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Posted on Thu, |
National Italian Memorial
in works
Plans for a National Italian Memorial
were unveiled last night in As a crowd of 100 residents watched, a red covering was lifted
and a model of a 20-by-30-foot bas relief was revealed. The sculpture would cover an inside wall of a closed city pool
on the 800 block of Montrose Street as part of a memorial to honor not just
the immigrants who began streaming into South Philadelphia 130 years ago, but
all the Italians who helped build the nation. The memorial, a symbolic representation of Italian immigration,
is the idea of Vern Anastasio, president of the Bella Vista United Civic
Association. The bas relief was created with the assistance of Mike Gaudioso
and Chris Buonomo of Viking Sculpture Studio, also on Montrose. In addition to "celebrating the past," Anastasio said
the memorial would "replace blight with beauty," in renovating the
closed pool, which was an Italian bathhouse in the early 1900s and a spot
where generations learned how to swim. Anastasio said last night that a nonprofit foundation has been
created to raise money to build the memorial and that Thomas M. Foglietta,
the former ambassador to Anastasio said the small group behind the memorial needed help
from public officials, including having the pool's ownership transferred from
the Redevelopment Authority to the Italian Memorial Foundation. He estimated
the foundation's budget as less than $1.5 million. Adding a little political intrigue to a feel-good neighborhood
event was his call for support from City Council and the "first council
district." That seat is held by Frank DiCicco, who was not there last
night. Anastasio and DiCicco were rivals for the Democratic nomination in the
2003 election. Anastasio, in the only time he mentioned DiCicco by name, said
he had asked him to sit on the memorial foundation board. |
