“Together with his brother, Dr. Charles Paterno, and his beloved brother-in-law Anthony Campagna, Joseph Paterno built more than 100 stately and serenely inspiring structures throughout Manhattan.” Kelley Paterno page 233 <— this is the quote/statistic that kicked off my entire research!
“By 1918 Charles had put up about 75 buildings housing perhaps 28,000 people.” (source)
By the 1920s, Paterno Brothers and other members of the extended family had
constructed 40 apartment buildings in Morningside Heights, 24 of which were designed by the firms of Schwartz & Gross and Gaetan Ajello, are within the Morningside Heights Historic District. (source)
At the end of the extraordinary building boom of Morningside Heights, in the Twenties, the area would have no less than thirty-six buildings by Paterno, completely with their initials on the facades: P for Paterno, PB for Paterno Brothers, JP for Joe Paterno and so on, as other family member join the great business. While wating for Michael and Anthony, the youngest brothers, to finish school, the first to be brought in was Victor Cerabone, who had married their eldest sister, Celestina. Hailing from Castelmezzano like the Paternos, he had arrived in New York with the gratest ambition of opening a barbershop, and his entry into the family became his fortune. Before Paterno Brothers split up into a myriad of building companies, Cerabone served as vice president to President Joe. Charles had opted for the less showy but certainly more operative role of secretary and treasurer. (Renato Cantore)
After Giovanni’s projects were complete, Charles and Joseph formed the construction company called Paterno Brothers, Inc.. The original firm of Paterno Brothers, Inc. dissolved after a period of about eight years, in 1907. Joseph retained the Paterno Brothers corporation and Charles formed the firm of Paterno Construction Company. Michael J. Paterno book page 9
In 1905 they built two large duplex houses on Northern Avenue, to provide homes for our grandmother [Maria Carolina Trivigno Paterno] and the unmarried children, and our married aunts and families. These families moved into their new quarters and said farewell to Cherry Street [where Giovanni first resided upon immigration]. Michael J. Paterno book page 9
“In time they would move to Washington Heights and live in a row house at 557 West 187th Street.” James Renner September 2001 Dr. Charles V. Paterno (WayBackMachine) – this is probably 557 West 183rd Street per 1905 NY Census
Charles and Joseph were very successful (with their first set of buildings) and could then afford to move the family to a better neighborhood. They built two large duplexes on Northern Avenue (near 185th Street) and in 1906 the “whole family moved there and said goodbye to Cherry Street” (which was located in the “Little Italy” section of Manhattan). Anne Paterno book page 5
John Paterno & Sons
John Paterno’s Sons
Paterno Construction Company 1907 (CVP & Anthony Campagna) – confirmed Dolkart pg. 293
Paterno Brothers Construction Company (brothers Joseph age 18 & Charles)
Paterno Bros., Inc. with brother Joseph 1899-1907 (same as above?)
Paterno Brothers, prolific apartment house builders in Morningside Heights between 1898 and 1924.
(*) Paterno Bros. Construction/Inc. – Joseph kept name after he and Charles parted ways (around time of Charles’ marriage 1906) – Charles took name of Paterno Construction Company
Paterno Investing Corporation – CVP
Joseph Paterno Obit: President of Paterno Brothers, Inc., building contractors of 20 East Fifty-seventh Street, since 1899. (source)
Bridge Plaza Realty Co.
Vanderbilt Avenue Realty Corporation, Dr. Charles V. Paterno, president (per Windmill Farm North Castle History PDF) – formerly known as Paterno Construction Company
Karlopat Realty Corporation
Pinehurst Realty Corporation
1952-1965 Paterno Bros. Inc. partnership with Joseph Breden Paterno, his brother Michael J. Paterno, and brother-in-law John Massari (brother of Michael’s wife); built homes in Teaneck, NJ
Approx. 1938 Paterno-Halpern Construction Co. Inc. – partnership between Michael Jeremiah Paterno and Joseph Halpern
L.M.P. Construction Co. Inc. – Michael Jeremiah Paterno
Onretop Corporation, Anthony Paterno
M.E. Paterno Realty Co.
