for the distinction once more deservedly conferred to the talent, virtue and patriotism of this illustrious leader of our colony.

It is now a welcome privilege to tender my hearty greetings to our guests of honor, Lawyer Giovanni Riviello. It is a welcome privilege, because Giovanni Riviello is to me not only a fellow-citizen, distinguished for intellectual merits and nobility of purpose, an able publisher, and earnest and untiring apostle of a deep father, but he is my friend of the early years of adolescence.

In seeing you again, friend Riviello, twenty years nearly of oblivion in this New World, in a new and always intense activity, twenty years have seemed to fade away and, with you, I have seen the school days, and the sweet memories of far-away Spring.

You have been true to your dream, and we are happy to render this sincere homage to you, whose disdaining indifference and skepticism, facing numerous obstacles, sacrificing the fruits of years of labor, have succeeded in building a great medium, under the proud name of “La Basilicata nel Mondo.”

Of that “Basilicata nel Mondo” you have met here a strong body, devoted to work, on the main road to progress, and after only fifty years, already in the front line with those of other nations, who were first to establish their possession over this hemisphere, brought to light by Columbus.

But, do not let us forget that at the base of our envied progress of today is the obscure army of our immigrants of yesterday, who forced by want and hunger beyond their mountains and beyond the seas, abused and vilified, suffered in the silence of their hearts the insult, the slavery, the sacrifice, because carved in their hearts they carried the adored image of a family and a country.

In the unknown heroism of those humble workmen is a whole tragedy of blood and soul which you, Giovanni Riviello, should reveal with flaming words in your magazine, to let all Italy know the true and sad history of our American immigration.

We are grateful to you, friend Riviello, for your beautiful magazine which, for us, away from our Mother Country, is like a distant melody, that makes us forget at short intervals the urge and hustle of American life and revives the longing desire for our native hills.

But, through the pages of that magazine, if we are warmed by old remembrances and affections of the land of our origin or both, if we exalt at the glories of the past and the wonderful examples of the present, those pages bring us also, from that land, the melancholic note of tears, a restrained cry of sorrow, despair, anxiety for the morrow, the moan of that continuous and unequal struggle against the hardship of Nature and the negligence of Governments.

Honor be to you, friend Riviello, for having dared to cast that cry to your brothers Lucani, scattered, as you say, in the lanes of the world.

Everything you have given, everything you have sacrificed for the triumph of your faith that never waters, and on us is now incumbent the duty to sustain your mission with all power, moral and financial.

“La Basilicata nel Mondo” is today one of the strongest organs for the resurrection of our Province; but the effort of one or a few will be insufficient to reach the goal.

We want of that magazine a live, powerful instrument, which must deal in a concrete manner with the necessities, the aspirations, the complex problem of our Region; but facts are needed and not words.

Brother Lucani, let us be equal to the task and let it be said that if the Basilicata is poor of material resources, the Basilicatesi are rich of intelligence and willpower.

While Italy is making great strides toward a new and sunny horizon, guided and inspired by its indefatigable Leader, who lights a new flame in the Italian hearts, by decreeing the rising of Rome to the splendor of the first Empire, our Province cannot, must not remain humbled and forgotten. It is demanded, by the national dignity, by the faithfulness and Lucanian frugality, by that imposing army of emigrants who have repaid the indifference of the past Governments with love and the treasure of their savings; it is demanded by the revered dead of Basilicata who gave their blood for the glory of Italy.

Looking forward to greater destinies, and always ready to the call of duty, we here declare our undying love for our Mother Country, with a vote and wish of success to Giovanni Riviello and “La Basilicata nel Mondo.”

-The event continued with words from Lawyer Giovanni Riviello, telegrams were read, and all the guest names were listed. Details can be viewed on the pages below.

By Katherine Brooke Daly • 6 December 1925 • The Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Rents Netted Him $1,200,000 in One Year; Sees Big Chance for Development of Labor Saving Machinery In House-Building Field

Leaving the office of Dr. Charles V. Paterno, the interview with the great doctor-builder still fresh in mind, one begins to realize how little significance Dr. Paterno attaches to the fact that fate made him a builder when Charles Paterno would have made himself a physician. One reaches the conclusion before one reaches the elevator of the business building in the midtown business section of Manhattan [Note: probably The Chainin Building at 122 East 42nd Street] that he would have achieved this same success in any profession.

Shakespeare once said, “‘Tis not the world, dear Brutus, but ourselves that make us underlings.” At least he said something like that, and Sir James Barrie came along and wrote a play called “Dear Brutus” to prove that men are intrinsically failures or successes.

That seems to be true of Dr. Paterno. Though all interviews with him must be brief, he being really busy, one is shown in fifteen minutes three qualities which would have made this man a success in any calling.

My appointment with Dr. Paterno had been made several days in advance.

A few minutes before the hour set, I was in the anteroom of his office. There was someone with him, and three men waiting. The telephone operator rang his bell, and reported conditions in the outer office. She did not tell him that an insurance salesman of the “super” type was straining at the leash, or that the fat man with the heating device took up so much room on the bench that only he and a third man who had dozed off could sit down. She just said, “Three men and a reporter from The Eagle, with whom you had an appointment, to see you.”

The door leading to Dr. Paterno’s office opened instantly. He led his visitor into an adjoining room to wait and turned to the assembled crowd who might actually have been patients awaiting medical advice. His manner was professional – decisive, but tinged with an air of courtesy.

The insurance salesman might wait. The heater man had better come back another day, though there was no indication that Dr. Paterno was interested in his product. The sleeping man? Well, what is it they say, “Let sleeping dogs lie?” The reporter was usher in.

Dr. Paterno was busy, but he had made an appointment and the little clock on his desk verified the fact that time set for the interview tallied precisely with the time at which the interview actually took place.

Dr. Paterno is a wiry little man. His hair is wiry – gray and black like salt and pepper tweed. His movements are wiry. Vitality seems to exude from him, and since he is of Italian parentage, I suppose this should be attributed to his Latin blood. But then, the mustache and Van Dyke beard might be attributed to his leaning toward the medical profession.

Dr. Paterno did not bother to repeat the story of how he became a builder nor did he recite the list of his subsequent achievements. Time was precious, and the reporter already knew how he had graduated from the Cornell Medical School with a heartfelt desire to practice medicine. That was back in 1899. The story of how, on the death of his father, the two boys, Charles and Joseph, had taken up John Paterno’s work and completed the apartment house on 112th street, has been told before. Charles gave up his dreams of a career to finish that job. At that time he thought the sacrifice a temporary one. But when they had finished the work and sold the building, the adjoining land came to them in part payment.

Charles was still a contractor. With about $3,000 capital the boys went to work on a new job which was to net them an equal amount in profit.

Here was a young business yielding handsome returns. If he returned to medicine, Charles Paterno would have little or nothing. He would have the expense of an office, a place where he would sit for several years reading his own magazines while waiting for patients. He considers his next step carefully.

The building industry won.

Paterno Brothers erected a seven-story structure on West 105th street, at a profit of $40,000. They built a larger one, and so it went, each project enlarging the scope of their work until Manhattan was dotted with their buildings.

The panic of 1907 brought difficulties, but Paterno Brothers were able to withstand the inroads made upon business, and 1909 found them functioning normally.

Charles had made up his mind to go back to medicine. He had stood by the building industry in its trouble, but now, when the storm had been weathered, he felt free to leave.

The Paterno Brothers assets were divided, and Charles prepared to find patients. But fate again cheated the medical profession. Dr. Paterno was offered a building site on West Eighty-third street, between West End avenue and Broadway. This offer held great advantages, and Charles Paterno knew it.

[Note: this address is either incorrect or the building project wasn’t pursued. There is no known Paterno building on this block.]

He accepted the inevitable – that he was not intended to be a physician. He bought the site, let his contracts, and forsook his dreams of surgery.

In 1914 Dr. Paterno began work on the $10,000,000 apartment house which occupies the block between Madison and Park avenues and Forty-seventh and Forty-eighth streets. This was in the early part of the year when the idea of a World War seemed ludicrous. Dr. Paterno finished his apartment in the early part of 1918, when the World War had not only swept Europe, but had torn into this country. His job was finished – finished under the most trying wartime conditions by the expenditure of enormous sums of money and herculean energy. But there were no tenants. Park avenue apartments were going begging and Dr. Paterno was begging like the rest.

Then with the alacrity characteristic of wars and summer storms, which blow up out of apparently cloudless skies, spend themselves and vanish, the struggle was over.

There was peace and the return not only of men from abroad, but of whole families. New York boomed. Prospectors to this new Yukon were without houses. They struck gold, but there seems to be no place on Manhattan where they might build shacks. Dr. Paterno’s apartment house was a real claim which brought in $900,000 in rent during 1919 and $1,200,000 in 1922.

Two other projects of Dr. Paterno’s are familiar to New Yorkers. One is Hudson View Gardens, which extend from 182d to 186th streets above the site of old Fort Washington. The other is the fifteen-story apartment house which he is now erecting on Riverside Drive between 100th and 101st streets. This will be finished next spring, when 200 families will move in.

But Dr. Paterno did not talk of any of this in the interview.

He compared the medical industry with the building profession. And it was while he talked that he revealed himself as a practicing physician whose patients are buildings instead of human beings.

“Building has not advanced,” he complained. “In all other fields great strides have been made. Doctors have wonderful methods of sustaining life now which they did not have a hundred years ago. But building is the same. We plaster walls the way they plastered walls in Roman times, by hand. We lay brick the way they laid brick centuries ago, one by one. We should have a research department, like the medical profession. Then we might discover why we do not advance, and knowing the seat of trouble, might apply remedies.

“Our only progress has been made in methods of excavation. We have cranes and shovels, but then, when there is rock to be drilled, we drill in the same old way.

“To effect progress labor must be eliminated. Building is hampered by lack of labor-saving inventions, and inventors are hampered by labor organizations which discourage any devices which will eliminate labor. It seems to be a vicious circle.

“But devices are being invented, in spite of this. I know of one to plaster walls which is being perfected. How brick can be laid by machinery, I do not know.”

The telephone rang. It was one of the foremen. Doors on his job which should have been hung several days before were not yet in place. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?” Dr. Paterno sternly reprimanded. “It is now 4:30. You will have those doors hung by tomorrow at 10, and you will apologize to our client.” There were other things said, and other things implied which I felt might have been said had there been no feminine auditor. Dr. Paterno listened to this man’s excuses, credited none of them, and made it felt that nothing would be acceptable to him but a report of the finished work. One had a feeling that he was right, and that the man at the other end of the wire knew it, and that the report in the morning would be finished work.

So Dr. Charles had demonstrated that no matter how busy, he could be prompt; no matter how harassed or busy, he could be polite, and that he could be prompt and polite, as well as stern, when the occasion warranted.

Dr. Paterno apologized for the intrusion, and we continued our talk. He confessed that he still has moments when he regrets his choice. “But I am too old to go back,” he added. “I must content myself with lending emergency aid when there is an accident on a job. For a time I was on the board of directors of the Italian Hospital on Eighty-third street at the East River. But building is my profession. It is what I was made for.”

The broad desk boated one picture. It stood in an easel frame aloe a litter of papers. Dr. Paterno was me squinting at it, and turned the easel to afford a better view.

“My boy,” he explained.

“And what will you make of him?” I inquired.

“I will make nothing of him beyond the fact that his is my son,” was the reply. “I hope, however, that he will make a great deal of himself. Just now his is at Yale.”

“Taking medicine?”

Dr. Paterno smiled broadly before answering. “oh, no, he’s taking structural engineering. But he might yet be a surgeon. Whatever he chooses, I hope he does it well.”

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. It regularly featured natives from the southern Italian region of Basilicata (also known by its ancient name Lucania) who were excelling in America.

Michael Paterno • Written in 1927

He is one of the three members of that powerful triad of New York builder known under the name of Paterno Brothers, from Castelmezzano. But he has a peculiar personality of his own that cannot be confounded with any other’s. His vivid and ductile talent enables him to impress upon his buildings a line of power and grandeur, which is the characteristic mark of modern American buildings. But a touch of elegance and harmony gives also a singular note of levity to those gigantic buildings which seem to lose by it their heaviness, and appear wonderful structures of beauty and magnificence. One would feel embarrassed in choosing whether to admire more the architectural decorum of the stately and accurate dispositions of apartment, furnished with the finest modern comfort and the most complete installation of services.

Like his brothers, Michael Paterno, is an industrialist of the highest style and possesses the infallible glance of rapid and sure valuation of things. He has that intuition which is instinctive and innate in men of his temper, and forms the peculiar character of the great industrialist.

His success and triumphs in his art he owes to this gift and to the steadiness of character, which make him resemble a square powerful tower domineering stately the furious and stormy elements.

He is a wonderful man of action, with steel muscles and an impassible soul. He knows how to rule over things and submit events, strong both in crisis, and in success. With equal calm and confident serenity he turns boldly his head to the battle or to the trump. And he never lingers on his way. His day is always filled with noble work.

Like his brothers, Michael Paterno not only in the industrial field cooperates in highly honoring the name of Italy, in the largest metropolis of the United States of America. Though born there, he loves fervently the Fatherland of his parent. This love entered his soul and blood with the life.

He inherited from his father, together with his brothers, the austerity of life, the tenacious will of work, the strong temper of the builder and he inherited also the pride of belonging by origin and spirit to that Italian people, which more than anybody else spread all over the world the light of civilization.

Michael Paterno is always ready to meet any appeal or to adhere to any manifestation of Italian initiative in that country beyond the ocean. His name is surrounded with the same respect which surrounds those of his brothers. And we feel it to be our duty to point him out to the Italians in general and to the Basilicatesi in particular, as a new example of the inexhaustible vitality of our old and strong Lucanian race, which, even in pain and sorrow, has the power to create, in its maternal bosom, men of great value, who in all circumstances reveal themselves to be the real men of fate.

Together with his brother, Joseph and Charles, and his brother-in-law, Great Officer Anthony Campagna, Michael Paterno divides the high and noble merit of having translated into the most splendid realty a generous dream: “The House of Italian Culture” standing on the hill of the Columbia University.

Therefore we must join his name to those of the principal raiser of this famous monument designed to spread the light of the Italian art and culture in America.

Let us give a cheer for Michael Paterno and honor him as one of the best Basilicatesi living in the United States of America.

The Italian House of Culture in New York in the thought of Anthony Campagna • Written in 1927

The Italian press was very busy with the trip of Anthony Campagna to Italy, who came, as is well known, together with his brother-in-law, Joseph Paterno, to agree with the Italian Government on the program of the inauguration of the Italian House of Culture in New York.

In Rome, he stayed for a week and was received by His Excellency Mussolini, together with the other members of the Committee of the Italian House of Culture, Professor Butler, President of Columbia University of New York, Grand Officer Joseph Paterno, Professor Bigongiari of Columbia University, and Captain Orsenigo.

The Minister of Education His Excellency Fedele, who remembers the lawyer Campagna, to R. Lucio di Potenza, one of his most favorite pupils, was particularly generous with kindness and affection. Finally, the Government, in honor of Joseph Paterno and Lawyer Campagna and all the other members of the New York Committee, offer a banquet, at the Albergo degli Ambasciatori in Rome, and a very rich one, among at Villa D’Este. Passing through Naples, the lawyer Campagna and his brother-in-law Joseph Paterno were shown a warm demonstration of sympathy and admiration on the part of the best elements of our Neapolitan colony, on the initiative of our magazine, an event that the press has largely dealt with and we give in this issue review.

Then during Anthony Campagna’s stay in Naples “Il Mattino” which, after “Il Corriere della Sera” in Milan and “La Stampa” in Turin, and the third major daily organ of Italian public opinion, sent one of its most valiant editors, Professor Giuseppe Tricarico, to interview the distinguished man on the origins and functions of the “Italian House of Culture” in New York.

We reproduce the interview verbatim, which largely draws the attention of Italians to the monumental work due in large part to the patriotism of the brothers Paterno: Joseph, Charles, Michael, and Anthony Campagna.

Much has been said in Italy, especially in recent times about the “Italian House of Culture” which is about to rise precisely in New York. Few, however, we believe, are those who know what its aims and purposes are. We therefore have , considered it appropriate to interview the same lawyer Anthony Campagna on the subject, who, as a good southerner as he is preserved, has very kindly agreed to our desire, providing us with important information that we are happy to publish.

-Can you tell us something about the “Italian House of Culture”? we asked the lawyer. Campagna.

–The “Italian House of Culture” at the University of Columbia, said the lawyer Campagna, should not be confused with a school for the study of the Italian language, although this purpose is part of its minimum program. The Italian House aims to be a great forge of study and intellectual and spiritual exchange between Italy and the United States, which will undoubtedly bring with it mutual respect and intimate and cordial relations without wanting to mention the best economic relations that may eventually tomorrow arise as a result of this new spiritual situation that will be created between the two great peoples. The “Italian House of Culture” will be – I love to repeat the words of Professor Nicholas Murray Butler, Dean of the University of Columbia – “a living center of action, a source” of life and knowledge, of contacts and human interest, “and when, a few months from now, the House will begin” forces will be set in motion that he knows “will be felt throughout Italy and throughout America” ​​and by reflection in the entire civilized world.”

-Do you want to mention the importance that Columbia University has in America?

-The University of Columbia, under whose aegis the “Italian House of Culture” rises and not only the first University founded in the United States, and was the first to introduce the study of the Italian language since 1825 with Lorenzo da Ponte, but that University is the largest intellectual institution in the United States. Columbia, in fact, has over 35,000 students who enroll every year, coming from all States of the Union and from the most distant civilized nations, and about 15,000 students who manage to follow their studies with correspondence courses that are issued by the University in the most remote corners of the nations. There are also six Theological Seminaries and secondary schools of various denominations, thus forming an impressive force of 40 to 60,000 young people, who, under the influence of that University, pour into the life of the nation every year. The University of Columbia also includes international relations centers, such as the Carnegie Foundation for Peace, the Office of International Rights – which are now compiling the History of War which will consist of about eight hundred volumes – and there is only one month until Columbia doesn’t get an intellectual or political commission. Indeed, the “Italian House” immediately imposed itself on the attention and admiration of the distinguished personalities who make up these Commissions. In fact, the Rector of the University of Paris, Professor Lapie, who months ago took part in the International Philosophical Congress at Cambridge University and was a guest of Columbia University, had the opportunity to observe the progress of the “Italian House” and to learn the purposes for which such a grandiose building was about to arise. He was unable to maintain the expression of his warmest praise for what he called a gigantic work.

I must point out in this regard that the French, who maintain a study center at Columbia University, are now making efforts to rival the “Italian House.” Meanwhile, it is very significant that a French soldier and artist, Mr. Reni Mel, donated a symbolic painting by His Excellency Mussolini to our “Casa Italiano” – for which he was offered the sum of 15,000 dollars – as his personal contribution for what he considers a cause worthy of deep admiration.

Thus also the Romanian Delegation, headed by two Ministers, who went to visit the United States, was a guest last summer at the University of Columbia, and having seen what the Italian-Americans were doing for the spread of their culture, they wanted express the feelings of deep sympathy for the Italian nation, proposing, upon returning to the homeland, to promote a stronger and more intimate understanding between Romania and Italy.

Professor John L. Gerig, President of the “Italian House,” in making public the above data pointed out that the “Italian House” was already assuming an international importance.

-Who is entitled to the happy initiative of such an institution?

-The initiative of the “Casa Italiana” is due to the Italian students of Columbia, who for many years aspired to establish a social and spiritual center in that University and keep alive the culture and traditions of the Motherland, as well as the French students had their own Maison Francaise. This right aspiration, which in another environment and in other times would have met indifference and, perhaps, distrust, instead immediately won the sympathy of the esteemed Professor Gerig, who resolutely placed himself at the head of the movement, finding, later, his warmest supporter in the person of Nicholas Murray Butler, magnificent educator and one of the most distinguished and illustrious personalities of the North American Republic, to whom the University of Rome, with a simple and solemn ceremony, conferred an honorary degree, meaning in this way worthily the gratitude and admiration of Italy for his most noble work.

Thus launched the idea of ​​the “Italian House,” generous contributions were obtained, but not such as to reach the desired goal. A popular subscription was therefore used which, led by the lawyer Freschi and the other members of the Committee, in June 1925, I brought the Cash Fund to about $ 46,000. The plan was to buy a small house in the Columbia neighborhood and adapt it to the desired purpose; but, despite the modesty of the project, at least another ten thousand dollars were still needed. We were then approached by the lawyer Freschi, Joseph, Michael Paterno and myself, and we did not hesitate to offer our financial and technical cooperation. The little house, however restored, to me immediately seemed too modest and too narrow a thing to represent the greatness of the homeland in America. At any cost, however, it was necessary to put on a new building with an all-Italian architecture and imprint, which had to be admired by all. But, in the meantime, how to provide for the cost of a new building that could cost 5 or 6 times the sum collected over several years? The three of us, that is, Joseph and Michael Paterno and I, offered $65,000 as our personal contribution, and we pledged to advance all other necessary sums, thus giving our compatriots the opportunity to gradually contribute to the foundation of the institution. Of course, if the entire expense was not covered, we would have had to pay the difference.

With a similar proposal we went to the President of Columbia, Professor Butler, to obtain from him the sale of a space within the Columbia University, on which to erect a new building. And it is here that we had the best proof of the lively sympathies, of the profound admiration that the illustrious Professor Butler feels for Italy. In fact, since the university, although very large, had no available land and there remained only a building at 177 Amsterdam Avenue, owned by a Jew, which it would have seemed absurd to demolish, President Butler also decided to do the purchase of this building for which he paid $265,000 dollars. Despite the pressure and requests, later, by the curators and administrators of the University, to have that property devolved for other purposes, the President remained our sincere friend and the building was demolished to give rise to the “Italian House.” Thus, in just over a year, a fantastic dream was translated into reality.

-What was the total cost of the construction?

-The building, whose value has been estimated by various Italian architects and builders for over $500,000 dollars, instead cost the net sum of $315,000 dollars, because we have given our work for free and we have obtained the generous cooperation of Italian suppliers and Americans who have taken various contracts at cost price.

Pre-popular contributions, and with the proceeds of the famous banquet of one thousand dollars a table, we have been paid a total sum of $115,000 dollars, with which, added to the $65,000 dollars offered by us, we arrive at a figure far lower than what represents the cost of the house. In fact, there remains a difference of $135,000 dollars which we, if necessary, will always be very happy to offer as a testimony of our great love for our homeland of origin.

The “Italian House” is one of the most beautiful buildings in Columbia and one of the most distinguished among those who adorn the great city of New York today. And this represents for us the best and most coveted satisfaction.

A Columbia bulletin commented on the rise of the “Italian House” as follows: And with a sense of “great satisfaction that we see the Italian House rise majestically.

We find only to say that the building is so superior in its architectural lines to most of the best in Columbia that it is somewhat obscured.”

On the main facade of the “Italian House” carved in massive stone, are the famous words of Byron: “Italy, mother of the arts, your hand was our protector and is still our guide.”

This is the monument that we Italians – so concludes the lawyer Anthony Campagna – we wanted to offer a new Italy.

Because, even through the feverish life of America, we follow with ardent passion the titanic struggle of our overseas brothers, inspired and guided by the Duce Magnifico, and it was precisely this feeling, this ardor, that led us to ensure that the “House Italiana” should not be a fan-like of the Maison French, but a worthy and concrete affirmation of the new spirit of our great Italy.

Now, however, we hope that this monument will not remain a cold monument of iron and stone, but that the Government and the intellectual titans of our race will be able to impose on that iron and that stone a soul that speaks not only of the glories of our past but also and above all of what the new Italy is with all its hopes for the future.

Professor Giuseppe Tricarico

Another Basilicatese, Antonio D’Angelo for the “Italian House of Culture”

Alongside the munificence and patriotism of the Paterno brothers and their brother-in-law Anthony Campagna, the work of another Lucanian, Mr. Antonio D’Angelo, for the creation of an endowment and maintenance fund for the ” Italian House. ” The noble initiative that belongs to D’Angelo and the other two Italians Gerbino and Ciccarone, and puts another Basilicata at the head of the movement, hence the greatest affirmation of Italianness in the land of America, which has so far been achieved, has thus been announced by the Secretariat of the “Italian House of New York.” We transcribe the press release.

“With the intervention of Dr. John L. Gerig, President of the Institute of Italian Culture in the United States and Dean of the Faculty of Neo-Latin Languages ​​and Literature at Columbia University, and the Honorable Judge John J. Freschi, they held a meeting in the building of the Faculty of Philosophy of the University the well-known industrialists of New York Messrs. Louis Gerbino, Adamo Ciccarone and Antonio D’Angelo to discuss the advisability of creating the maintenance fund of the Institute and to call all the generous Italians who see in his educational-cultural program the rise of the Italian name in America. They had already verbally promised to create an endowment and maintenance fund of $100,000 dollars, a fund that has nothing to do with the construction fund. An exchange of views they approved and signed a resolution in the form of a letter to Judge Freschi. We publish them so that the Italian public appreciates their gesture and imitates it by cooperating with these generous so that our worthy institution, which is destined to achieve a great future, may intensively carry out its activities based on the most intense diffusion of our culture in America.

The campaign, which will be opened at an appropriate time, has nothing to do with the deep-seated construction of the House, which was launched by the Italian House Fund, Inc., and by the Building Committee formed by Judge Freschi, Dr. Gerig, Attorney Cavaliere Officer Campagna and Cavaliere Officer Joseph Paterno and Michael Paterno. As soon as completed and officially open, the House will be handed over to Columbia, will remain under the full control and jurisdiction of the University and the Italian Cultural Institute will come into operation, which will be governed by a Board of Directors which will include the majority of the Columbia University and the Italians, who generously founded the maintenance fund. We warmly congratulate Messrs. Louis Gerbino, Adamo Ciccarone and especially with our fellow countryman Antoni D’Angelo and we make wishes that Italians will generously strengthen our Institute.”

And now here is the letter from Messrs. D’Angelo, Ciccarone and Gerbino to Judge Freschi.

New York, N.Y. August 27, 1927.

“Dear Judge Freschi, – We feel extremely privileged, at your fervent request, to cooperate with the Institute of Italian Culture in the United States, founded under the auspices of Columbia University, to create an endowment and maintenance fund, which will allow the Italian House, under said Institute, to continue the work and promote its program. We therefore warmly ask you to communicate to Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, Rector Magnificent of Columbia University, to the Board of Curators of that University, to Prof. John L. Gerig, President of the Institute and to the Board of Directors that we, the undersigned, we will guarantee and subscribe the necessary funds for the first year, each of us contributing an equal part of the necessary amount of the expected annual expenses to maintain the House as soon as it is donated to Columbia.

At the same time, we undertake to raise an endowment fund of one hundred thousand dollars ($100,000.00), if possible, in cooperation with Professor John L. Gerig, Judge Freschi and other friends.

In the meantime, we have read the letter addressed by Dr. Butler, dated 4 August 1927, in which he communicates the amount of the preventive maintenance costs as they are assessed by the Director of Works of the University and we are based on that estimate to reconfirm our promises; we also promise to help increase the maintenance fund for the future.

We feel very happy, dear judge, to make this offer because we understand the importance of creating and maintaining the House as a center of Italian cultural activities and we are sure that this noble institution will not fail to bind Italy and America by bringing together better understanding, friendship and a spirit of goodwill.”

The enlightened patriotism of such men is superior to all praise. And we are once again proud to find another Lucanian, Antonio D’Angelo, at the head of the Italian movement in the world.

Anthony Campagna • Written in 1927

How young and happy he must have found himself, within the beautiful cloister of his native mountains, returning after a long absence of several years, Anthony Campagna! And how the enthusiastic and faithful greeting of his people of Castelmezzano had to recall to his spirit the depths of the past, which from time to time rise like an illuminated altar on the top of the human soul and bind the thought of man, even in half the vertigo of action, to the chain of remembrances.

“Vague stars of the Bear!”

He too, Anthony Campagna, had his silent song in front of his open house to welcome him. And if he hasn’t really searched, with the eyes of when he was a teenager, the flights and the nests of the swallows around the eaves of the old gray houses, on the ledges of the ancient church’s cornices, around the high spire of the bell tower, his youthful affections. However, he has certainly reassembled ideally, with the voluptuousness of one who reconnects fragments of stars and dreams with pure hands, around a web of emotion. And imaginatively retracing the path of destiny he has traveled, he has had to bless a thousand times, with all his deepest heart, his beautiful native land, which raised him with the happy green of the vine leaves of the Dionysian vineyards, with the joy of the crops of gold ripe with sun and fruit, with the unanimous heart of all fellow citizens gathered in celebration for his return. Remaining simple, he found around himself, the people, the things he holds most sacred and dearest, the immutable simplicity of our people. And he had to feel great joy and a communion, as only happens between one who recognizes himself in his people and in their virtues rediscovers the formative and constructive qualities of his own character and temperament, has certainly established itself between his spirit and his people.

He, the hard architect of gigantic constructions, with a tender and meek soul, found himself facing the whole world, from which his adolescence had been fascinated. That small world of the first age that contains within its borders all the dream of man, before the harshness of reality pushes us to engage in the battle of life and affirmation, from which we emerge either winners or losers, forever.

This battle, Anthony Campagna fought it whole, he was able to win it admirably. And his return to the old land of his fathers resembles that of a triumph. But he, with his calm brow, with the warm and mobile light of his eyes, with his heart of a child and of a poet, still had the supreme nobility of mind not to want to appear in the light of the victor of his life. And among the good humble people of his native Castelmezzano, who know how to fertilize the ear with the sweat of his brow and make the harsh vine blossom on the rough slope, he wanted to appear as equals, tracing in each of his countrymen that his friend celebrated him of distant time, the one who remained while he went, the one who did not walk and did not progress on the path of destiny, while he has traveled so much and so much has built of destiny with his best fervor and with his boldest soul.

Wonderful man lawyer Campagna! And how would anyone who wanted to reconstruct his human figure without knowing him, would be mistaken, only through the data of his industrial activity!

The days that, in his recent trip to Italy, Anthony Campagna spent in the green and peaceful hermitage of his native village, Castelmezzano of Basilicata, were for him benefits of peace and rest, like a wash of the soul. To see him abandon himself there to the joy of ancient friendships, within the old walls of the domestic house, surrounded by his affections and by his purest and holiest things, one had the impression, especially for those who know his temperament as a formidable fighter, as a tireless worker , to witness the rest of an athlete after a great victory. The joy of finding himself in his land swarmed clear from his sharp gaze, illuminated his forehead with an almost childlike joy, which was expressed in moving re-enactments, in surges of admiration in front of the green and fresh beauty of the woods of the rivers of the countryside of Basilicata. The land has a special attractive charm for Anthony Campagna’s good and simple soul. He loves the greasy smell of freshly ground clods, he feels the deep and mysterious poetry of germination and flowering, he still knows how to lull, as in the beautiful adolescent years, a gentle dream of his on the swaying of a great blond sea of ​​dazzled ears from the sun, bent by the weight of the fruit, like a slender girl’s neck with heavy hair. He seemed transfigured. Where was the iron and stone builder used to spend his days in the feverish roar of construction sites between palisades and warehouses, between machines and workers, hard and provident, inexorable and just, or in the industrious silence of his studio in to create or to review projects to build with lines and figures rather than with concrete and steel?

The light of his native land had penetrated his soul. He enjoyed the love shown to him by his fellow citizens, he suffered like a passion the beauty full of memories of his small alpine village, cut into the living rock and almost engraved like a setting in the mountains. He was like the eagle that has found its high nest on the top of the centuries-old fir and demonstrates its contentment in large solar flights. Thus, the spirit of Anthony Campagna sparkled with vivacity, sparkled like the good ruby wine of our sunny vineyards. And his whole soul as an indomitable craftsman calmed down in that bliss which was made of earth and sky, of evocation and emotion, of purity and simplicity alone.

The only regret that clouded his joy of those days was the too rapid flight of time. And who knows if then, Anthony Campagna, overwhelmed by the wave of sentiment, has not thought of concluding his cycle as a fighter to close, after so much turmoil of activity, after so many industrial victories, after so many battles and so many claims of Italianness by him accomplished in America, in the immensely happy and pure rural quiet, so ardently coveted by his spirit that he never ideally departed from his native land, so he knew and wanted to remain devoted and faithful to her in an attachment whose tests are almost inexhaustible and continual. In fact, even in his last return, Anthony Campagna has generously donated to his country, of which he wants in every way to hasten the civil rebirth. Apart from the fifty thousand lire destined for the pious works of Potenza and for which the Royal prefect and his kind wife, Donna Graziata Reale Salis, addressed beautiful letters of thanks to him and his good lady, he has assigned the following to his country sums. Five thousand lire for the Infantile Kindergarten, two thousand five hundred for the Combatants Section, twenty thousand for the Rural School.