Paterno and Son (Michael (brother of Giovanni) & Francis)
Their company was called Skybeam Realty Corporation. (source)
c. 1952-65 began Paterno Brothers, Inc. including Michael J. Paterno, John Massari, and Joseph Breden Paterno
In 1886, Giovanni (John) Paterno formed a partnership under the name McIntosh & Paterno with a friend, Mr. McIntosh, to construct an apartment building at 505 West 112th Street. When the partnership dissolved in 1892, John established his business as John Paterno & Sons and began a second building. When John became ill and returned to Italy in 1899, he left a half-finished apartment building at 507 West 112th Street. Charles and Joseph completed the building and the business evolved into the Paterno Brothers Construction Company. Gradually the other brothers (excepet Saverio) and brothers-in-law joined them in the construction business and established a building dynasty. In 1907 Charles and his brother-in-law, Anthony Campagna established the Paterno Construction Company. The brothers each formed separate companies in the mid-1910’s. The Paterno family, working independently and in joint ventures ultimately built thirty-seven high-rise luxury apartment in the Morningside Heights area of Manhattan. The apartment projects ranged from modest six-story structure to fifteen-story luxury buildings. The apartments were upscale with elevators and every available modern convenience. Other locations for their projects were Bergen County, New Jersey and Norfolk, Virginia. (Kelley Paterno 283)
Anthony Campagna Autobiography starting with Chapter 35 on page 153 shares details of his beginning of employment with the Paterno Brothers.
“Giovanni Paterno, Charles’ father, built the first apartment house with an elevator in New York City near Columbia University. At the climax he was constructing apartment housing on Morningside Drive in Upper West Side Manhattan. When Giovanni died, the Paterno family conference decided that Charles, as eldest son of the brood in America (Saverio had already left NYC), should recess from his medical internship at Bellevue Hospital and finish the building project. Family resources were all tied up in this.” Carlo Paterno in My Family pg. 15
“Dad and Uncle Joe formed Paterno Bros. as a partnership for building and construction. This did not last long. After Dad (Charles Paterno) married Mother (Minnie Minton Middaugh), a divorcee and Protestant, the familial Catholic affinity with Paterno kinfolk became strained. No longer was he invited to dinner parties at homes of brothers and sisters. This brought hard feelings between brothers Charles and Joseph.” Carlo Paterno in My Family page 35
“Dad’s Paterno Construction Co. thrived from putting up apartment buildings on West End Avenue and Riverside Drive along the river, this being new and fashionable in that time-frame of Manhattan’s growth. Most of the family served apprenticeships for a year or two before going on their own. Two Paterno sisters, Marie and Christina, married two Campagna brothers, Anthony and Armino. Along West End Avenue from 72nd Street north to 107th, on almost every block one could see family initials cut in the marble over front doors, this being a local custom. Many are still visible.” Carlo Paterno in My Family page 40
“In the business despair of 1933 it was my role as oncoming learner/successor/owner of Paterno Construction Co. to sit on the other side of Dad’s desk. Everybody everywhere was having money problems. Dad was shrewd and persevering enough to salvage what he could from repossessions encumbered by second mortgages which he held. Part of my job was making evening calls on tenants to obtain rent payments on apartment properties which he knew were doomed to foreclosure. Other family members went bankrupt, but not Dad.” Carlo Paterno in My Family page 49
In 1918 John Anthony Paterno worked for his uncle, Dr. Charles Paterno, as a typist and timekeeper. In 1919, he started to work for his uncle Joseph Paterno in the family construction business. (Kelley Paterno page 103)
In 1922 Charles Vincent Paterno, Saverio’s son who was named after Saverio’s brother Dr. Charles Vincent Paterno, worked on construction jobs for his uncle Joseph Paterno. He also worked with his brother John as an assistant superintendent.
In 1921 Joseph Breden Paterno worked first in the office of his Uncle Charles, then on the construction of the Hudson View Gardens. He later worked with his Uncle Joseph and his brother John at various construction jobs.