All this is a demonstration of the highest spirit of humanity and regional solidarity. And if, together with these, one thinks of Anthony Campagna’s infinite donations for works of great national interest, both in America and in Italy, one immediately has the clear feeling of finding ourselves in front of a patriot and a philanthropist, who he wants to use himself not for a selfish and utilitarian purpose, much less voluptuous, which is little enough for the exemplary simplicity in which he and his family live, but of the wealth accumulated with his work he wants to make a weapon of social elevation, making use of it to achieve the highest ends of life and for the good of his homeland.

The figure of the industrialist of Anthony Campagna, however eminent, can remain alien to us, leave us indifferent, or, at the most, that essential parochialism which is at the basis of the character of us Basilicates, forced to be the new Jewish people of the world and therefore recalled by the most instinctive voices of the race to solidarize in every part of the world, can be satisfied. But the human figure, the figure of a man by Anthony Campagna cannot fail to thrill us, because it participates in the same impulses of our soul and identifies our passion for the homeland, of the family, in its own passion.

This ruler of materials, this accumulator of immense wealth, has remained as it is like each of us. The ideal value of life has not failed in his conscience, as often happens to those who seize luck for both wings. He works today as at the beginning of his exciting career. He has today, that he could have everything, the same modest needs as when he could have only a little. And his chosen companion of, Miss Maria, sister of the Paternos, is as simple and good, as helpful and charitable as he, to whom she is happy to have linked her destiny as a woman and as a mother. On this journey, she accompanied her husband, together with her two children, Joseph and John, two very intelligent and very polite youngsters, who promise very well to walk in the footsteps of their parents’ example. And in Castelmezzano, Anthony Campagna also had with him his mother, the good lady Agata, also a native of Castelmezzano, who faithfully accompanied her son in all his ascension, in all his conquest, helping him with all her maternal soul and with her inspired advice of love in the hours of doubt and hesitation. And the wife, and the mother, and the children are united by the people in the same triumphal welcome they gave to Anthony Campagna. And the same flowers of gratitude, pride, love, fell from the hands of the people on the heads of all the members of the beautiful Campagna family, which is followed, now that it has returned from the ocean, by the blessing voices of how many were benefited by it during his stay in Basilicata. They are the innocent voices of the children gathered in the Nursery School of Potenza and those of their mothers; the choirs of the orphans; the trembling voices of the old men from the “R. Acerenza” hospice from Potenza. They are the vigorous voices of the peasants, of the ex-combatants, of all the dispossessed of Castelmezzano who raise their grateful hearts on both hands to Anthony Campagna as an offering.

And to him, now that he has returned to his vanguard position in the immense struggle of industrial competition, in New York, and to the beautiful battles of Italianness, to him and his chosen consort, to his lilies (sons) who will continue tomorrow the generous work of the father, go to the Italy that he adores, our proud greetings from fellow countrymen and admirers.

The Banquet Offered by our Director to Joseph Paterno and Anthony Campagna • Written in 1927

The daily press of Naples and that of Basilicata gave the widest diffusion to this event, which transcended the limits of the pure and simple convivial gathering to reach a meaning of consensus and unanimous applause to the very Italian work of industrialists and philanthropists that the two typical exponents of the most characteristic virtues of our strong and simple and steadfast and constructive Lucanian race, Joseph Paterno and Anthony Campagna, perform uninterruptedly and passionately across the ocean, in the land of America. The lawyer Giovanni Riviello said with pride that he truly, on the memorable evening of June 30, 1927, was able to rally the Lucan soul, inviting him to honor himself and his own abilities of asceticism in the people of Joseph Paterno and Anthony Campagna, the life of which it is all an admirable and luminous example and the proof reached of the inexhaustible resources of will and power, which our people have for their inevitable becoming.

It was the first time that Basilicata residing in Naples – and when we say Basilicata of Naples we mean men who lead the intellectual movement of the great Mediterranean metropolis, or who in Neapolitan life occupy all first-rate positions in any field of activity – human beings, free professions, trade, industry – it was the first time that they gathered in such a totalitarian and significant demonstration. And our Director, in taking the initiative to group them all around Joseph Paterno and Anthony Campagna, as well as to render and make the two magnificent artists of the good name of Italy abroad pay the highest honor, to the two athletic builders, who with their work show themselves every day more and more up to the new times and the mighty new history of their homeland, aimed also at this: that is, to place, next to each other, all the most distinguished and most deserving Lucanians of the science, literature, schools, politics, commerce, industries, art, the judiciary, the forum, finance, public administrations, journalism, so that together they ideally evaluate how far one has traveled and how much remains to travel to reach the ideal end of the economic and moral resurrection of our Region. Great purpose, to which every good Basilicatese must bring his contribution, albeit in the form of a basket of rubble to the construction of the grand building.

Nobody misses the appeal of the Director of “La Basilicata nel Mondo.” And this shows that our magazine has truly become what it set out to become: the soul, the voice of our entire land, of all the Lucanians at home and abroad.

Joseph Paterno and Anthony Campagna with his elected consort could not have been more nobly and enthusiastically honored. The flower of ingenuity, of virtue, of Lucanian activity, those – the old ones – who today wave the torch of conquest on the peaks, and those – the young – who will have that torch in their fist tomorrow, all paid solemn homage to their ascension, to their patriotism. Having come to Italy to carry out a very lofty mission of Italianness, they felt that the soul of their old sorrowful land had understood them and greeted them with its highest generous jubilation. It was not, no, the spell of the thousand and thousand lights of Naples, liquid turquoise siren, that on the evening 30 June 1927 shone before the fascinated eyes of the Lucanians gathered on the hill of San Martino, next to the glorious Certosa, around Joseph Paterno and Anthony Campagna. But it was the thousand peaks of our mountains that rose, lighting up with the color of our hopes, from the deepest heart, ours! And everyone felt, in that hour of emotion and discovery that only one thing mattered. Raise hearts high, feed the flame, for our Region!

For the chronicle of the magnificent and unprecedented Lucanian regional gathering, we report in full the report made by “Il Giorno,” the newspaper that once belonged to Matilde Serao.

“On the evening of June 30, 1927, in the splendid room of the” Restaurant Miranapoli, ” at Vomero, the most elected and most representative part of the Basilicates residing in Naples, at the invitation of the Management of the magazine” La Basilicata nel Mondo” gathered around to the grand official Joseph Paterno and to the lawyer Anthony Campagna, to testify to these two magnificent tempers of Lucanian builders, of New York, who have deserved the praise of the Duce for their continuous work of Italian character in the United States of America, and above all for their munificence in favor of the “Italian House of Culture” which recently arose in Columbia University, on the initiative of these Italians, all the gratitude, admiration, pride that the men of the old earth birthed and nourished for this reason steadfast and simple champions of all the most heroic virtues of the Lucanian people.

The initiative of such a beautiful event belongs to that wonderful organizer and great heart of Lucan and lawyer Giovanni Riviello, director of “La Basilicata nel Mondo” and it was worthy of the nobility of intentions of its initiator.

The most distinguished politicians, in fact, the most illustrious scientists and teachers, the clearest magistrates, lawyers, literate scholars, artists, publicists, traders, industrialists, who truly honor, with their ingenuity and their integrity, the Italy and Basilicata responded to the invitation of the important magazine with an enthusiasm of enthusiastic consent. And a crown of over one hundred guests seated at the table around Joseph Paterno and Anthony Campagna, praising them and their patriotic virtues, while an elect group of gentlewomen and young ladies surrounded the virtuous and noble consort of Anthony Campagna, Miss Marie, who is the sister of Paterno, and therefore also of the proud Lucanian blood.

To the “champagne” they toasted, arousing enthusiastic cheers, the lawyer Giovanni Riviello, Senator Camillo Mango, the Honorable Nicola Sansanelli, extraordinary fascist commissioner of Naples and Campania, the lawyer Saverio Siniscalchi, fascist federal secretary for the province of Potenza.

I thank, with a moved soul, with pride of Italian and of Lucanian, with a simple oratory, admirable of effectiveness and clarity, lawyer Anthony Campagna, who illustrated the program of the “Italian House of Culture” in New York and referred to the judgment of distinguished Americans, on the new Italy and on the right of Italy to be considered the cradle of civilization in the world. His mention of his native Basilicata arouses a delirium of applause.

Concluded the series of speeches, with a very nice improvisation, the Grand Official Joseph Paterno, who was much applauded.

Lastly, the lawyer Giovanni Riviello read the accessions received, including those of His Excellency the Minister of Public Instruction Honorable Pietro Fedele, of the Prefect of the Province of Potenza, Grand Official Reale, of the senators Professor Vincenzo Terrace, Giustino Fortunato, and Giuseppe Di Lorenzo, of Professor Doctor Fabrizio Padula, of the Honorable Vincenzo Janfolla, of the Attorney General of the Court of Appeal of Naples, Commendatore Ferdinando Cammarota, of Professor Doctor Nicola Longo, of the Commendatore Doctor Vito Fiore, of the engineer Adolfo Di Giura, of Mr. Raffaele Lauria, of Professor Cleto Carbonara, of the judges Bonomo and Mainieri of the Court of Naples, of the Honorable Bartolo Gianturco, and the lawyers Luigi and Emanuele Gianturco, who at the last moment were unable to attend the banquet due to a bereavement in their family.

Among the speakers we noted: the lawyer Giovanni Riviello with his very distinguished lady, the Honorable lawyer Nicola Sansanelli and his private secretary Professor Tricarico, the Honorable lawyer Saverio Siniscalchi and lady, Honorable Senator Camillo Mango, Doctor Professor Giuseppe Disella and his wife, as well as the distinguished and intelligent daughter Miss Anna, Doctor Professor Giovanni Castronuovo, Doctor Professor Vittorio De Bonia, Doctor Professor Vincenzo Lenzi, Professor Commodore Gaetano Briganti, Professor Floriano Del Secolo, Doctor Professor Giuseppe Cristalli, Doctor Professor Giuseppe Lucibelli, the Commodore Francesco Scapaccione, chief curator of the Mortgages of Naples, Knight of the Great Cross lawyer Diodato Sansone, former Prefect of Naples, the lawyer Commodore Nicola Vaglio, Professor lawyer Nicola Stolsi, the Cavaliere Emanuele Petraccone, receiver-head of the Naples registry, Commodore Guido Mango, the painter Angelo Brando with his lady and young lady, Doctor Luigi Briganti, Commodore Paolo Buonasorte, the lawyer Consalvo Pascale, the lawyer Commodore Giovanni Bronzini and lady, the judge Commodore Rocco Casella and madam, the major medical doctor Vincenzo Polosa, the Deputy Attorney of the King Lawyer Gerardo Albanese and lady, the lawyer Ignazio La Grotta, investigating judge of the Court of Naples, Professor Francesco Maglietta and lady, Commodore lawyer Michele Maglietta, Professor Paolo de Grazia, Dr. Ferdinando Santoro, the lawyer. Domenico Papa, the lawyer Nicola Alfredo Fiore, the lawyer Ugo Janfolla with his sister Miss Giuseppina, Baron Ruggiero Cianci di Sanseverino, Dr. Leopoldo Ricciuti, Cavaliere office lawyer Felice Ninni, Eng. Michele Buccico, the Commodore Diego Molfese, the Deputy Attorney of the King lawyer Giuseppe Michele d’Adamo, Commodore lawyer Michele Raia, councilor of the Court of Appeal, Professor Cavaliere office Pietro Musacchio, Royal Inspector at the Department of Studies, the Deputy Prosecutor of the King lawyer Giovanni di Muro, Grand officer Nicola Giannini with the other two members of the Firm “F. Giannini and Son” editor of “The Basilicata in the World” Misters Salvatore and Nicola Giannini, the Honorable Professor Prospero Guidone director of the “Loreto” Hospital Professor Doctor Francesco Blast, the Ragioniere Giuseppe Graziadei and lady, Professor Giuseppe Zito and his daughter Signorina Menuccia, the lawyer Luigi Castronuovo, Professor Maurizio Romeo, Cavaliere Giuseppe Chiummiento and lady, the lawyer Raffaele Cafiero, the Commodore Geppino of Naples, Dr. Alessandro Pugliese, the pharmacist Carmine Parrella, the Podesta of Castelmezzano, the native town of the lords Paterno and Campagna, Mr. Saverio Paterno, Mr. Vincenzo Lombardi also from Castelmezzano, the Deputy Prosecutor of King Biagio Petrocelli, Dr. Rosario Dursio, the notary lawyer Cavaliere Antonia Summa, Dr. Antonio Orofino, Mr. Carlo Giacummo, the lawyer Paolo Di Bello and others.

[Note: Podesto Saverio Paterno is the older brother of Joseph Paterno. Carmine Parrella may have been the father of Michael Parrella who married Celestina Paterno, Saverio’s daughter. Vicenzo Lombardi may have been the husband of Maria Arcangelo Campagna, Anthony’s sister.]

The magnificent Lucanian gathering, which assumed the importance of a great regional manifestation of the most eminent Basilicates of Naples, pleasantly dissolved late in the day, leaving in everyone’s mind the sense of the highest solidarity of all the Lucanians around his mindful children and to “La Basilicata nel Mondo.”

The Prefect Grande Office Royal Visit Anthony Campagna in Castelmezzano • Written in 1927

This is how our correspondent from Castelmezzano informed us at the time of the visit of the prefect of Potenza to Antonio Campagna in his native town.

Castelmezzano had the high honor of the visit of the Prefect of the Province Grande Officer Ernesto Reale.

Never, none of the many Prefects who passed through the palace of the Prefecture of Potenza had deigned to come to us, to visit this small town hidden among the rocks, which make it one of the most interesting municipalities in Basilicata.

From this we can understand how great was the expectation of this population, and how keen the desire in everyone to pay homage to the distinguished man who holds the sorts of our poor province with infinite love.

When the news spreads in the village, I do not hide the fact that the general satisfaction for this extraordinary event turns into a feeling of sincere gratitude towards the person of the Grand Official lawyer Anthony Campagna, our illustrious fellow citizen, who, returning from the distant Americas, had been in Castelmezzano for a few days for a short period of rest.

And the gratitude of this generous population is explained by the fact that the visit of the major political authority of our province was determined precisely by the presence in Castelmezzano of Anthony Campagna, one of the most deserving Italians of the homeland abroad, towards whom Benito Mussolini had recently words of high and deserved praise.

The expectation of the population was not disappointed, because just the announcement, in two car-automobiles, the Grande Officer arrived. Dr. Ernesto Reale and two relatives of him, the Cavaliere officer Francesco Errichelli, deputy federal secretary, came to replace the lawyer. Seneschal who had not been able to leave Naples due to slight indisposition, the lawyer Alfonso Andretta of the Press and Propaganda Office, Cavaliere Francesco Telesca of the special secretarial office of the Prefect and former schoolmate of Antonio Campagna. At the entrance of the town, and properly under the Palazzo Paterno, the Prefect and his entourage were received by the Podesta, Lord Saverio Paterno, by the Grand officer lawyer Anthony Campagna, by the political secretary of the local Fascio Colonel Maglietta, by the lawyer Giovanni Riviello, director of “Basilicata nel Mondo”, who came expressly from Naples, by Dr. Paterno, health officer of the Municipality, by the other authorities. Upon arrival there were lined up, in perfect order, the table and the small Italians with a unit of the militia, and over a thousand citizens.

As soon as the Prefect got out of the car, the usual presentations took place, and then the Head of the Province was very happy to pose for a film that lawyer Campagna brought with him from America for remembrance of the solemn date. Who turned the camera to collect the film was the youngest of the sons of the lawyer Campagna, the likeable and very intelligent John, who, together with his other brother, Joseph, are very fond of the beauties of this small and very glorious country of ours.

After the introductions, an impressive procession was formed which headed for the Municipal House.

Here the Podesta, Cavaliere Saverio Paterno, greeted the head of the Province with the following words:

“To the Head of the Province, who with high and exquisite political tact governs the destinies of our land; to the Federal Deputy Secretary who worthily assists the Secretary, lawyer Siniscalchi, who, due to slight indisposition, could not be here today, to the lawyer Giovanni Riviello, who so skillfully disseminates with his magazine the virtues and works of the Lucanians, who in a foreign land keep the name of Italy high and honored, I am grateful to offer, at this moment, my devoted, respectful greeting and that of the entire citizenship of which I make myself a sincere interpreter.

“This little village hidden among the Dolomite rocks, not used to receiving such illustrious guests, today quivers with a heartbeat of joy and feels the need to pay homage to you, to show you the feeling of devotion of the citizens simply and frankly, as well as simple and straightforward and the their life.

“Your visit has a high significance and shows the interest of the authorities for civil progress and for the moral and economic revitalization of even the smallest countries always forgotten by the past governments.

“You well know that this community still lives isolated from the civil consortium: it has no roads, no water, nothing that can make it worthy of a civil region, and you, illustrious Royal Prefect and distinguished Deputy Federal Secretary, we are sure you will be interested of the real, felt, indispensable needs of this citizenship, needs that we will allow ourselves to outline with a brief reminder that I will keep you in a few days.

“I am proud to be able to say that this country boasts men who make the luminous beacon of the greatness of Italy shine with their works even in distant metropolises and with a generous heart they are always among the first to respond to the call of the Fatherland, and the Fatherland does not he could better express his gratitude for their generosity than by remembering their native country.

“Expressing once again our deep gratitude for the high honor given to us with your visit which will remain an unforgettable memory, I invite you to shout with me: Long live the King! Long live the Duce!”

The prefect, Grande Official Dr. Ernesto Reale, thanked the citizens for the very cordial welcome given to him and thanked the Podesta for the words addressed to him. He said he knew all the Italian work that the Paterno brothers and the lawyer Campagna held in the United States, and he was certain to interpret the Duce’s sentiment of the new Italy by promising all the Government’s interest in Castelmezzano.

I bring the salute of the fascists the colonel Cavaliere Maglietta, secretary of the local section.

The ceremony ended with the ritual distribution of refreshments, after which the guests passed to the Palazzo of lawyer Campagna, where an intimate lunch was offered by the lawyer Campagna himself. In addition to the Prefect with the two brothers-in-law, they returned to the canteen. Campagna with his Lady, the lawyer Giovanni Riviello and Lady, the Podesta of Castelmezzano Cavaliere Saverio Paterno and Signora, the Cavaliere Official Francesco Errichelli deputy federal secretary, the lawyer Alfonso Andretta, colonel Cavaliere Maglietta, the Cavaliere F. Telesca, Dr. Paterno, health officer of the Municipality, the lawyer F. Brindisi, the mother and the two children of the lawyer Campagna, as well as the sister of these Signora Maria and brother Alfredo with his wife, brother-in-law siv. Vincenzo Lombardi, the young daughters and son of the Podesta and other close relatives of the Campagna family.

Lunch was served with great elegance by the restaurant of the Moderno Hotel in Potenza, while the ice cream service was done by the well-known pastry shop Viggiani, also from Potenza. In a word, it could not offer more chic and more elegant hospitality, naturally worthy of Anthony Campagna.

At the campaign start the series of speeches the Cavaliere Francesco Errichelli who bring the greetings of the lawyer Siniscalchi and the Fascist Federation of Basilicata to the illustrious dormitory that gives so much honor to Italy abroad.

Dr. Paterno, health officer of the Municipality, wanted to outline the most salient points of Anthony Campagna’s adventurous life as a student before, in Italy, the daring flight he took for the distant Americas.

The lawyer Giovanni Riviello, director of “La Basilicata nel Mondo,” with a nice phrase and vivacity of word, reveal the intimate life of Anthony Campagna, whom he had the opportunity to know and appreciate last year in America during his journalistic mission, and said that at the threshold of his own home Anthony Campagna changes his soul as a businessman and in the temple of his family tranquility, in the finished garden of his joys as a son, a husband, a father, he finds his simple soul of a Lucan who remained faithful to the traditions and worship of the family, as they are sacred in this land of his origin, and from them he draws the deepest, the truest joys of his spirit.

The Prefect Grande Official Dr. Reale I greet the new Italian in Anthony Campagna, which follows: The great progress that the homeland makes every day, and does everything to make itself worthy of this, contrasting the luminous figure of this eminent son of Basilicata, who knows how to complete the entire his duty as an Italian, to the many renegades who swear the name of Italy every day abroad. In a happy and moving improvisation, the illustrious Head of the Province praises the virtues of the people of Basilicata all over the world and the happiness and prosperity of Anthony Campagna and his family.

Lastly, the lawyer Anthony Campagna, greeted by great applause, after thanking, with nobility of word, the previous speakers and especially the prefect Grande Official E. Reale, for the honor granted to him and to the citizens of Castelmezzano with this visit, which will remain indelible in the hearts of all, I give a short speech marked by elevated concepts and a wonderful expression of homeland sentiment, arousing consensus in the listeners and admiration.

Towards evening the Prefect, with his entourage from Potenza, left Castelmezzano, not without having first expressed to this Podesta, Saverio Paterno, all his satisfaction for the excellent conditions in which he found the town, especially as regards the internal roads of the built-up area. He repeats the promise of wanting to take an interest in the prompt solution of the most urgent problems affecting citizenship.

Castelmezzano will perpetually remember the magnificent day of celebration and promise spent around the illustrious Head of the Province and his elected son Anthony Campagna.

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. It regularly featured natives from the southern Italian region of Basilicata (also known by its ancient name Lucania) who were excelling in America.

From lawyer to skyscraper builder • Anthony Campagna • 1925

When the lawyer Antonio Campagna was forced to embark for America, on a ship loaded with much pain and little human hope, perhaps I think, with sadness, that fate was evil for him and forever precluded the way to success, which he – fervent with talent and activity – had set out to achieve through his legal studies and the practice of the bar. Perhaps even he, during the silent nights of the Ocean and the talks with the sea, I despair that in the land of “business” fate would have induced him to relegate his toga and pandettes [books of law] to the cobwebs of the attic and would still humiliate him, and persecuted, bending him for the needs of life to the hardest work.

And, perhaps, while sailing he regretted having entrusted himself to the Ocean, who, in his intellectuality, always dreamed of the greedy quiet of his studies and the dominion of the classrooms and crowds, bewitched and influenced by the charm of a true and powerful word.

But the indelible memory of his childhood and early youth encouraged and sustained him on the way to fortune, he spent among hardships, domestic misfortunes and the vengeance of the cowards, and that firm heart of his, which knew how to rise, even moaning, encounter to fate.

He wanted to succeed. And his iron will was equal to the power of his soul.

Student and … anarchist.

Anthony Campagna was born in Castelmezzano on December 31, 1884.

Although the economic conditions of his family were all but prosperous, he was soon initiated into classical studies, in which his keen wit, his natural aesthetic sense and a deep and sincere love of study greatly made him progress. At the age of seventeen he obtained his high school diploma with honor and enrolled in the faculty of law at the Royal University of Rome. Two years later, however, having had the misfortune of losing his father, and having fallen on his too young shoulders the weight of the family, he moved to the University of Naples, where, only at long intervals, he could allow himself the luxury of attending courses. But this thoughtful and austere young man, intelligent and persevering, poor, of humble birth, who looked out, despite the hardships, as a great promise of the future, aroused the low envy and the life of the inept of Castelmezzano, who with diabolical design , they thought of losing him, qualifying him at the Naples Police Headquarters … for a … dangerous anarchist.

The Police Headquarters, of course, having received the report, had him identified, shadowed and monitored. And when Naples, where Anthony Campagna was then attending the 4th law course, drank the official visit of the former Emperor of Germany, William II, the house where the young Lucanian student lived was surrounded by a large crowd of agents and policemen, to prevent the release of the …. dangerous bomb. A few days after this episode, Campagna receives a telegram, in which he was warned of the serious illness of a member of his family. Afterwards, he goes to the Police Headquarters to obtain permission to leave. Introduced in the presence of the Quaestor, like a Carbonaro from the 21st, the spirited young man introduces himself and shows the telegram: “I am the anarchist Campagna. I have received bad news from home. May I leave?”

The commissioner first reads the telegram, niches a little, then hastens to inquire in detail about the social and economic conditions of the Campagna family from Castelmezzano. Knowing that they were humble and poor people – in those blessed times it was possible to sometimes be right even by the Quaestors – he sensed that the complaint was nothing but a slander and … he left Antonio Campagna free to leave, taking his leave with these words.

“Go, my son: I understand everything!”

[To read more about Anthony’s experience in Naples, in his own words, read his Autobiography online HERE.]

As an emigrant

It is easy to understand how, when in July 1906 Anthony Campagna achieved, with the highest grade and honors, the degree in law, the envy and hostility of his fellow villagers, not only did they not disarm, but they pointed out, creating him in his native country, an environment of discomfort and isolation. On the other hand, the conditions of the family, getting worse and worse, led him to think of faraway America, the land of rapid successes and fabulous fortunes.

However, with his nature as an esthete and a dreamer, perhaps he would not have decided to leave, if, to put an end to the delay and hesitation, a fact had not occurred as providential as it was occasional.

Fresh from America, where he had amassed a large fortune, for a quick visit to Italy, he was then in Castelmezzano, his homeland, the Knight Joseph Paterno – whom we had the honor of extensively dealing with in the 3-4 issue of the magazine – builder of skyscrapers in New York, to whom the lawyer Anthony Campagna soon had to tie himself in fate, as a partner in companies, and in blood, marrying a sister [Marie Paterno].

Paterno took to good will and to protect the young scholar, encouraging him to emigrate and disposing him spiritually. So it was that, in May 1908, accepting an invitation from a friend, who urged him to go to Chicago, to take over the direction of a weekly newspaper. Anthony Campagna won his last reluctance and entrusted himself to the sea.

In Chicago, at first, the newspaper’s business did well: then the wind changed and the publications, despite the good will and the efforts of tenacity and skill of the Director, were suspended.

So, Anthony Campagna, remembering Joseph Paterno’s promises of help, I don’t hesitate to go to New York. And Joseph Paterno was truly providential to him.

Farewell to codes and pandettes [books of law]

In America, Anthony Campagna always harbored the illusion of being able to make way and riches with the exercise of his profession. It was therefore with painful astonishment that he heard about his fellow countryman about this.

-What do you want to do now in America?

-I’m a lawyer. I’ll be a lawyer!

-But here there are many other laws than in Italy.

-I studied them.

-There are already so many lawyers, without causes!

-I hope to make my way!

Then abruptly, Joseph Paterno asked him: “Listen, do you want to enrich?”

The young studious dreamer hesitated somewhat, then said: “You don’t come to America to starve.”

The fellow countryman pressed: “And you want to get rich soon?”

With a poetic and hermetic formula, Anthony Campagna replied: “Life is so short!”

With an equally rough and precise formula, Joseph Paterno drew him into reality.

“So, my dear friend, throw away the codes and come with me to the construction site. You will be a builder. A lawyer soon learns to manage a construction site. You are young. You are talented, you will make a fortune.”

The lawyer, who dreamed of domination of the classrooms and crowds, did not calm down at first. I speak of his twenty years of studies, of his degree, he said disdainfully that he did not feel the heart to throw the toga to the nettles to become the assistant of the Paterno building company, to leave the courthouse, for a construction site of skyscrapers . I also face some scruples: what would have been said of him in Castelmezzano?

But after a few weeks of doubts, torments, nostalgia, melancholy, he entered the Paterno construction site. He became a builder of skyscrapers.

The skyscraper: “Lucania”

The dollars began to rain. AnthonyCampagna soon mastered the English language, studying constructions, first took over the general direction of the Paterno shipyards, then became a partner.

Four years later, he was able to found a new construction company, which he himself directs.

Mindful of his distant native land, he wanted to give the first nine-story skyscraper of his company the name “Lucania” as if to create an oasis in the middle of the gigantic heart of New York, which reminds all the Lucanians of their rugged and strong land.

After this first, the skyscrapers of the firm of the lawyer Anthony Campagna flourished, one after the other, like colossal stems.

In New York, he is hugely popular. Everyone remembers that he was the first to break the American housing crisis, building the first skyscraper immediately after the war. In his construction sites – real Italian schools – Lucanian and Italian workers prefer to work for moral and civil assistance.

Anthony Campagna’s activity is wonderful, like his wit, like his patriotism, like his moral uprightness.

In New York he is counted among the “lords of the skyscraper”.

Probably, he no longer regrets having left the codes and the toga, but his nostalgia for his favorite studies remained invincible, in which he, for his strong talent, would certainly have emerged, as he emerged in the construction technique, of which and become a perfect teacher.

In fact, in his studio, between a skyscraper project and the reproduction of a villa already built, he peeps at the picture of his lawyer degree, on the wall in front of the work table.

That degree and those projects certainly represent to the spirit of Anthony Campagna what his dream was and what his reality is. And if the memories of his harsh and difficult youth suffuse him with “bittersweetness,” they make him even more complete the joy of just triumph.

Love for the native land

In his triumph, the lawyer Anthony Campagna, lord of skyscrapers, did not forget his native town, Castelmezzano, which was so treacherous and hostile to him.

His charity is inexhaustible. A man of study, he takes care first of all of the schools in his country; and, annually, a true refreshing boon, he sends subsidies in money, clothing, shoes, for needy pupils and tools and furnishings for schools. Together with his brother-in-law and his benefactor Joseph Paterno he took the initiative for the construction – already well underway – of a school building in Castelmezzano, which will cost over seven hundred thousand lire. He spent money in every public utility and civil improvement work of his country and of all Basilicata.

He pays with love the ancient envy of his fellow citizens.

Generous in his triumph, as he was strong in the struggle, beneficial with the same spirit and the same breadth with which he was benefited. And in the fervor of his never interrupted work, he only seeks, as a spur and comfort, the good consent of his countrymen from Basilicata. And he is happy if, from the height of one of his skyscrapers, above the fog of height, which veils the tumult of the “City”, a sweet vision of his distant Basilicata flashes before his eyes and fills them of love with the passion and devotion of a good and compassionate son.

Honor to him, who has honored his land and its people, whose very noble traditions of work, tenacity, virtue, talent, has always inspired and shaped his work, especially after success and fortune, who have smiled at him, and which appear more deserved and sympathetic to us, if we consider the pain, adversity, hardship in which Anthony Campagna’s pensive and virtuous youth struggles and anguishes.

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. It regularly featured natives from the southern Italian region of Basilicata (also known by its ancient name Lucania) who were excelling in America.

A Lucanian lord of the skyscraper, 1924 • Knight Giuseppe Paterno

When, for the 6th centennial of Dante Alighieri’s birth, the “Progress Italo-American” erected, with its own subscription and initiatives, the monument to the Poet, in New York, our provincial knight Giuseppe Paterno, with a generous gesture and patriotism, he wanted to build the entire base at his own expense.

This very Italian act of faith of the excellent man reminds us of the memory of his adventurous life, and the thousand and thousand adventures, through which, overcoming obstacles, which to others less strong than him would have seemed insurmountable, he builds, day by day, the his fortune, raising it stone by stone, block by block, as he does with his skyscrapers, and holding it up and enlivening it, in the ever-increasing height, with that indomitable spirit of his, who fears nothing and prides himself on nothing, that defeat prostrates and victory does not exalt.

Giuseppe Paterno was three years old when, from his native Castelmezzano, his father, who had been a builder of houses in America, with alternating fortune, at least in New York, where the boy, who grew up thoughtful and acute, adapted himself to to be a newsagent, screaming the headline of the mammoth American newspapers all day, for the endless views of the “City” bristling with tumult and skyscrapers, which take away the vision of the sky and suffocate, like a nightmare, the breath. The child, who, confusedly, in the depths of his child soul, must have had the foggy memory of another sky, under which he was born, and of the boundless Lucanian horizons, dazzled by the sun, run by the winds, conceived an unconscious and curious love, mixed with terror, for those houses with height, higher than our bell towers, which he always admired and observed, without knowing why, as if already a little prophetic demon bites his heart and brain, and, inside, whispered: “You will build skyscrapers, like those, taller than those.”

And he spent his days, like this, among the skyscrapers and the newspapers, in that typical astonishment, between apathetic and audacious, which must be felt by all those who, in the depths of their hearts, present good fortune and success.

As he used to do every night, one evening in the year 1889, in Park Row, the New York district of newsagents, the little Lucanian boy, not at all lost in the colossal city, sold the last copies of newspapers, which were left to him, and he waited for his father, busy in the construction of a new building in the district, to leave the building site, to return home together.