“Glenn Lybarger (driver) and Margaret, his wife, occupied the second floor of the garage at the Castle overlooking the Hudson. Their son, Lawrence, grew up there and from the time he was old enough Larry Lybarger worked as a loyal employee in Dad’s office. For some 40 years Larry was with the Paterno operation until its finale when we liquidated and moved to Naples, Florida.” Carlo Paterno in My Family page 21
– Anthony Albert Paterno Knickerbocker Village, Tenafly; from obit: 1917 with brothers built then the largest apartment building in the world at Park Ave. & 47th Street now demolished (Hotel Marguery)
Three architectural firms – George Pelham, Neville & Bagge, and Schwartz & Gross, were responsible for more than half of the apartment houses on Morningside Heights. (source)
“The apartment houses on West End Avenue, like apartment houses elsewhere in the city, were largely put up by Jewish and Italian builders – either immigrants or the children of
immigrants. The most prolific builders were members of the extended Paterno family. The family of Giovanni Paterno immigrated to America from Castelemezzano near Naples. Giovanni Paterno began the families building business and following his death in 1899, four of his sons, Joseph, Charles, Michael, and Anthony, became involved, as did their brothers-in-law Anthony Campagna, Armino Campagna, Victor Cerabone, Ralph Ciluzzi, and Joseph Faiella. The Paternos, either individually or in conjunction with one another, were responsible for more than twenty buildings on West End Avenue. The Paternos’ must have been quite proud of their apartment houses since they frequently placed their initials over the entrance. (source)
Q. My apartment house at 161 West 75th Street, like a number of others on the Upper West Side, has two intertwined initials over the door, an “A” and something else. Whose initials? And was it the architect or developer? . . . Ivan Berger, Manhattan. A. Your building was built in 1924 to 1926 by Anthony Paterno — they are his initials — and was designed by Rosario Candela. Paterno was one of four brothers, all developers, who generally worked separately. Other brothers also used their initials on buildings they put up. Joseph Paterno’s architect on 905 West End Avenue, at 104th Street, designed an elaborate cartouche with “JP” over the door and annotated the 1917 drawing, “Architect is to approve the plaster model of this ornament before execution.” Other developers, like the Halls, the Campagnas and the Crystals, also left such traces of their ownership. I have never seen written accounts of this practice by developers, but after the turn of the century the architectural press often urged architects to “sign” their creations. However, only a few architects, usually designers of speculative apartment houses, regularly did this. The Paternos started building modest walk-ups around 1900 but by the 1920’s had become one of New York’s reigning builder-families. Joseph Paterno built buildings like 1220 Park Avenue, at 95th Street, and 30 Sutton Place, at 58th Street; Charles put up luxury apartments as well as Hudson View Gardens and Castle Village, north of the George Washington Bridge; Michael built 775 Park Avenue, at 72d Street, and 2 East 67th Street, and Anthony built 1040 Fifth Avenue, at 85th Street. Generally the Paternos’ legible presence on their buildings decreased as their product ascended the economic ladder. On Michael Paterno’s 1105 Park Avenue, built in 1922 at the corner of 89th Street, there is only the letter “P” and even such modest inscriptions largely vanished on their top-grade buildings on Fifth and Park Avenues. This is consistent with the development in the 1910’s of a general upper-class preference for apartment houses known by their street addresses rather than by a name. Streetscapes: Readers’ Questions The Beekman Theater, a French School, Old Initials September 5, 1993
Morningside Heights Historic District Designation Report February 21, 2017
The Beekman Theater, a French School, Old Initials
STREETSCAPES A Tall Redhead With an Elegant Body By Christopher Gray March 20, 2005
WEST END AVENUE SURVEY A PROPOSAL FOR HISTORIC DISTRICT DESIGNATION REPORT PREPARED BY ANDREW SCOTT DOLKART RESEARCH AND PHOTOGRAPHY BRETT DORFMAN REPORT PREPARED FOR WEST END PRESERVATION SOCIETY FEBRUARY 2009
BLOOMINGDALE BUILDING DATABASE ©2020 Gilbert Tauber
Bloomingdale Neighborhood History Group (includes West End Avenue)
“The Times remarked that the Paterno Brothers, another development firm, had contemplated a 16-story building on the west side of Broadway between 115th and 116th Streets but had decided that the economics did not justify it.” Streetscapes/903 Park Avenue, at 79th Street; 1914 Apartment House Once Called World’s Tallest May 12, 2002
New – York Tribune (1866-1899); New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 24 Dec 1899: A8.
New – York Tribune (1900-1910); New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 05 May 1901: 9.
New York Herald Tribune (1926-1962); New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 05 Apr 1931: E8.
New York Times (1923-); New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 29 June 1930: 41.
New York Times (1923-); New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 29 June 1930: 41.
New York Times (1923-); New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 29 June 1930: 41.