While waiting he carefully observed the buildings, measured their dizzying height with joyful eyes, and caressed within himself, God knows what chimeras and childhood dreams.

In this observation, his father surprised him, to whom the boy suddenly asked. “But why do they build these tall houses?”

The father, gradually, I explain to him, (with the special kindness of all the fathers of Basilicata, who, not having, in the vast majority, conspicuous inheritances to leave to the lilies, take care to train them and prepare them for the trials of life, with advice and example), how the very high price of areas of construction land had suggested to builders the idea of heaping stories upon stories, to spend less and earn more.

The tender father also explained to him how, in that cosmopolitan affair, no effort and no audacity of human ingenuity was impossible and that the industry of those men had to accustom him even to the miracle.

A world so different from ours!

The precocious child understood. So his father went on to explain to him how the skyscrapers, which had turned out to be excellent hiding places for offices, were not very practical as family homes, perhaps also because, at that time, they were not yet too numerous even in the capital of North America and had not yet become vulgarized to the point of enticing, not even American citizens, to live on a tenth or twentieth floor.

But the child with a quick intuition, who suffered, like a hereditary disease, the disease of stone, understood that the skyscraper would, by inescapable necessity, be the home of the future, in New York, where life was congested and it constantly agglomerated, hour by hour, due to the perennial influx of always and always, new migratory currents, from all parts of the world.

Shortly after, little Giuseppe Paterno gave up his nomadic job as a newsagent and moved on to serve in a dentist’s office. But, in reality, he did nothing but follow his father to the construction site and dream, in those painful daydreams, which leave emptiness in his hands and in his heart, of having become …. builder of skyscrapers.

His whole fervent brain as an imaginative young Lucanian was now possessed by the persecution of skyscrapers. And perhaps he already sees himself between heaven and earth, on dizzying heights, catching stars … of gold.

It was at the shipyard that he met a wealthy builder who gave him a “job” for himself and for his father. The work was hard, but Giuseppe wanted to start; and so he began to realize his dream as a builder.

His fixed idea, his hidden design was always to use the skyscraper no longer only as an office site, but as a home. The father, converted to the idea of his son, when he was about to leave him, to go back, sick, in Italy, to his native town of Castelmezzano, said to him: “My son, you are right. We are at the point that skyscrapers for housing have to be built. . The houses are no longer enough and the city is already so huge “.

Confirmed by his paternal consent, without wasting time, the ardent Lucanian introduces himself to an arch-millionaire builder and proposes to him to raise a twenty-story building.

The millionaire widens his eyes in his face. Then, with an ironic air, he says to him: “I understand: you are a dreamer. This building would serve you to make you dance inside your dreams. What crazy do you want to go and live on a twentieth floor?”

The Lucanian holds firm, like a rock of his land. But he cleverly persists, until he obtains the funds for the construction of a six-story building.

This first one was quickly followed by others at eight, ten, twelve floors. His first stop on his dream was a fifteen-story skyscraper.

Soon, Giuseppe Paterno turned out to be a brilliant, shrewd industrialist, with a broad and long vision. He set up jungles of construction sites, straightened construction armor throughout New York, recruited entire legions of workers and phalanxes of engineers, always giving a nice and affectionate preference to the Italian and Basilicata element.

With the clear perception of the absolute need to rapidly and numberlessly multiply the houses of the colossal North American metropolis, he gave himself to the whole man, with formidable confidence, to purchase low-rise houses in the heart of New York, to demolish them and raise them, on the same ground, its immense skyscrapers, monstrous clusters of superimposed human nests, of fifteen, twenty, twenty-two floors.

Having his technicians carry out the necessary studies, he launched into the enterprise with the enthusiasm, at the same time calm and impetuous, thoughtful and unreasonable, which is a fundamental characteristic of our Lucanian breed.

Around him, there were the fearful relatives, the worried friends. The skeptics shook their heads, the sarcastic sneered: who gave advice for restraint, who spoke of imaginary possible catastrophes. Giuseppe Paterno did not listen to anyone, he did not see anyone. He pulled forward on his way, without ever turning, neither straight nor left, never hesitating, never stopping before reaching the goal.

He was so strong and so sure of himself that the idea of a possible catastrophe did not disturb him. Those who are used to the vertigo of heights are not afraid even of the vertigo of the abyss. His star was with him.

And, once again, triumph. In a short time, his shipyards built palaces worth a total of one hundred and seven million dollars, in the Columbia University area. So, when in the years 1907-1908 the building crisis broke out in New York, he was able to face it, not suspending, but only reasonably decreasing, the construction activity of his sites, thus alleviating the unease of unemployment of construction workers, especially Italians. and Lucanians. In this respect, his patriotism is never imposed on him of any kind: he accepts Irish, Canadian, and even black workers of all nations, only when the Italian workforce was lacking.

Thus he demonstrated his fervent Italian spirit and his frank and affectionate solidarity for his Italian and Lucanian working brothers.

From a newspaper seller, through the brief interlude of a dentist’s boy, to a seller of skyscrapers, his fate so eloquently changed, but the sincere, simple, generous heart, the heart of a worker, who knows, has always remained unchanged, because Giuseppe Paterno lived it, how hard the struggle for existence is. The treatment, which is given to the workers of his yards, demonstrates this in the most admirable way. The minimum daily wage is seven dollars (one hundred and fifty-five Italian lire). Although life in New York costs four times more than in any Italian city, yet all our workers thus have a possible margin of economies.

A worker himself, he leaves no means unturned for the organization and development of our workers abroad, lavishes money and advice for their civil and moral assistance, for their clubs, their patriotic and economic leagues, their homes. recreation and shelter, their hospitals.

It is the unbreakable solidarity of brotherhood and common origin.

He has never forgotten his Basilicata, his native town of Castelmzzano, towards which he has always done and continually does his duty as a mindful and beneficent son. Every appeal of the Earth of him receives a generous response from him, and we must here point out how he, together with his brother-in-law Attorney Antonio Campagna, is about to give rise to a grandiose school building in Castelmezzano, and like him he declared that he wanted to widely contribute to the expense to equip his Commune with electric lighting. And we do not deliberately mention private charity, subsidies for pious works, all that other good that Giuseppe Paterno bestows, in silence, to the humble of his land.

And yesterday the munificent donation of five thousand lire that he made to the orphanage of Potenza.

At the height of his fortune, he has always remained a tireless and modest worker.

He enjoys his wealth not for himself, but for his family, which he adores.

“I was lucky – he says – I don’t deny. But the first few years were very tough. What fights! What tormenting anxieties! I have tried many trades. I worked as a convict, often for twenty-four hours a day. A few hours, of course. And I work without interruption, because I would not know how to live in idleness, far from my construction sites, from my workers, from my engineers”.

To this magnificent champion of the Lucanian breed, a typical example of Italian intelligence, will, wisdom and pride, our Government has conferred – an honor that is indeed not adequate to the very Italian merits of Giuseppe Paterno – the Knight’s Cross.

But his greatest reward is certainly the awareness he has of having honored the name of his country in the world.

We do not want to close these notes, without revealing some sympathetic traits of Giuseppe Paterno’s social character.

He is completely Americanized, while keeping intact his Italian spirit and his Lucanian background. He passes, with exceptional ease, from the workman’s blouse to the walking suit, from this to the tailcoat, from the construction site to the theater, from a ballroom to a luxury “restaurant”. He drives his car beautifully. And aboard his car, impassive, he, in his leisure hours, often loves to go around from one end of New York to the other, for the joy of seeing, one after the other, all the skyscrapers, which his industrious intelligence has raised, here and there, in the immense cosmopolis.

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. It regularly featured natives from the southern Italian region of Basilicata (also known by its ancient name Lucania) who were excelling in America.

Lawyer Anthony Campagna

September 1926

Anthony Campagna is not a new name for the followers of our magazine.

We have already had the opportunity to deal with him, briefly hinting – to point to him as the typical example of the Lucanian builder of destiny – to his modest birth in Castelmezzano, to his troubled life as a student, as a revolutionary, until he graduated in law, at the first attempts in life, at his departure for America, at his fortunate debut in journalism and profession, everywhere waving the torch of idealism and poetry, until his entry into the colossal building sites of the Paterno brothers, his brothers-in-law, who decided on the future of the young professional, transforming him into nothing less than a builder. We also mentioned his early building successes.

But who could ever predict that the young idealist, so lord of the spirit as not to think for himself of other achievements than those that could have derived from his studies, would have, in a very short time, established himself as one of the most brilliant and bold New York builders; and that he would dot the misty sky of the colossal city with the tips of his numerous skyscrapers, launching it, with new daring techniques, higher and higher, towards infinity?

Here is what I found during my stay in New York, and that I want to be known by the people of Basilicata all over the world.

The great building success of the lawyer Anthony Campagna makes us think – only as far as it is surprising in the activity and infallibility of foresight, activity, audacity – of one of the most powerful creations of the genius of Emilio Zola: Rougon Saccard, the terrible builder of Luxurious Paris of the second Napoleonic Empire.

Thus, instead of savoring the triumph of the crowds applauding his value as an orator or artist and reaping handfuls of laurels in the field of his profession, Anthony Campagna tasted the much greater triumph, if even more bitterly achieved, of putting himself together with his brothers-in-law Paterno, at the head of the movement and the monstrous building development of New York, impressing, with a Titan effort, the signs of his personality, on the feverish, babelic, incessant expansion and transformation of the tentacle city, which grows in altitude up to on the edge of the fable, and agglomerates, one next to the other, dense like trees in the forests, colossal skyscrapers, each of which is a human beehive, and which astound the architectural taste of us Italians, accustomed to conceiving nothing higher , in terms of constructions, than the domes of our churches, the tips of our bell towers, the tops of the towers of our Middle Ages, heavy in history and fate.

It is the struggle of height, against space, imposed on man by the fever of modern life.

And Anthony Campagna found the field of his triumph in this fight. Stone and concrete are familiar to him: today they are his friends, just as his books were yesterday. And he conceives and implements the most daring building projects with the same serene ease, so that, in an hour of intellectual creation, he would have prepared, if he had been a lawyer, a defense or an accusation oration.

He seems born to build, to make, to give life, in any material and with any material. Either with the toga, or the blouse of the craftsman, with the code or with the cement, his nature, his spirit are of creator: and one or the other way would have led him equally to triumph, since he and of the race of rulers. All volunteers in an admirable bundle of energy, which is wonderfully balanced with an extraordinary capacity for action, and with an infallible intuition of company evaluation. His very lively eye possesses the virtue of penetrating everything, men and things, however deep and occult they may be. He sees everything, he reaches everywhere. and his audacity as a very modern builder collects rivulets of gold.

In New York, the houses he builds are renowned for elegance, for “comfort … And they are highly sought after. He hasn’t finished building yet, sometimes he has already just bought the area, he has just laid the foundations,” that he has already sold. And the pediments, the elevations of his skyscrapers, which overlook the most beautiful streets of the metropolis in the heart of New York – from the Municipal Park [Central Park] to Fifth Avenue, from the aristocratic district of the West Side to the fabulous Via del pleasure, Broadway, which, at night, resembles a colossal apocalyptic blade of light, twenty-two miles long. The elevations of the skyscrapers built by Anthony Campagna stop the attention of Europeans, because, in them, that grace of architectural harmony is revealed Latin, which softens the skeletal linear rigidity of the scheme of American houses and takes away from them that desolate uniformity of a gigantic cage, which makes one think of the confinement of all humanity.

But in order for our readers to have an approximate arithmetic idea of the dizzying construction activity of Anthony Campagna, we set out below some data, as well as, briefly, I was able to collect them in a visit I made to his construction sites, where the fever of work always arouses the activity of the workers and managers. Among the latter, are the brothers of the lawyer Campagna, Michael and Armino, also, like their elder brother, builders, and, like him, certainly destined to reach the highest peaks of success.

Since the lawyer Campagna is giving all his fervor of intelligence and work to his own construction industry, it can be calculated that he has put up so many buildings per house that it represents the enormous value of about fifty million dollars.

We find it difficult to describe, in detail, what a construction site of the lawyer is. Anthony Campagna; because, this would require precise technical knowledge, and would require a minute description of details that escape my scarce competence on the subject. This, on the other hand, does not want to be, and is not, a technical article, although, if it had been, it would have been of great interest to the public, especially in Italy. I propose, instead, to give to the readers of the Magazine, together with some data, what have been my personal impressions on the prodigious and complex production of one of the most eminent of our fellow countrymen who are abroad, and that I will consider, always, to my great fortune, to have had, in the best years of Italian youth, my school friend, first in Potenza, then in Rome.

Leaving aside, therefore, any description – which can very well be replaced by the photographs we publish – I limit myself to a few hints on the most important constructions carried out by the lawyer. Anthony Campagna.

By 1922, he had just completed a grandiose building that commenced construction of an impressive skyscraper at 92 St. on Broadway’s fantastic thoroughfare [215 West 92nd Street].

This building, which consists of fifteen floors, one hundred and fifty apartments, two hundred and ten bathrooms, six hundred and fifteen rooms, was sold by him for two million and one hundred thousand dollars and three hundred thousand in annual income. The land tax, which is paid on top of it, is around the staggering sum, for a single building, of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

In this building, the lawyer Campagna, who, as we have said, is a very skilled and daring technician, happily experimented with a new construction system, through which, for the first time in New York – and this primacy also belongs to he – while he kept the statutory height of one hundred and fifty feet for the dwelling houses, and the attics at over nine feet, managed to make fifteen floors instead of the usual fourteen floors of all similar buildings.

The daring of his particular technique, which resulted in the benefit of the tenants: because the income from this additional plan, valued at around twenty-five thousand dollars, allowed the rent price to be significantly reduced in the other plans.

A memorable detail, this mammoth skyscraper, which imposes a meticulous precision of work, because all its apartments are of great luxury, was built in a negligible space of time, compared to the size of the work. Consider: on March 13, 1922 the foundations were laid, the palisades erected, the construction sites formed. On 1 October of the same year, not only was the building finished and finished, down to its most minute decorative details, both inside and out, but it was already inhabited by one hundred and forty-five families and ten new large shops had opened their ten new mouths of light on Broadway’s dazzling uninterrupted blaze.

Woods of workers, relentlessly alternating around the huge work, like the slaves of the Pharaohs around the Pyramids, had accomplished the prodigy. It is estimated that for the construction of such a colossus it took the employment of about two thousand workers per week, among those employed in the factories, in the material preparation workshops and in the construction sites.

Campagna is an unsurpassed master in the art of drawing up construction plans and choosing locations, not only, but also in the art of developing particular efficient and suitable plans for each individual location. These are advantages which, apart from the intrinsic goodness of the buildings, considerably raise their value and constitute the secret capital of its sensational building successes. This ability, known and recognized in the metropolis, and his talent of knowing how to apply a new and original plan for each new construction, have given him the most sought-after successes: dare in 1922, when he sells a building, of which he was just building the fourth floor; so in 1924, when the plan he proposed to develop aroused so much interest in the technical world that he had to sell the building for a million dollars, while not even the foundation ditches had been filled [320 West End Avenue]. And the buyers were so pleased with the construction that, as soon as the lawyer Campagna had subsequently developed the plan for a new building, grander and imposing than any other, which occupies an entire block between 89 and 90 St. in Riverside Drive [173-175 Riverside Drive], they wanted to immediately insure the purchase for the fantastic sum of four million dollars.

This Riverside Drive building has about a thousand rooms, four hundred bathrooms, and is unanimously recognized as one of the most beautiful, artistic and elegant to date in the great neighborhood of the West Side, inhabited by the finest and most elected aristocracy of New York, the which he very much researches the houses built by Anthony Campagna, whom he considers as the true lord of good taste and building elegance, artist and master of the most exquisite architectural forms.

On Fifth Avenue, two years ago, he built a house so sumptuous and artistically beautiful, that the best of New York society competed to secure an apartment. And Campagna sells them all, and there were forty, at a price from seventy thousand to a hundred thousand dollars, even before he had had time to finish the factory. [1120 Fifth Avenue]

Currently, the lawyer Anthony Campagna is waiting for the construction of his building masterpiece. The plan, recently played and perfected, is technically flawless and artistically wonderful. The creator has taken and perfects it every day, pouring all his expert knowledge of art and all the infinite resources of his talent and his classic and, at the same time, innovative spirit into it.

The biggest American newspapers have already covered it on the front pages, extensively, extolling this building as the most sumptuous and luxurious in New York, and the news has also had repercussions in the European and Italian press.

The eyes of the world are turned to the Basilicatese builder Anthony Campagna, but he aims only at the consent of the Fatherland.

The grand building arise at Fifth Avenue. Here, near the Municipal Park [Central Park] and the famous Library donated to New York City by a great king of American industry, Mr. Frick. The lawyer Campagna bought the area – which will result from the demolition of a building that currently exists – at the highest price ever paid in New York, at the rate of $180 per square foot. To others, who hadn’t had his eagle-eye, this excessive price might have seemed inconvenient. But Anthony Campagna never fails. And success is already beginning to smile brightly at him again this time: he has not yet begun the work, and the fame of the building and the builder has already attracted two buyers of apartments, one for one hundred and thirty thousand, the other for one hundred and eighty thousand dollars over the mortgage of one hundred thousand and one hundred twenty thousand dollars respectively for each, which is equivalent to bringing the total price, respectively, to two hundred and thirty thousand dollars and three hundred thousand dollars. [2 East 70th Street]

But more than all this building renewal of immense New York, to which Anthony Campagna competes with such power of originality and with such ingenious daring, his name will remain linked to the Italic temple, which he and his brothers-in-law Paterno wanted to rise in the new world, as a testimony of the glories of the millenary lineage and in the light of the new peoples.

We allude to the “House of Italian Culture.” We will deal with this extraordinary event on purpose, which truly marks a milestone in the history of Italian-American relations and which finds at the forefront – initiators and creators – people of Basilicata: The Paterno brothers and the lawyer Anthony Campagna. But to testify of the soul and purity of intentions with which Anthony Campagna set out on this work of patriotism and faith, we report from now on a thought that he requested, said about the future and the mission of “House of Italian Culture” in New York. This is how he expressed himself.

“The mowing power of an ideal, the devotion of fervent and sincere men, the clear vision of an eminent educator, gave a dream the breath of life; and in the Olympic domain of the University of Columbia, a majestic temple, a reverent tribute of masters of America to the Architecture of Italy – the House of Italian Culture – will soon arise in its sublime proportions.

“In that temple, the Italic genius, a continuous and omnipotent genius through the centuries, will carry out his gentle influences, inspiring the new generations, guiding and enlightening the ardent seekers of truth. He will reveal to them vast realms of thought, immortal and spiritual creations. It will give a new flame to their imagination, it will touch their meaning with every vibration of the spirit. And a new friendship will assert itself between the two great nations, an intimate spirit of benevolence and cooperation, while the divine, eternal idea of progress and brotherhood move peoples towards ever higher spheres.

“Offered to America as a pledge of love, may the Italian House fulfill its noble mission.”

It is a magnificent act of faith, a poet’s song, expressed with noble firmness of form and beautiful clarification of sentiment. And the whole man is fully revealed in his passion for his homeland and in his admirable effort to adapt, as far as possible, the importance and grandeur of the “House of Italian Culture” to the beauty and grandeur of the homeland.

A dream, which has been given the powerful breath of life. But the Pygmalions of the prodigy were they, Joseph and Michael Paterno, and it was he, Anthony Campagna, without whom the beautiful project of the Italian House would perhaps never have been realized; and, even if it had, it would have been nothing but a mutilated, truncated, makeshift realization, which would not have corresponded in any way to the aims it proposed, would not have satisfied the pride of the Italians and would not have dignified the Italian homeland and his immortal genius.

Great lord of the soul and intellect, remained an idealist and poet also in contact with the hardness of stone and businessmen, patriot, philanthropist and humanist, Anthony Campagna will enjoy this work of his, which gives him the spiritual security of having honored, in the best possible way, his great Italian homeland and his poor Lucanian land, as he has never enjoyed, he could enjoy all those colossal works, which have given him streams and rivulets of gold.

And as long as Dante’s spirit floats immortal and spreads over the world, a beacon of peoples of every lineage, from the top of the hill of the University of Columbia; and the House of Italian Culture will radiate on the American continent the inexhaustible wonders of Italian thought, the name of the Paterno brothers and of the lawyer Anthony Campagna will be well recommended to immortality.

And it will be said of them, in the most distant time, that they built destiny for their whole life, to which we still wish triumphs and happiness, in the name of Italy and of our Basilicata.

Singular and fascinating contrast with the multifaceted, incessant and highly intelligent activity of the lawyer Anthony Campagna, with all his life as a businessman, struggling with the relentless vortex of New York, and its audacious and impassive triumph his intimate, domestic life.

On the threshold of his house, it would seem that he changes his soul. In the temple of his family tranquility, in the closed garden of his joys as a son, a husband, a father, he rediscovers his simple Lucanian soul, which has remained faithful to the traditions and worship of the family, just as they are sacred in his Land of origin, and from them he draws the deepest and truest joys of his spirit. And this is one of the most characteristic sides of his personality. His mother, his wife, his children form the shrine of his heart. And who, like me, has had the good fortune to admire his standard of living in the sweet and patriarchal intimacy of his solitary and suggestive home in New York, or of his artistic villa, near Stamford, Connecticut, that the ocean fills with his voice and his acrid salty freshness, he could not fail to rethink with emotion the sweet and pure integration of family life, as it has been taking place in our Lucanian homes for centuries. The mother, the old mother adored and the tutelary deity of the house, the living example and the virtue to imitate. She has followed all the ascension of her child. Her pomp, her enormous wealth have not changed her. Just as they have not changed him, her son, whose innate refinement and perfect, aristocratic sense of art, which are on his personal prerogatives, have always kept away from excessive displays and ostentation of luxury and splendor.

Faithful to all the highest ideals of life, of Anthony Campagna it can be said that every day he knows how to conquer for himself, for his family, for his homeland, a new title of nobility and honor. And I consider myself proud to recall the people of Basilicata to the admiration of this son of ours, who keeps so much devotion for his native land and who honored and honors it so much with his great work as an enlightened and honest industrialist, with his spirit of human charity and patriotic fervor, and with his example of a noble and generous citizen.

Together with his very high wife, the good lady Marie – who is truly a great lady, for elegance of manner, for refinement of sentiment and taste, for generosity of spirit – Anthony Campagna finds time, despite the immensity of his work, to personally supervise the education of children, who are rigorously raised in the cult of the purest family and patriotic virtues. He wants his children to learn about the language and glories of his homeland, Italy, and be proud to have Italian blood in their veins, to belong in inspiration to the people who have written the greatest history, that the world knows. , and has imprinted the whole universe with the power of his thought and the wonders of his art.

Anthony Campagna, resident in New York, meritorious founder and promoter, together with his relatives, Official Knight Joseph and Michael Paterno, of the House of Italian Culture in New York, for which it is expected an expenditure of about 300,000 dollars, has sent to the Minister of P.I. Hon Fedele, in grateful memory of the teaching he received in the Royal High School of Potenza, the sum of 10,000 dollars. Minister Fedele has decided to allocate it to the Institute Italian historian, establishing a foundation “Campagna … intended to particularly promote studies on the history of Southern Italy.”

Any comment is useless and would diminish the magnificence of Anthony Campagna’s gesture.

I’m presenting an online webinar about my Paterno family and their Manhattan architecture on August 17, 2022 from 8 to 9:30pm. Below are all the details from New York Adventure Club. I hope you’ll join me!

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.

Join New York Adventure Club as we chronicle the Paterno family’s real estate development legacy spanning from 1896 to 1964. As one of New York’s preeminent apartment house building empires of the 20th century, the Paterno family built a total of 163 buildings throughout Manhattan, nearly all of which are still standing.

Led by Carla Golden, great-granddaughter of Dr. Charles V. Paterno, our virtual deep dive into the Paterno family’s architectural portfolio will include:

• The early history of the Paterno family and what unexpected event prompted them to emigrate from Castelmezzano, Italy to New York City
• How an unfortunate event led a young Dr. Charles V. Paterno to join his younger brother as a real estate builder instead of ever practicing medicine
• Why the immediate success of Paterno Brothers Construction on the Upper West Side was a case of being in the right place at the right time
• The story of how one family member’s unpopular actions helped lead to the creation of New York City’s Landmarks Preservation Commission
• A discussion of how the Paterno buildings’ quality construction and timeless aesthetic helped form the iconic style of Manhattan that is treasured to this today
• A virtual visit to nearly every one of the existing and demolished Paterno buildings, ranging from 155 apartment houses, four family homes, and even a magnificent castle
• A closer look at some of Paterno Brothers Construction’s most famous buildings, including the Paterno Castle and The Paterno on 440 Riverside Drive

Afterward, we’ll have a Q&A with Carla — any and all questions about the Paterno legacy are welcomed and encouraged!

Can’t make it live? Don’t worry, you’ll have access to the full replay for one week!

Get all the details and register for $10 at New York Adventure Club.

In 1979 my maternal grandfather Carlo Middaugh Paterno (born on 23 November 1907 in Manhattan, New York and died 11 December 1995 in Naples, Florida) wrote a memoir titled “My Family.” You can read it online HERE. In his last year of 1995 two of my cousins, Elizabeth “Liz” Paterno Barratt-Brown and Victoria “Tori” von der Porten Mutch Eurton, interviewed our grandfather and captured the conversations using DAT audio recordings. Those tapes have recently been transferred to modern and accessible audio files and this addendum to his memoir, which he had hoped his interviews would become, is my attempt to fulfill his wishes these many years later. His grandchildren affectionately called him Babbo which means “father” in Italian.

Babbo, you’ve been gone 27 years but your voice, your personality, and your presence are still felt. Wishing you a Happy Father’s Day!

Even when one writes a memoir, as Babbo did, the details of the book – what it includes and what it doesn’t include – are not fully remembered at all times. In some of Babbo’s interviews, made 16 years after he wrote his memoir, he shared stories that he already wrote about in his book. This addendum is an amalgam, not a transcript, of his interviews with little redundancy of the stories in his book.

When listening to Liz and Tori’s interviews with Babbo one thing is clear, based on the sheer repetition of his retelling, and that is his fond memories of being a student at Riverdale Country School (in The Bronx, NY), Milford School (now Milford Academy in Milford, CT), and Yale University (in New Haven, CT). Babbo said that he spent nine years total at Riverdale, minus his senior year, so young Carlo must have arrived in 3rd Grade after attending the Barnard Elementary School in New York City (My Family, page 23). He was a soccer player at Riverdale for all of his nine years there.

Babbo described Riverdale as a private little house for the lower school and eventually a new building was built on top of the hill for the upper school. Babbo’s uncle by marriage, Anthony Campagna, husband of Aunt Marie Paterno, was instrumental in building the new school house.

The 1925-1926 school year was to be Carlo’s senior year, also known as 6th Form, at Riverdale. On a Thursday he purchased the necessary football equipment to play on the team. On Friday he met with Headmaster Frank S. Hackett who informed him that he had not passed the college board exam and would not be promoted to the senior class. When Carlo objected, he was informed that the rules had been changed over the summer unbeknownst to him. The new rule stated that 5th Form students had to pass both the school exam and the college board exam to advance. Carlo had only passed the school exam. Immediately Carlo told his father he didn’t want to return to Riverdale. He had seen the Milford School advertised in Town & Country magazine and asked his father to take him there for an interview on Saturday. Babbo described it as a high pressure preparatory school that develops students for Yale University, run by brothers Samuel and Harris Rosenbaum, both graduates of the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale.

Immediately upon arrival, Harris Rosenbaum offered Carlo a cigarette which he accepted. He told himself that this was a sign that he was in the right place and decided on the spot to attend for one year as a senior. Babbo said that the Rosenbaum’s philosophy was to place only six students in a classroom at a time to engage in repetitive learning (each lesson 8 or 9 times) in order to memorize the material and increase one’s odds of passing the college board exam which he did, earning a mark of 83%. Carlo and his buddy Neil Waterman drove up to New Haven to see if they had been accepted at Yale which they both had. In fact, Neil ended up leading the Yale band. Babbo’s father, Dr. Charles V. Paterno, discouraged young Carlo from attending college at all saying that he himself could teach Carlo more in six months than he’d learn in four years of higher education. One reason Carlo wanted to go to Yale is because his friend from Riverdale, Fred Hobbs, was Yale-bound. Fred had been captain of the Riverdale basketball team and Carlo had great regard for him.

Despite his father’s discouragement he went and as an incoming freshman at Yale, Carlo was subjected to a physical exam for athletics. He was intending to play college soccer, but he was identified as having a sway back so was placed in corrective gym. At that point Carlo decided to focus on academics rather than athletics and studied at the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale. Babbo said that he was interested in chemistry, mechanical drawing, and physics but didn’t like economics, English, or foreign languages. In fact, for one professor, he taught calculus and took the responsibility of writing out the extensive formulas on the blackboard. English was his most difficult subject so he put in extra effort. The first assignment was eight pages of Shakespeare. Rather than just reading and studying it, Carlo memorized all eight pages. The only question on the quiz was: how old was Falstaff? Carlo was perplexed, couldn’t answer, and failed the quiz. The answer was in the footnotes which he neither read nor memorized.

Carlo’s roommate freshman year was Waddy Morton. Berkeley Hall, where most Freshman resided, was already filled up by the time Carlo and Waddy received their acceptance notice so they rented an off-campus two-bedroom apartment. Sophomore year Carlo did stay on campus in Berkeley Hall which was the assigned dormitory for the Sheffield Scientific School students (college students stayed in Harkness). Junior year Carlo roomed with Harry Pollard in Harkness Pavilion and was the only Sheffield Scientific School student to do so. They had a beautiful room with a leather couch, two chairs, and a fireplace. Each had his own bedroom and used the community bathroom in the hall.

At Yale Carlo had an Indian Scout motorcycle that he would ride after dinner to put on a show for the kids at school. He’d stand up on the seat, ride backwards, and do other tricks. He and his friends would ride to Milford (about 25 miles away) to meet up with the girls who came up by trolley from Bridgeport, Connecticut. During the winter, it was a cold affair riding a motorcycle so they would ride close to the backs of trucks, vans, and other larger vehicles to be shielded from the oncoming cold air. Unfortunately if the front vehicle suddenly stopped, the motorcyclist didn’t have much time to react which is exactly what happened to a friend. The bus in front suddenly slammed on the brakes causing the motorcyclist to slide under the bus which then subsequently ran over his leg. Carlo immediately sold his motorcycle. Next he had a convertible La Salle with a windshield for the people in the back seat and spare tires tucked into the fenders. It was with this car that Carlo, according to him, held the speed record for driving to all-female Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts.

Anyone who knew Carlo Paterno knew that he valued a good prank. As a sophomore at Yale, Carlo and a friend dressed in overalls and carried sledgehammers. They went into Berkeley Hall where the freshman were moving in and started banging on the radiators. When asked, Carlo and his partner “in crime” informed the freshman student that they had not yet paid their radiator rent yet so the radiator had to be removed. Begging to have it left in place, the unsuspecting freshman paid the $5 per radiator “rent” and the “workmen” went their merry way….on to the next room to pull the same prank.

As a senior Carlo played golf on the Yale team with a 4-handicap. Babbo said that in those days all the irons had wooden shafts and to make the joints tight, you had to put it in the toilet so that the wood would swell.

Carlo graduated from the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale in 1930 and, in the Fall, went to work for his father in the building business. But before he got serious, over the summer Carlo and his half-nephew Boyd Brown, seven years his junior and who was like a brother, traveled to Europe together. [Carlo’s mother Minnie had married her first husband Rufus Brown and had son Lyndon who had five children, including Boyd, before marrying her second husband Dr. Charles V. Paterno, Carlo’s father.] Carlo was 23 years old and Boyd was just 16 years old when they took this adventure together as a way to celebrate Carlo’s graduation. They went to Naples, Italy, the Island of Capri, then stayed much of the summer at the Lido, the beach, in Venice. Carlo heard that Helen Cotillo, a young lady in whom Carlo was interested, was coming to Lido so, in true prankster form, he bought a monocle to impress her. He practiced and practiced holding it in his eye and knew that he had to carry a backup in case it fell. He said that Helen came along and he got so excited, the monocle fell out and broke. Undeterred he cut in as she danced with another young man and made her promise him to not make any decisions about marrying anyone until she got back to the states. Four years later they would be engaged.

At Lido, Carlo was paying $50 per day for room and meals. He already had the return passage tickets but he could no longer afford to pay for the room so he acted on a tip given to him. He was encouraged to become a paid guest in Hungary so he went to the travel agent and requested the most expensive room in Hungary. The Hungarian government was encouraging citizens to open their houses to Americans and the most expensive room was just $3 per day. He and Boyd packed up, sent ahead a telegram, and headed toward Budapest. The telegram office accidentally left off the “no” on Carlo’s last name, so the Hungarian family was expecting Boyd Brown and Carlo Pater which is the word for “father.” They thought they were hosting a priest! The host, a Baron, was relieved this wasn’t the case and invited them into his home for six weeks. The Baron, who owned nearly the whole town, opened his wine cellar to Carlo and Boyd, provided a man to polish their shoes and a maid to do their laundry. Carlo taught the Baron’s sons English. Using his acquired manners Carlo would seat the Baron’s wife at the table and take her arm when crossing the street. The Baron perceived this as Carlo making advances toward his wife and said that he was going to “fix him up” by placing him on a stallion. Little did the Baron know that Carlo was already an excellent rider.

In the Fall after graduation Carlo went to work for his father, Dr. Charles V. Paterno, in the Chanin Building at Lexington and 42nd Street. Carlo’s apprenticeship included being the painting inspector. After apartment tenants moved out, the apartment would be given a fresh coat of paint in preparation for the next tenant and Carlo would inspect the painter’s work. In 1936 Charles and Carlo moved their office into the Chrysler Building on the 64th floor in the corner. Carlo said that before leaving for lunch they had to call down to the lobby receptionist to see if it was raining outside. Being so high up in the clouds, it wasn’t possible to know the current weather status at street level.

Around 1937 Charles and Carlo moved their office to Greenwich, Connecticut. In preparation for the destruction of the Paterno Castle and the construction of Castle Village in 1938, they then moved their office to the construction site back in New York City.

Helen and Carlo were engaged August 14, 1934 and married on November 23, 1934. They honeymooned on Honolulu, Hawaii, where their first daughter Toni was conceived. Carlo said that his mother insisted that his first child be named after him, but he wanted to name her Antoinette. So Carla, born on August 19, 1935, was her name, but she’s always been referred to by family as “Toni.” Second daughter Patricia or “Patti” came along on October 28, 1938 and then third daughter Mina or “Mimi” was born on October 22, 1945.

Soon after returning from their honeymoon, while living in New York City, Carlo and Helen bought Meadow Lane Farm, 125 acres on Baxter Road in North Salem, Westchester County, New York in 1935. They ended up selling the property before World War II and repurchased it after the war ended.

While Dr. Paterno was busy with brother-in-law Anthony Campagna (married to Marie Paterno) with the construction of Castle Village, Carlo was busy constructing Round Hill in Connecticut for his parents. Charles and Minnie lived together at Round Hill for just a short time as Minnie much preferred their former home at Windmill Farm, a 1,240 acre estate in Armonk, New York, that Charles started amassing in 1919, to which they returned. Minnie died there in 1943 and after Charles’ death in 1946, Carlo sold Round Hill. Carlo kept the office at Windmill Farm while he developed the estate, building 60 single-family homes, 6 miles of roads, and a water company, until he sold it in 1955. It was here that he remembers his eldest daughter Toni operating the switchboard one summer. Afterward Carlo moved his office from Armonk to Mt. Kisco, NY. Carlo says that developing Windmill Farm was probably the biggest business accomplishment of his life.

Not only did Charles vacate and demolish the Castle to build Castle Village, he also headed about 34 corporations that he wanted to consolidate. He decided that the corporate tax code was more favorable as a resident of Connecticut rather than New York, so Charles established Round Hill as his primary residence and encouraged Carlo to follow suit.

While Carlo was building Round Hill for his parents, he built a home on Winding Lane in the William Rockefeller subdivision in Greenwich, Connecticut, for his family. They lived here about five years until Carlo entered the Air Force in 1942. Carlo rented out the house while he and his family were stationed in Dayton, Ohio. It was customary for servicemen, even if a lease were in place, to be able to re-obtain their homes when their military duty was complete. The tenants of Winding Lane didn’t want to leave so Carlo offered to sell the house to them, which they accepted.

Soon after Carlo purchased a house in Ridgebury, Connecticut, about 30 miles away, for his family. Known as Apple Hill Farm, it was built in 1834 and Carlo renovated it for Helen and their three daughters. Carlo said that he’d leave his office in the city after work, head to the farm in North Salem to check on things and have dinner, then head to the house in Ridgebury to sleep. He said it was complicated because wherever he was, he never seemed to have the right clothes with him. Before baby Mina turned one-year-old, the family moved into Meadow Lane Farm on Baxter Road full-time in 1946.

Graduation from Yale helped Carlo obtain the initial commission of Second Lieutenant in the Air Force when he enlisted after the attack on Pearl Harbor during World War II. Carlo’s father was a friend of the Postmaster General in Washington D.C. whom Carlo went to see in pursuit of this appointment. While at the Air Force School at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, Carlo’s mother Minnie died on March 29, 1943. Carlo was unable to attend her funeral for if he left the school at Miami, he’d have to repeat the 6-week school all over again and he didn’t want to do that because he thought it was so boring. Carlo was assigned to Wright Patterson Field from 1942 to 1945. Carlo, Helen, Toni, and Patti lived in Oakwood, a residential suburb, in Dayton, Ohio. They raised dachshunds and sold the puppies. Carlo was in charge of renovating the steel high school in Dayton. He was soon promoted to First Lieutenant and eventually to Captain.

General Summerville assembled a team of eight members from different services. Carlo was the only one from the Air Force. They were tasked to get more heavy-duty tires made for military trucks. After the Bulge, invasion trucks were being transported to France from Britain where the roads were terrible. When the $50,000 military trucks got flat tires, they were abandoned because there were no spare tires. Summerville wanted production to increase 40% in the United States. Carlo, from his office in Akron, OH, contacted every tire company in the country. His project had top priority after the Manhattan District Project so he was able to make things happen relatively quickly. Carlo worked with the head man at General Tire who just needed more conveyors to get the job done. Carlo got them for him in three days and eventually he was able to increase production by 40%. Summerville’s group was disbanded and the servicemen went back to their respective jobs. Shortly thereafter Summerville called up the same eight men again and wanted another 40% increase. Carlo said he “damn near fell off the chair.” Carlo got Bob Hope to talk to the tire manufacturers to inspire them to make this happen for America. The problem, according to Carlo, is that manufacturers (Goodyear, Mohawk, Lee, Firestone) wanted their name on each tire and preferred making tires for automobiles for that very reason. Heavy-duty tires were not branded. Nonetheless, they were able to increase production by 40% again thanks to American innovation and determination. Carlo said that this is one of the best jobs he had in the service.

When his father Charles got sick, Carlo appealed to get released from service seeing as the Japanese had already made motions to surrender. Carlo said his boss told him that had he stayed just one more month that he would have been promoted to Major. Charles died on May 30, 1946 while Carlo and family (with the addition of baby Mimi) were living in Westchester County at Meadow Lane Farm.

It was here that Carlo became Master of Foxhounds in 1949 for six years, succeeding Mr. Parrish and joint-mastering with Dan McKeon in later years. He would hold meets at his farm and serve lunch afterwards. At the time of recording, Toni had told her father that she recently saw Dan McKeon who attended Yale and had seven children. Carlo said that for 17 years he used to take them all to school – on his way to taking his three girls to the Rippowam School, he’d pick up the McKeon children just down the road.

On Saturday afternoons Carlo would teach fox hunting lessons and etiquette to younger riders. Even though he was up at 4AM to prepare for the 6AM hunt, he taught afterwards. Daughters Toni and Patti became interested in riding and would come along on hunts. Both girls went to the Foxcroft School. Patti turned out to be the better rider and won Mussolini’s Hat which was the award for the best rider in the school. Mimi had a little pony that he bought her, but it didn’t jump too well so she’d have trouble following the hunt. Babbo remembers her in pigtails and her little riding hat (photo on Page 102 in My Family) and was so cute riding her little pony. Father and daughter would show together in horse shows. On the farm they had an authentic Sicilian cart and a little donkey (photo on Page 57 in My Family) from Europe which Patti would drive around.

For the hunts there were no native foxes in North Salem so Carlo bought them from Kansas City in early Spring. They would feed the foxes and try not to let them get killed during the hunts. When the fox went into the ground they’d let it stay there. Carlo thought they were so clever how they’d walk the rock walls so that hounds wouldn’t pick up their scent. Eventually Mr. Parrish didn’t want the fox hounds at his property anymore so Carlo gave the Goldens Bridge Hounds some land to build new kennels and a new place for the huntsman to live. At the time of recording (1995) this facility was still being used.

Carlo, Helen, and their three daughters lived at Meadow Lane Farm until 1961. After the their three daughters were off at school, the farm was too big for Carlo and Helen so it was sold to Mr. Van Bomel who was the head of Sheffield Farms in New York City and who married a woman from the Breyer family. Babbo said that last year (1994) when he went hot air ballooning in France they were with a Breyer couple. Carlo asked if they knew Mr. Van Bomel to which they replied they did and had visited his farm. Carlo was delighted as he knew that this was his former Meadow Lane Farm.

The “New” Meadow Lane Farm house, designed by Edward Durrell Stone, was built in 1962 at Grant’s Corner, not far from “Old” Meadow Lane Farm on Baxter Road. Stone was a well-known architect and Carlo was intent on having him design their new home. It took Carlo several months to secure an appointment with Mr. Stone who went to Europe once and California twice before agreeing to see Carlo. As soon as Carlo walked into Mr. Stone’s office, Mr. Stone said “Mr. Paterno, I want you to know that I don’t design private houses anymore.” Carlo said “Well, Mr. Stone, that’s fine. I have the plans for the Celanese house that you designed and I really want to use those plans, so you really don’t have any new design work to do.” Carlo said Mr. Stone finally relented. According to Carlo Mr. Stone would come up while the house was being built and sit under the big tree in front and have his sandwich. The modern house featured glass pyramids over every room, a swimming pool, and brick cobblestones from New York City. Mr. Stone told Carlo that he had to call the new structure “Piazza Paterno” so Carlo had a little sign made in Portugal with the name and had it placed into the stone wall. Helen built a little cottage by the stream for cookouts with a fireplace and they would grill out on Sunday afternoons. They would hear the deer at night when spending the night near the stream which Carlo said scared them as it sounded like thieves rustling in the bushes.

Carlo kept their duplex apartment on the 7th floor at 230 Central Park South which was filled with French antiques which they ended up liking more than the modern furniture at New Meadow Lane Farm. Carlo loved looking out the windows over the park and being only one block from the New York Athletic Club where there was good food and great massages and they were able to walk to shows and entertainment. Carlo and Helen lived at New Meadow Lane Farm until they moved south in 1970. They sold the new house and their entire New York City holdings, including 230 Central Park South and Castle Village.

They rented at first and then in 1972 Carlo and Helen bought and remodeled their gulf coast home at 23 Sixth Avenue North in Naples, Florida, and Carlo built The Corner business building in 1974 at 3rd Street and Broad Avenue South.

They moved to their Royal Cove apartment before Helen died on 22 May 1988. Carlo said for a year he didn’t go out with anybody and got lonesome so he started going out with divorcees and widows in Naples, Florida. He dated eight different women and took a liking to Maryanne Harrington who traveled with him to Alaska. Carlo thought she was a very nice person but not affectionate enough and she suggested that he go out with “this blonde named Christine.” He didn’t know Christine. A friend Priscilla Jones invited him to the Commodore’s Ball at the Yacht Club but he begged for a raincheck because he didn’t like “dressing up in a monkey suit” (aka tuxedo). Priscilla said “too bad because I was going to seat you next to a beautiful blonde named Christine.” With all this talk of blonde Christine, Carlo asked his friends at the Naples Athletic Club if anyone knew her. Bob Price raised his hand and said “I know Christine Montgomery. She owns half of Kansas City.” Carlo thought that was good enough for him so he called her up asked if they could have dinner together sometime. He didn’t hear from her for ten days so he wrote her off. Then she called on Monday and said she’d been out of town so they made plans for dinner Wednesday. Carlo said he’d give her two days to check up on him. Carlo arrived at her home in Windermere and rang the doorbell for a woman who he’d never met. When she opened the door Carlo was struck by her beauty. They had a lovely meal together and made plans to meet again on Friday. They discussed that neither wanted to get married again and met up eight nights in a row. Their friend Harold told Carlo that he ought to marry Christine to which Carlo said “Holy Christmas, I’ve only known her about four days!” In three weeks time Carlo and Christine got very close. She left on a scheduled trip to Kansas City and Colorado. Carlo called her and said that she’d better come back to Naples because he didn’t think he could live without her. Kneeling on his prayer rug, he asked her to marry him over the phone. They married on 23 June 1991. As of the recording on 5 March 1995, they’ve been married four years and Carlo shares that tomorrow is Christine’s birthday for which he has a big party planned for her at the Yacht Club.

As of the recording in August of 1995 Carlo, Christine, and granddaughter Liz were in Naples, Italy. They drove down from Rome in a van and had plans to visit Castelmezzano, from where the Paterno family emigrated, the next day. Plans were to meet up with cousin Ralph Ciluzzi, Jr., son of Theresa Paterno, and his wife Luciana. Ralph speaks Italian and English and wants to show them the Paterno family home where they plan to spend one night with Tilde, Saverio Paterno’s granddaughter, and then return to Naples the next day. Carlo said that Rome was very crowded and is thankful to have Liz along who speaks Italian. After leaving Italy they will go to Zurich, Switzerland, to meet Buddy Bombard and his group for some hot air ballooning.

Carlo first met Buddy Bombard in 1989 when, after Helen died, Carlo’s friend Betsy Harmond, who lived in his condominium, encouraged him to go hot air ballooning. So Carlo called up his middle daughter Patti and they decided to go to Bonn, Germany, and hot air balloon over historic castles. Then a couple of years later after marrying Christine, they got on a barge in Dijon, France, and went to down to Bonn, Germany. On the way back they went hot air ballooning and came down over a monastery which had peaked dormer windows. Carlo was apprehensive about hitting one of the peaks which they just cleared but came down between two trees in between which they got stuck. A line was thrown out of the basket and they were pulled safely out of the trees.

When asked if he’d do anything different with his life if he had it to live over again, Carlo said that he’d do very little differently. He’s had a very full life, he’s been around the world, and he’s happy to be in Naples, Florida because he thinks it’s the best place in the whole world to live. He and Christine have a nice duplex apartment at Royal Cove that they renovated from two separate apartments after they were married. He said he’s very happy to belong to the Naples Athletic Club which is a luncheon and bridge club. He said that if he makes $4 to $5 dollars a day playing bridge then that’s a good day. He stays active going to the office every day with Josephine [Bocchino] who has been his secretary for over 31 years. He runs The Corner building that he built in 1974 and deals in the stock market which he studies closely. He says that he has more female friends than male friends because he likes girls more than he likes boys. Carlo said that when he’s dead and gone that he’s sure a lot of girls that he went out with will remember him. Eight months after answering this question, Carlo would pass away.

On this Father’s Day, 19 June 2020, we honor you Babbo. We treasure your recollections and stories and we hope somehow you know that your words are still being preserved and shared.

Carlo’s Photos from Castelmezzano, August 1995:

Two more great photos of Babbo:

The Paterno family built 164 buildings in the New York City borough of Manhattan, predominantly apartment houses, over the course of nearly seventy years starting in 1896, and under the company name of Paterno Brothers Construction for fifty-five of those years. Today 147 apartment houses built by the Paterno family still stand as testimony to the pre-World War II building boom of Manhattan, superb construction quality, and timeless aesthetics. The exceptional element of the successful Paterno Brothers Construction story is that it was, after all, a purely accidental enterprise.

Giovanni Maria Paternò left southern Italy filled with desperation in 1880 at 29 years of age to redeem himself. Married with four young children, he left his family in Castelmezzano for New York City to recover his pride, his professional reputation, and his financial wellbeing after an accidental collapse at a construction job nearly destroyed him. Five years later, after working relentlessly as a laborer and eventually as a foreman, Giovanni Paternò, now known in America as John Paterno, paid off his hometown debts, saved for travel expenses, and called for his family to join him. His faithful wife of thirteen years, Carolina, made the arduous 31-day voyage with 11-year-old Celestina, 8-year-old Saverio, 6-year-old Canio, and almost-4-year-old Giuseppe. The immigrant family, like so many others, were processed through Castle Garden and settled at 220 Mott Street in Little Italy in lower Manhattan.

By the time John and Carolina’s fifth child Marie arrived, the Brooklyn Bridge was in full commission and by the time their sixth child Michael arrived, the Statue of Liberty had been erected. The Paterno family was expanding in pace with the metropolis of Manhattan. Saverio and Giuseppe, now Frank and Joseph, were helping their father in the building yards after school. Along with Canio, now Charles, the sons sold newspapers on Sunday mornings and delivered groceries after school while the eldest, Celestina, took sewing jobs to contribute to the family purse. Charles, with his early academic successes, was directed by his parents to pursue higher education. From their humble beginnings in the New World, the Paterno family worked together with Mama Carolina managing the family finances and stretching every dollar in order to forge a life of dignity, comfort, and loyalty. 

In 1891, at the age of 37, Carolina gave birth to their seventh child, Anthony, and then three more daughters, Rose, Theresa, and Christina by the age of 45. Between Celestina, the eldest, and Christina, the youngest, there were 26 years of child bearing for Mama Carolina who fiercely loved and cared for her brood of five sons and five daughters. 

The children grew and found their own lives, mostly near and occasionally far. The eldest, Celestina, married the same year brother Frank decided that apprenticing with his father in building yards wasn’t his calling and moved to Philadelphia. Frank eventually joined a traveling circus, toured the world, and landed in London. Big things were happening too for Papa John Paterno, as he moved up from foreman to general construction supervisor all while Manhattan expanded. In Morningside Heights, an area northwest of Central Park that would become well known to the Paterno family, construction of St. John the Divine church began in 1892, St. Luke’s Hospital (now known as Mount Sinai Morningside) broke ground in 1896, and that same year the Columbia University campus was relocated to Morningside Heights from Lower Manhattan.

With Mama Carolina’s frugal management of the multiple household incomes, John Paterno was finally able to afford his first entrepreneurial building projects on 106th Street in partnership with James McIntosh whom he met at Catholic Mass in 1896. Destiny was looking up for this hard-working immigrant family especially when Charles graduated from the Medical College of Cornell University in 1899. Little did the family know what tragedy lurked just around the corner. 

John Paterno, while on a job site, started to complain to his son Joseph about his health which was mysteriously and rapidly declining. A building project at 112th Street was underway, baby Christina had just been born, Charles was completing his residency at Bellevue Hospital, and life suddenly turned sharply downward for the Paterno family. It was thought that John had terminal cancer, but he was not willing to settle for an American medical opinion. He wanted to be seen by Italian doctors and, if he were going to die imminently, he wanted to do so in his motherland. Carolina, the family pillar, homekeeper, and mother of a newborn, was unable to travel with her husband overseas. The 112th Street building was funded by family savings and had to be completed. Joseph, just 18 years old, was assigned to the job since he had been the one working alongside his father for two years. He needed immediate help and recruited his older brother Charles away from his medical pursuits for “just one project.” That left eldest son Frank to be called from London to escort Papa John from New York City to Castlemezzano where he died in late September of 1899 at the young age of 48 years. 

Unbeknownst to the Paterno family, who was mired in shock and grief, fate was plotting the beginnings of an exquisite, albeit purely accidental, business model that would prove to be the robust engine behind what would become an apartment house empire.

Charles and Joseph, two young men relatively new to construction, finished the project at 507 West 112th Street and the family, minus Papa John, Frank, and Celestina who had married, swiftly moved in. Frank returned to London to fetch his betrothed, Minnie Rose Breden, and together they relocated to Castlemezzano with their first son. Charles and Joseph fell easily into the prospects of the lot next door which they improved, prompting Charles to realize that he would possibly never earn at this rate practicing medicine. He maintained his medical license and title to the end of his life while never formally practicing medicine. Nonetheless, his medical training became an unconventional and valuable asset on building sites for his construction crews and their families.

Buildings were erected, rented, and sold almost annually under a formula that Charles and Joseph, now operating as Paterno Brothers Construction, eventually mastered. Younger brothers were trained in the industry and brothers-in-law were brought into the fold as they married into the family. Celestina’s husband, Victor Cerabone was already actively working on projects with Charles and Joseph by the time, in 1904, Charles made his first visit back to Castlemezzano to pay tribute to his father’s resting place and visit his brother Frank who had reverted to his native name Saverio and had assumed and improved the family home. While there Charles met with his cousin Anthony Campagna, a young lawyer, and encouraged him to come to America to work with Paterno Brothers Construction. Anthony was not convinced until three years later when Joseph paid a visit and convinced Anthony to first visit the Paterno home in New York City as he made his way to Chicago to work for an Italian newspaper. Saverio and Minnie taught Anthony basic American English (with a proper accent courtesy of Minnie’s British nationality) in preparation for his cross-Atlantic destination. By the time Anthony reached the Paterno home in late 1908, the family was living at 582 West 183rd Street and it is here where he met Paterno sister Marie. It wasn’t long before they fell in love, married, and Paterno Brothers Construction converted Anthony Campagna, the lawyer, into very much an equal developer of fine Manhattan apartment houses. Now Paterno Brothers Construction had a doctor and a lawyer on the team!

With Saverio in Castelmezzano becoming a checkpoint for Italian natives eager to reach work in America, teaching them basic American English, organizing essential paperwork, providing departure, travel, and arrival instructions, and orchestrating work with Paterno Brothers Construction, and with Charles, Joseph, Victor, Anthony and the family ready to receive the laborers across the Atlantic Ocean, the Paterno Manhattan apartment house building machine roared with ferocity and expedient success. Long before President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1938 labor laws, large construction crews on Paterno projects typically worked in excess of 60 hours per week which is how their 10- to 18-story buildings were, on average, erected within a year’s time. The Paterno brothers, brothers-in-law, and eventually sons formed a multigenerational management crew of sizable proportion to govern the steady flow of immigrant Italian workers all while Mama Carolina continued to steadfastly oversee the family financials in her traditionally prudent way. The family grew in extreme wealth due to a brilliant, though accidental, cross-Atlantic business model that proved to be a tale of immigrant success for the architectural and financial history books.

The eldest child, daughter Celestina Paterno (1873-1939) and her husband Victor Cerabone (1868-1954) had three daughters Carolina, Rose, and Louisa. Carolina eventually married Michael Campagna, younger brother of former-lawyer Anthony Campagna, both of whom contributed to the legacy of Paterno Brothers Construction. Victor Cerabone was an early team member of Paterno Brothers Construction and eventually built a number of his own buildings. Mama Carolina died at her home at 344 Northern Avenue (now Cabrini Boulevard) in 1925 and Celestina, who lived at 340 Northern Avenue, was never far. These 1909 family-built, three-story twin houses served as the residential nucleus for several generations of Paternos over 20 years. After Carolina died, Celestina and Victor relocated to the New York City borough of The Bronx near several other family estates.

[Family Tree diagram located at end of this article – scroll down to access]

The eldest son Saverio Francesco Paterno (1876-1950) traveled the world with a circus in his early years and was fluent in Italian, English, French, Spanish, and German. His entertainment skills included being a mandolin player, tightrope walker, and magician.  After serving as a Top Sergeant in the Italian Army during World War I as an interpreter, Saverio eventually became mayor of Castlemezzano where he improved infrastructure and amenities with funds provided by his American family in exchange for the indelible export of laborers that made the building empire of Paterno Brothers Construction possible. Saverio and his wife Minnie Rose Breden (1880-1969) had 10 children of whom four made their way to America. The Castlemezzano Paterno home remained in the family until approximately 1999.

Charles Vincent Paterno (1878-1946) married Minnie M. Middaugh (1868-1943) in 1906. Charles and Saverio were the only two Paterno children who never lived at either 340 or 344 Northern Avenue. Before those twin-homes were built, Charles and Minnie together had one son, Carlo, in 1907, and moved into their Northern Avenue castle, five blocks south of the family, in 1909. Despite her well-established colonial Wolcott lineage from Connecticut, Minnie was 10 years older than Charles, college-educated, Protestant, and divorced with an older son. While mutual love prevailed, these details proved too difficult for the staunchly Catholic Paterno family. In 1910, after building 30 apartment houses together, Joseph and Charles parted professional ways. Joseph retained the company name of Paterno Brothers Construction and Dr. Charles V. Paterno established Paterno Construction Company. Charles went on to build many buildings including the largest apartment house of the time at 270 Park Avenue, Hudson View Gardens, and Castle Village. He amassed and developed a country estate in Westchester County, New York, named Windmill Farm, and built a grand chateau, known as Round Hill, in Greenwich, Connecticut. 

Joseph Paterno (1881-1939) and Jule Helen Vera Wittkower (1885-1961) married in 1909 and raised two sons, Joseph Jr., and Jack. Joseph and Jule lived at 340 Northern Avenue with the family until Joseph and Charles built The Colosseum at 435 Riverside Drive in 1910. Here Joseph and Jule resided until they bought their Riverdale-on-Hudson estate in The Bronx known as Villa Paterno. The couple also enjoyed their shoreline properties in Deal, New Jersey, in and Palm Beach, Florida. Joseph is well-remembered for his numerous Paterno Brothers Construction buildings on the West side and his finest buildings at 1220 Park Avenue, 30 Sutton Place, and 825 Fifth Avenue. Joseph’s later apartment buildings extended into the Riverdale section of The Bronx. Additionally he made substantial financial and construction contributions to the Casa Italiana at Columbia University with brother Michael and brother-in-law Anthony Campagna. Charles filled the building’s library with over 20,000 books.

After Marie Stella Paterno (1886-1967) and Anthony Campagna (1884-1969) married in 1909 they stayed close to Mama Carolina in both the 340 and 344 Northern Avenue homes until they built an elaborate Italian villa Riverdale estate in The Bronx. In addition to Manhattan and The Bronx, Anthony and Marie enjoyed spending time at their properties in Springlake, New Jersey, in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, in Chappaqua, New York, and at Shippan Point, Connecticut. Anthony worked closely with Paterno Brothers Construction and led the way on his first building in 1912, The Lucania. During his career he built fine luxury apartment houses on the West and East sides including along Fifth (834, 955, 960, 980, 1115, 1120) and Park (35, 530, 1021) Avenues and East 70th at Fifth. Additionally he built the art deco Rialto Theater in Times Square during the Depression. Anthony, a graduate of the Law School of the University of Naples, served many years on the New York Board of Education, was a co-founder and building partner of the Casa Italiana, and in 1930 was conferred the rank of Count by King Emanuel III for his charitable projects in Italy. Marie and Anthony’s two sons, Joseph and John, followed in their father’s footsteps by continuing successfully in the building trade. Anthony and his sons together completed successful building projects in St. Louis, Missouri.

The fourth son and sixth child, Michael Edwin Paterno (1888-1946) stayed single into his 30’s, living with Mama Carolina at 340 and 344 Northern Avenue. After serving in the ​​Engineers Corps in the American Expeditionary Forces in World War I, Michael benefited greatly from the experienced knowledge of his older brothers and the success of Paterno Brothers Construction. His signature projects were not great in number however they were all impeccably elegant demonstrating his keen understanding and appreciation of style. Some of his more distinguished buildings are 775, 1105, 1172 Park Avenue, 1020 Fifth Avenue, and East 67th at Fifth. Michael married Anna Marie Herdlicka (1894-1986) in the 1920’s, and soon after they built and moved into their 11,000 square foot Mediterranean style estate in Irvington-on-Hudson, New York. Choosing to forgo children, they split their time between their estate and their luxury 50th-floor apartment in the 1930 Lincoln Building on 42nd Street. While Michael became known as a preeminent Manhattan apartment house builder, Anna Marie became well-known as a judge and breeder of Saluki dogs, and both were avid collectors of fine art. During World War II, Michael and younger brother Anthony built Federal Housing Administration units in Norfolk, Virginia.

Continuing the compounding of talent, fifth son Anthony Albert Paterno (1891-1959) grew up surrounded by the benefit of an already successful building empire. By the time he led his first building project at age 24, Paterno Brothers Construction had already built nearly 60 apartment houses primarily in the Upper West Side, Bloomingdale, and Morningside Heights areas. Anthony was met with near instant success, married Dorothy Viola Schaefer (1897-1957) in 1918, and together they established a 116-acre farm in Croton Falls, New York, which served as a gathering place for large extended family gatherings. With no children of their own, “Tony and Dot” became a favorite uncle and aunt to many relatives and friends. Keeping an apartment on 181st Street in the city, Anthony continued to build on the West side with notable east-side exceptions at 25 Sutton Place and 1 Gracie Square as well as on Long Island and in White Plains, New York, and in New Jersey. Anthony was the last Paterno brother to die and it was he who kept the company name of Paterno Brothers Construction active which eventually expired along with Anthony in 1959.

Carolina and John’s third daughter Rose Irene Paterno (1893-1971) lived with her mother in the family home at 340 Northern Avenue and continued to do so with her husband Joseph Faiella (1889-1939) after their marriage in 1913. In 1921 Joseph built a home at 15 Chittenden Avenue, situated between the Northern Avenue family homes and the Paterno Castle, all within walking distance, for his wife and their two sons, Joseph Jr., and John. Joseph was active in a supportive role in Paterno Brothers Construction projects as well as his own building projects in the Bronx. His one Manhattan apartment house is located at 240 West End Avenue. After Joseph died Rose moved into a Paterno apartment house at 425 Riverside Drive and eventually followed her son John to Bermuda where she lived the remainder of her life. 

The ninth Paterno child was Theresa Marguerite Paterno (1894-1954) who lived with Mama Carolina at 340 Northern Avenue. After marrying Ralph Ciluzzi (1884-1939) in 1914 they moved a short distance away to 306 Northern Avenue. In 1921 Ralph built for his wife and their three children Helen, Ralph, Jr., and John a home next to the Faiella’s at 9 Chittenden Avenue, mirroring the twin house family arrangement on Northern Avenue. Before their divorce in 1934, Ralph, with Paterno Brothers Construction training, built 7 apartment houses on the West side and then returned to his homeland of Italy. Theresa soon remarried to Joseph Miele of East Orange, NJ, and together they lived on their 7-acre estate.

Lastly, Christina Alvina Paterno (1899-1959) was born the year her father died and just 14 months before her eldest sister’s first child, Carolina, was born. In the shared house of 344 Northern Avenue where Christina lived with her mother and siblings, including married sister Marie, she met Armino Campagna, younger brother of Marie’s husband Anthony who had come to stay along with third brother Michael Campagna in 1911. Armino Campagna (1898-1985) and Christina largely came into adulthood together at the same address and married in 1921. Subsequently eldest child Celestina’s eldest daughter Carolina married Michael Campagna, continuing the cycle of keeping these two families inextricably connected personally and professionally. Christina and Armino had two children, Marguerite and Joseph, who they raised at their Fieldston estate in The Bronx. Once married into the family Armino became very active with Paterno Brothers Construction and quickly learned the building trade. He then built several impressive apartment buildings on the West side in addition to projects in The Bronx and in New Jersey.

The Paterno family and Paterno Brothers Construction left their mark on Manhattan, both in building enduring parts of the borough, often leaving monogrammed cartouches – P, PB, JP, AP, AC – above apartment house entrance archways, and in living their lives, raising their families, and expressing their interests into the culture of early 20th Century Manhattan. It has been my honor, as a great-granddaughter of Dr. Charles V. Paterno, to research and discover my family’s story, to realize that the Paterno buildings are just as much a part of our family tree as the people, and to share with you one immigrant family’s serendipitous achievement of the American Dream. Had the accidental building collapse in Castelmezzano never sent Giovanni to America and had his unexpected and premature death not accidentally forced his sons Joseph and Charles into the building trade, chances are slim that the Paterno family, through 164 buildings, would have ever touched the lives – knowingly or unknowingly – of so many Manhattanites. It is my hope that this website, a compilation of “built to last” Paterno buildings, will help you meet and better know the hard-working immigrant family behind the buildings in which you have lived, worked, played, and loved for over 100 years. If nothing else, perhaps this website will simply resolve for you the mystery behind the monogrammed buildings scattered across the city. May they steadfastly endure.

Carla Paterno-Cappiello Golden
Great Granddaughter of Dr. Charles V. Paterno
PaternoArchitecture.com

Family Tree: 10 children + spouses of Carolina and Giovanni (John) Paterno: